Home | Biodata | Biography | Photo Gallery | Publications | Tributes [Back to Surveys List] Political - Socio - Economic-Surveys

More than 60% of the people of Tamil Nadu welcome the declaration of emergency in the country. About forty per cent of our people have not heard of India's underground nuclear test. Nearly ninety per cent wish to have prohibition enforced throughout the country. These are some of the findings of a statewide survey conducted by the students of the Department of Statistics of the Madras Christian. College during the last week of January, before the declaration of President's rule in Tamil Nadu.

Emergency

On the average, 62% interviewed were for the emergency. In towns with a population of over ten thousand, emergency is supported by 75% of the people. However, in small hamlets one third of the population has not heard of the declaration of emergency in our country.

44% support press censorship, 23% are against it and 27% had not heard about it. Others have no opinion. Press censorship gets the least support from the college educated, and the highest support from the illiterate group.

After the declaration of emergency, our Prime Minister launched the 20-point programme. 57% have not heard of the programme.

Prohibition

89% support the view that prohibition must be enforced throughout the country. 83% are for prohibition even if there is no prohibition in the neighbouring states. To judge how effectively prohibition is enforced throughout Tamil Nadu, people were asked whether they had seen anyone drunk during the previous week. 62% admitted having seen people drunk. This percentage varies from district to district. In Ramnad, Nilgiris, Trichy and Tanjore the percentage is much below the average, varying from thirty to forty five. Salem, Dharmapuri, Kanyakumari, Chingleput and North Arcot are the worst offenders. In Salem district ninety per cent of our sample had seen drunken people during the week, and in North Arcot, about eighty per cent. Prohibition is better enforced in Madras City than in large towns.

A surprising result from our study is that only 17% are strongly committed to the ADMK in contrast to 28% who are for DMK. Both the Communist parties together have the strong support of only 3%. The ruling Congress has the strong support of 22% and the Organisational Congress 21%. Other parties claim only about 1%. The remaining 8% of the people have no strong opinion.

About half the people are against the ADMK and about two-fifths are against DMK. Only 17% are against the Congress. Another 42% sympathize with the Congress even though they do not strongly support it. Similarly 17% sympathize with DMK and 35% with the Organizational Congress. Another interesting revelation was that the same person may sympathize with more than one party.

The Congress has its strongest support from South Arcot and Madurai districts where about one-third are for the Congress. Madras City and Chingleput are also strong centres for the Congress. However, only about ten per cent of the people of Ramnad and Tinnevelly districts support the Congress. Contrary to popular belief, in Kanyakumari district about twenty per cent give strong support to the ruling Congress.

Trichy, North Arcot, Kanyakumari and Tinnevelly are strong centres of the Organizational Congress which claims a support of thirty to thirty-four percent of the people. Salem and Coimbatore are strong centres for the DMK with a backing of 45%. About three years ago, Salem and Coimbatore were strong centres of the ADMK party.

How much support does each party get from the different strata of society ranging from the illiterate on the one hand to the college-educated on the other ? Among the college-educated about one-third support the Congress and among the illiterate less than fifteen per cent support the Congress. The ruling Congress in Tamilnadu gets its major support from the higher strata. Among the college-educated only about twenty per cent support the DMK, but from among the illiterate and the semi-illiterate, about thirty per cent support it.

About 80% of the supporters of the ruling Congress are for merger with the Organizational Congress but there is a strong feeling against any kind of alliance with the ADMK. About two-thirds of the strong supporters and sympathisers of Organizational Congress are for merger with the ruling Congress.

Among the supporters and sympathizers of the DMK party about 30% are for merger with the ADMK but about 40% strongly oppose such a move.

Political Leaders

25% of the people strongly support the Prime Minister, Mrs Indira Gandhi. In addition, more than fifty per cent have a good opinion of her. Surprisingly, she gets better support from men than from women. Another interesting finding is that among the strong followers of Mr Karunanidhi a vast majority of 65% have a good opinion of Mrs Gandhi who was once an electoral ally of Mr Karunanidhi. Mrs Gandhi, like the Congress party, has greater support among the college-educated than among the illiterate.

About 35% of the people had not heard of Mr Jayaprakash Narayan and 23% had not heard of the Organizational Congress leader Mr P. Ramachandran. These leaders do not have much support.

Even Mr M. G. Ramachandran, who once enjoyed the support of 40% of the people, has now only 18% support.

Mr Karunanidhi is strongly supported by nearly 30% and equally strongly opposed by 37%; in addition to this 24% have a good opinion of him. Only 23% of the college-educated support him. In contrast to this low level of support from the college-educated, Mr Karunanidhi enjoys a high proportion (32%) of support from those who have studied from Std. I to VIII.

About 80 students of the Department of Statistics interviewed nearly 1,900 people chosen by random sampling methods from nearly 400 villages and towns all over Tamil Nadu. An interesting feature of the present study is that about 20 women students of the department participated in the survey as investigators. The data was coded and transferred to punch cards by our students in our laboratory. A computer programme was written by our students and run on the giant IBM 370/155 computer at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Our special thanks are due to R. Chandrasekaran and R. Srinivasan, postgraduate students of Statistics who organized the project from the stage of training of investigators to that of running the computer programme, and to Mr M. Abdul Latheef who supervised the programming part of the study.