Sources at the DMK’s youth wing headquarters told ThePrint that Udhayanidhi Stalin is taking the oratorical competition more seriously as the party onboards fresh and young voices. “Comparatively, it is a costly exercise, but it is worth doing — he has been telling us. Over Rs 3 crore has been spent conducting the competition across the state. But, from the district level competitions to the zonal level ones, we could see the results,” a source close to Udhayanidhi told ThePrint.

Political commentators see the exercise as the first step by any party in the past few decades to take its ideology to the youth. “No political party in Tamil Nadu has undertaken an organised approach to appeal to the youth in the state after the Emergency period. Although it is a small step, it all matters for the 2026 assembly election,” N. Sathiya Moorthy, a political commentator, told ThePrint.

Moorthy added that the lack of young orators in Dravidian politics is another reason for the massive hunt for young orators across the state.

However, Arul Mozhi, the advocate and campaign secretary of Dravidar Kazhagam, a parent body of DMK, said that the Dravidian party, as well as the Dravidian movement, has never been short of orators, but the exercise to find fresh orators was to discover the younger orators to reach the younger generations.

The approach towards what constitutes a generation gap has changed over time, said Arul Mozhi, who was on the jury in the oratorical contests. The earlier idea was that people 30 years younger are the next generation, she told ThePrint, adding that now, people 10 years younger are considered the younger generation. “So, there has been a need to reach out to the younger audience in their voices. Hence, this exercise is helping find stronger voices among the younger generation,” Arul Mozhi said.

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An oratorical competition turns into a training ground 

Witty responses and oratory skills that draw references from ancient Tamil literature or the modern-day theatre of Dravidian leaders have become a matter of the past, the jury of the state-wide oratorical competition has observed.

The jury members ThePrint contacted have observed a change in the pattern of the oratory skills among the present-day youth, who are more dependent on Internet content than literature, Arul Mozhi said.

“They mostly tend to read up from Wikipedia instead of going behind the authentic source of information, the books,” she said.

However, the DMK youth wing claimed that it changed some of the perspectives among competitors since the first competition round at the district level.

“All of them entered the district-level competition just like any other competition. But, after shortlisting them for the zonal level, we organised a training session and gave them books to read about Dravidian history and subjects related to Dravidian politics,” said a source associated with the DMK youth wing.

Arul Mozhi also confirmed with ThePrint that she saw a change in competitors’ approach from the district to zonal levels.

According to the DMK youth wing, 17,000 youth between the ages of 18 and 35 applied and participated in the competition at the district level, with 913 of them shortlisted for the zonal-level competition.

Another jury member, ‘Thousand Lights’ Chennai MLA Dr Ezhilan Naganathan, told ThePrint that students participating in the competition also narrated how they benefitted from DMK schemes.

“Since it was mostly a young crowd, we did not expect they would remember our schemes. One of the candidates, who said popular TV debates inspired him to become an orator, also said that he could watch the debates only because of the free, colour TV scheme,” shared Ezhilan.

Arul Mozhi and Ezhilan confirmed that there were more women candidates than men candidates in the competition. “In our days, there were more men orators than women. The next generation saw an equal number of men and women orators. But now, women have surpassed men,” said Arul Mozhi, a zonal-level jury member from Chennai.

Ezhilan, a zonal-level jury member from Dharmapuri district, said women were fiercer and held Periyar in higher regard. “When one of the orators told that annihilation of caste was the primary duty of the Dravidian movement, there was huge applause from the crowd,” he said.

Dharmapuri district, which lies in the northern part of the state, is one the districts that has witnessed a high number of caste clashes and more child marriages.

The competition, Arul Mozhi said, was for teaching Dravidian ideology to good orators and oratory skills to those sound in Dravidian ideology.

According to the DMK young wing, 150 of the 913 who competed at the zonal level will participate in the finals that will likely happen soon in Chennai.

While the first three winners would be awarded cash prizes of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000, all 150 candidates will be associated with the party in various activities.

“They all will get trained for public speaking, digital content creation, and conducting classes for youths in their locality,” said a DMK young wing functionary.

Political commentator N. Sathiya Moorthy said that it is the place where DMK started its politics in the 1960s.

“DMK was the first political party to start conversations with the youths in the state. DMK leaders C.N. Annadurai, Kalaignar, and Nedunchezhiyan used to visit the city colleges and address the college students. That’s how they all participated in anti-Hindi agitations, and the party got fierce followers,” Sathiya Moorthy said, adding that now, the party is restarting that tradition by taking the oratorical competition route instead of going into the campus.

However, he expressed scepticism on whether young orators would be allowed to thrive as the party has its set of public speakers who might not be willing to let the youngsters grow.

Nevertheless, MLA Ezhilan said the vision of the exercise itself is to make them speak and spread the word. “When the aim is to make them speak, how will we curtain their growth,” he asked.

(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)

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