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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

The survey was undertaken by about 60 student volunteers, most of them undergraduates, of the department of statistics as part of their practical training. Most of the expenses connected with the survey were met by the students. Our thanks are due to Mr Govinda Raju for his help during the conduct of the survey and in the processing work. A team of tireless workers worked day and night to complete the processing work and it is not possible to mention all of them individually. However we wish to express our deep appreciation of the work of Messrs V. Kannan, M. Chandrasekaran, 
P. Balasubramanian, T.S. Bhaskaran and R. Chandrasekaran. We wish to thank once again Mr T. S. Bhaskaran for typing the report.

 The DMK party was returned to power in the mid-term elections with a thumping majority in the legislature. It contested 201 seats and came out victorious in 90 percent of the constituencies. In less than 6 months after its success it scrapped prohibition even though it was against its official policy held for many years. This started an ideological difference between the party chief Mr M. Karunanidhi and the treasurer Mr M.G. Ramachandran. Mr M.G. Ramachandran, the matinee idol, had a large following among the common people who often called the DMK party as MGR party. Those who opposed Mr M.G. Ramachandran argued that he was against the scrapping of prohibition due to a selfish motive that people would not spend as much money on the cinema as they did before. The differences between Mr M.G. Ramachandran and Mr M. Karunanidhi widened and MGR openly charged that the accounts of the party were not kept properly and that corruption had increased in the administration. He was removed from the party in October 1972 before he could bring his charges before the General Council. Mr Ramachandran formed a new party called the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam named after the former leader Mr C. N. Annadurai but less than 10 percent of the MLAs joined the new party. The dismissal of MGR from the party sparked off agitations in many parts of the State and high schools and colleges were closed in many areas.

 During the period of unrest in colleges in Tamilnadu, the students of the department of statistics conducted a public opinion survey by visiting over 200 villages and towns. They visited all the districts and interviewed 1456 adults. A few taluks in South Arcot and Chingleput districts could not be reached due to severe floods in those areas. This is approximately the size of the sample used in public opinion polls all over the world. Nowhere in the world do they include every member of the population because of the enormous amount of time and expenses involved and the changing nature of public opinion. Even a sample such as 1500 would cost from Rs.5000/- to Rs.10000/- to collect and process, but for this survey students met more than half the cost themselves since they valued such experience and training. 

POLITICAL PARTIES AND PUBLIC SUPPORT 

The Old Congress is the strongest party in Tamilnadu with a support of one-third of the peoplea figure which has not changed since the time of the mid-term elections. The DMK which polled more than 45 percent of the votes has the support of only 15 percent of the people whereas the newly formed ADMK has a support of almost 30 percent. This change among the common people is not reflected in the legislature where the MLAs are solidly behind the DMK. The New Congress has the direct support of only 7 percent of the people This was the reason why the New Congress agreed not to contest for Madras Assembly during the midterm elections. All the other parties have no mass support in Tamilnadu.

 Many of the parties are not even heard of by the common man. There are some who have not heard of the split in the Congress and some more who have not heard of the formation of the ADMK. However they form a very small minority. In our pre-election study we found that this small group was mostly drawn from small hamlets. 

The Old Congress has the sympathy of about 15 percent of the people but the ADMK has more sympathizers. The split between the DMK and the ADMK can be seen from the fact that only less than 10 percent of the people sympathize with the DMK but more than 60 percent are opposed to the ruling party. Very often the voters said that they supported a particular party and were against all other parties even if they did not know very much about the other parties. If one were to take the supporters and the sympathizers together the Old Congress and the ADMK are equally strong. There seems to be a lot of regional differences in the relative strength of the parties. Kanyakumari continues to be a stronghold of the Old Congress which has now become the dominant party in the districts of Chingleput, Nilgiris, North Arcot and Madras City. The DMK is strong in Tanjore district from where the Chief Minister hails. Salem, Trichy and Coimbatore are dominated by the ADMK party. In the other districts the Old Congress and the ADMK are equally strong. Further work is necessary at the district level to get a clearer picture. 

POPULAR IMAGE OF THE POLITICAL LEADERS 

The people were asked whether they will be influenced politically by appeals made by specific leaders. Mr Kamaraj has come out as the most influential person with a support of 45 percent of the people. In fact his influence has gone up since the mid-term elections. In our pre-election study¹ we found that he was influential with only 39 percent of the people. The influence of Mr Kalyanasundaram, Mr Sivaji Ganesan and Rajaji has remained practically unchanged at 8, 30 and 14 percent respectively. This is precisely what one would expect and it gives us greater confidence in the accuracy of figures arrived at in our study. Mrs Indira Gandhi's influence has gone up from 22 percent to 26 percent.
Mr M. G. Ramachandran's influence remains practically the same at 41 percent. The Chief Minister's influence has come down from 39 percent to 21 percent. 

POPULAR IMAGE OF THE POLITICAL PARTIES 

Apart from what any party stands for in principle, what is important is the image that the party has projected about itself among the common man. A strange thing that has happened in the last 18 months is that the common man has come to believe that all parties are working more and more for their own benefit. The DMK party which is in power has created the impression among the majority of the people that it is working for its own benefit as against only 22 percent of the people who expressed such a view earlier; 14 percent of the people feel that the Old Congress is working for its own benefit and this figure is slightly higher than the pre-election figures. Now 38 percent of the people say that the Old Congress works for the welfare of all people, a figure significantly higher than the pre-election figures. In this section the voter is allowed to express views such as a party works for the welfare of workers and poor as well as its own. Twenty-seven percent of the people think that the ADMK works for the welfare of all. We shall not take figures from more than one column since the same person may say that the party works for the middle class as well as for all if the person happens to be from the middle class.

 Some parties are often suspected to be working for the benefit of the rich people. Before the elections about 25 percent of the people said that Swatantra worked for the rich. This picture remains practically unchanged as far as Swatantra is concerned. Eighteen percent said then that the Old Congress worked for the rich but now only about 10 percent feel that way. However only one percent of the people claim that the ADMK works for the rich. Among the three main parties: the DMK, the Old Congress and the ADMK, ADMK is the least known for its policies. Thirty nine percent have no opinion about ADMK as to whose welfare it works for. The majority of the people are not aware of the policies of the Communist parties on the one hand and the Swatantra party on the other. The New Congress which is trying to launch a campaign against poverty is better known in Tamilnadu now as working for all people even though more people believe now that it is also working for the rich. 

AGE AND PARTY AFFILIATION 

The voters are classified into five groups on the basis of their age and an attempt is made to find out the support of the major parties in each age group. In the youngest and the most numerous group of 21-30 the Old Congress gets the support of 28 percent of the people, a figure lower than its average value of 34 percent. The older the age group the greater the support to the Old Congress. In the 31-40 group it has 34 percent support and it increases to 42 percent in the 'above 60' age group. This is not surprising since the people to whom the independence struggle was real and meaningful have moved into the higher age groups.

 In our pre-election study the pattern for the DMK party was the opposite of the Old Congress. Then the DMK had greater support among the younger groups compared to the older ago groups. Now the picture has changed. The support it gets from the youngest group is less than its average value of 15 percent. Its support comes from the groups 31-40, 41-50 and 51-60. In the 'above 60' group it gets less support. 

The ADMK gets its main support from the youngest group in which 36 percent are for the party and 18 percent are sympathizers. The support for the party goes down as the age of the voter goes up even though the leader of the party himself belongs to the older group. In the 51-60 group and in the 'above 60' group it has the support of a little over 20 percent of the people. 

WOMEN SUPPORTERS

 It is often felt that certain parties get more support from women than from men. On the other hand it is also believed that women cannot always take an independent position at the time of voting. One of the difficulties in our sample survey was in getting the opinion of a sufficient number of women but since our investigators were mostly young men only a smaller proportion of women gave their opinion. If one wishes, one can give due weight to the proportion of women in the general population and obtain better estimates.

 Seventeen percent of the men in our sample support the DMK in contrast to 12 percent of the women. The support the New Congress gets from men and women are almost equal. The Old Congress gets the support of 35 percent of men in contrast to 29 percent from women. The difference in percentage between men and women is most clear in the case of the ADMK party. In contrast to 26 percent of men supporters it has the support of 38 percent of women. We must remember that our sample has a greater percentage of men than women and if both the men and women are given equal weight the support for the Old Congress and the ADMK will be almost identical. However from our earlier study we know that only about 40 percent of the women of small families claim to take independent decisions in matters political.

 PROHIBITION 

We conducted a postal survey just before the scrapping of prohibition in July 1971² and it turned out that people were equally divided on their opinion. Forty five percent of the people supported the government in its policy of scrapping the dry law and 44 percent opposed it. The rest of them did not take clear position of supporting or opposing the government's policy. It turned out that people were strongly motivated by their party affiliations. An overwhelming majority of the supporters of the Old Congress opposed the government's policy whereas the DMK followers including the women supported it.

 The picture has dramatically changed since the days of prohibition. More than 80 percent of the people are strongly against the present policy. This is perhaps the key to understanding the change of political atmosphere in Tamilnadu. Even among those men who support the DMK party 50 percent are against the present policy. Sixty percent of the women supporting the DMK are against the government's policy. In general 79 percent of the men and 87 percent of the women of the total sample are against the present policy. As expected the opposition from the other parties are greater. All the women of our sample who belong to the Old Congress are against the government's policy.

 Among the small minority who support the government's policy of making liquor available to all people there is a higher proportion of men than women. Forty five percent of the DMK men support the government's policy in contrast to 24 percent of DMK women. Sixteen percent of ADMK men support the policy in contrast to 5 percent of ADMK women. In Tamilnadu today the main issue is that of the prohibition policy of the government. Any political party which wishes to get mass support of the people cannot ignore this issue.

 CORRUPTION

 The people were asked if in their opinion, corruption had gone up or gone down or remained the same. An overwhelming majority of 72 percent have claimed that it has gone up, 3 percent say that it has gone down and 7 percent say that it has remained the sane. Among the 47 people who said that corruption had gone down, 41 are the supporters of the DMK. Among the supporters of the DMK party 32 percent say that corruption has gone up, 18 percent that it has gone clown, 25 percent 'remained the same'. The rest of the DMK supporters do not wish to commit themselves. Since the question of corruption has been taken up as a slogan by political parties against the DMK, one has to take these figures with a certain amount of caution.

 FREE  DISTRIBUTION OF LAND

 One of the schemes of the DMK party was to distribute land free to the landless poor. However only 25 percent of the people feel that it has in fact benefitted the landless poor. Forty seven percent feel that it has not benefitted the deserving poor, and the others do not have any opinion. It is quite possible that those who did not benefit from this scheme have joined the ADMK. Sixty percent of the supporters of the DMK say that the scheme has benefitted the deserving poor in contrast to only 17 percent of the ADMK supporters. Among the people who belong to parties other than the DMK, people who say that the scheme has benefitted the poor are less than those who say that it has not benefitted. In short the scheme has not won enough friends for the ruling party.

 NEWSPAPERS AND PARTY AFFILIATIONS

 Newspapers and magazines play a vital role in the opinion formation of the voters. Even though a section of our voters are illiterate many of them take part in the read-aloud-sessions in the villages. A man who can read Tamil reads the daily news to a group of listeners. Among those who read Tamil newspapers only, 18 percent are for the DMK, 35 percent for the Old Congress, 7 percent for the New Congress and 28 percent for the ADMK. What is significant is that the ADMK has greater support among those who listen to reading than even the Old Congress. Among those who cannot read but listen to newspaper reading, 40 percent support the ADMK, about 30 percent the Old Congress and 16 percent the DMK. There are others who neither can read nor do listen to the news and they are the ignorant masses. Before the elections it was the Old Congress which had its hold in this group. Now it is the ADMK which has the support of such people. These people can be easily persuaded to change their loyalties at the time of the elections. 

References

1. Gift Siromoney, Mood of the electoratea pre-election study of Tamilnadu, STAT-07/71, Madras Christian College.

2. Gift Siromoney, Public opinion on Bangladesh and on proposed suspension of prohibition in Tamilnadu, STAT-08/71, Madras Christian College.

Table I
 POLITICAL PARTIES AND PUBLIC SUPPORT (In percentages)

Party	For	Sympathise with	Against	Not heard of	No opinion	Total
DMK	15.5	8.5	62.6	1.4	12.0	100
New Congress	6.9	22.4	43.2	2.8	24.7	100
Muslin League	1.2	4.7	42.6	16.3	35.2	100
Old Congress	33.7	14.6	35.1	1.2	15.4	100
CPI	1.0	5.2	39.1	24.7	30.0	100
CPM	1.9	3.5	38.9	25.2	30.5	100
Socialist	0.3	1.8	33.4	30.4	34.1	100
ADMK	29.1	18.8	34.3	2.2	15.6	100
Swatantra	1.9	9.3	39.4	14.8	34.6	100
Jana Sangh	1.6	2.6	33.7	31.0	31.1	100
Forward Bloc	1.0	2.7	30.2	34.0	32.1	100
Others	0.4	0.3	12.4	1.4	85.5	100

Table II
 POPULAR IMAGE OF POLITICAL LEADERS (in percentages) 
Political opinion will be influenced by appeals made by the following political leaders

	Yes	No	Not heard of	Others	Total
Karunanidhi	20.7	66.8	1.9	10.6	100
M.G. Ramachandran	41.0	46.0	1.1	11.9	100
Sivaji Ganesan	30.1	48.8	2.2	18.9	100
Kamaraj	45.1	41.0	1.6	12.3	100
Indira Gandhi	26.1	47.1	6.9	19.9	100
Rajaji	14.2	49.3	15.3	21.2	100
Kalyanasundaram	7.8	43.7	26.7	21.8	100

Table III
 POPULAR IMAGE OF POLITICAL PARTIES (In percentages) 
The following parties, if voted to power, will work for the good of

	All people	Workers and poor	Middle class	Rich people	Its own	No opinion
DMK	17.0	8.5	1.5	8.3	52.5	16.2
Old Congress	37.7	10.2	7.1	9.5	14.2	22.8
Swatantra	4.1	1.1	3.5	23.8	11.8	61.6
New Congress	24.7	6.0	4.4	13.5	10.5	43.6
Communists	3.3	15.1	0.9	1.5	15.6	63.7
ADMK	27.5	13.5	1.8	1.4	16.4	39.6

Table IV (a)
 AGE OF VOTER AND CONG-O (In percentages)

Age	For	Sympathise with	Against	Not heard of	No opinion	Total	Sample size
21-30	27.9	16.2	38.5	0.6	16.8	100	494
31-40	34.1	14.7	36.1	1.1	14.0	100	443
41-50	37.6	13.7	33.3	1.1	14.3	100	285
51-60	40.5	9.8	32.0	1.3	16.4	100	153
Above 60	41.6	18.2	22.1	2.6	15.5	100	77

Table IV (b)
 AGE OF VOTER AND ADMK (In percentages)

Age	For	Sympathies with	Against	Not heard of	No opinion	Total	Sample size
21-30	36.2	18.4	33.0	0.8	11.6	100	494
31-40	27.5	20.3	34.3	1.8	16.1	100	443
41-50	25.6	17.6	36.5	1.8	18.5	100	285
51-60	20.9	19.6	39.9	5.2	14.4	100	153
Above 60	23.4	15.6	24.7	9.1	27.2	100	77

Table IV(c)  
AGE OF VOTER AND DMK (In percentages)

Age	For	Sympathise with	Against	Not heard of	No opinion	Total	Sample size
21-30	14.4	8.3	61.9	1.0	14.4	100	494
31-40	16.0	9.9	63.2	1.1	9.8	100	443
41-50	17.2	8.4	63.9	1.4	9.1	100	285
51-60	17.7	5.9	64.1	1.9	10.4	100	153
Above 60	9.1	7.8	57.1	2.6	23.4	100	77

Table V (a)
  SEX 0F VOTER AND CONG-O (In percentages)

Sex	For	Sympathise with	Against	Not heard of	No opinion	Total	Sample size
Male	35.5	13.9	35.8	0.5	14.3	100	1060
Female	29.0	16.2	33.3	3.0	18.5	100	396

Table V (b)
 SEX OF VOTER AND ADMK (In percentages)

Sex	For	Sympathise with	Against	Not heard of	No opinion	Total	Sample size
Male	25.9	19.0	38.4	1.0	15.7	100	1060
Female	37.6	18.4	23.2	5.3	15.5	100	396

Table V (c)  
SEX OF VOTER AND DMK (In percentages)

Sex	For	Sympathise with	Against	Not heard of	No opinion	Total	Sample size
Male	16.9	8.4	62.1	1.2	11.4	100	1060
Female	11.6	8.8	64.2	1.8	13.6	100	396

Table V (d) 
SEX OF VOTER AND NEW CONGRESS (In percentages)

Sex	For	Sympathise with	Against	Not heard of	No opinion	Total	Sample size
Male	6.8	23.7	45.6	0.9	23.0	100	1060
Female	7.3	18.9	36.6	8.1	29.1	100	396

Table VI (a)  
MEN ON PROHIBITION (In percentages). Toddy shops must be closed down

	DMK	CONG-0	CONG-R	ADMK	Others	Total
Yes	50.8	89.9	72.2	79.3	87.3	78.9
No	45.0	8.0	11.1	16.0	12.0	17.6
No opinion	4.2	2.1	6.7	4.7	0.7	3.5
Total	100	100	100	100	100	100
Sample size	179	376	72	275	158	1060

Table VI(b)
 WOMEN ON PROHIBITION ( in percentages)
Toddy shops must be closed down

	DMK	CONG-O	CONG-R	ADMK	Others	Total
Yes	60.9	100.0	86.2	90.6	71.9	86.9
No	23.9	0.0	10.3	4.7	5.3	6.1
No opinion	15.2	0.0	3.5	4.7	22.8	7.0
Total	100	100	100	100	100	100
Sample size	46	115	29	149	57	396

Table VII
 PUBLIC OPINION ON CORRUPTION (in percentages)

	DMK	CONG-0	CONG-R	ADMK	Others	Total
Gone up	32.0	87.9	80.2	79.5	61.9	72.5
Gone down	18.2	0.0	2.0	0.0	1.9	3.2
Remained same	24.9	1.5	4.0	3.5	11.2	7.3
No opinion	16.9	4.5	9.9	5.9	12.0	8.3
Don 't know	8.0	6.1	3.9	11.1	13.0	8.7
Total	100	100	100	100	100	100

Table VIII
 ON DISTRIBUTION OF LAND TO LANDLESS POOR (In Percentages)

	DMK	CONG-0	CONG-R	ADMK	Others	Total
Benefitted	60.4	14.0	26.7	17.5	23.7	24.5
Not benefitted	16.9	60.1	47.5	55.4	34.4	47.4
No opinion	21.8	25.7	24.8	25.2	38.1	26.7
Blank	0.9	0.2	1.0	1.9	3.8	1.4
Total	100	100	100	100	100	100

Table IX(a)
 NEWSPAPER READING AND OLD CONGRESS (In percentages)

	For	Sympathise with	Against	Not heard of	No opinion	Sample size
Tamil only	35.0	14.3	37.3	0.4	13.0	791
Tamil and English	40.6	14.1	26.5	0.0	18.8	249
English only	27.3	18.2	18.2	9.0	27.3	11
Listen to reading	30.6	21.7	33.3	1.7	12.7	180
Neither listen to nor read	26.7	9.7	38.4	4.9	20.3	206
Others	0.0	15.8	47.4	0.0	36.8	19

Table IX(b)  
NEWSPAPER READING AND ADMK(in percentages)

	For	Sympathise with	Against	Not heard of	No opinion	Sample size
Tamil only	28.1	20.0	38.4	0.5	13.0	791
Tamil and English	16.1	20.1	40.9	0.0	22.9	249
English only	18.2	0.0	54.5	0.0	27.3	11
Listen to reading	40.4	15.1	28.3	2.6	13.6	180
Neither listen to nor read	40.8	17.0	17.0	11.2	14.0	206
Others	21.1	21.1	5.3	0.0	52.5	19

Table IX(c)  
NEWSPAPER READING AND DMK (In percentages)

	For	Sympathise with	Against	Not heard of	No opinion	Sample size
Tamil only	18.1	9.7	62.4	1.1	8.7	791
Tamil and English	13.7	6.4	63.9	0.4	15.6	249
English only	0.0	0.0	63.6	0.0	36.4	11
Listen to reading	16.1	6.7	66.1	0.0	11.1	180
Neither listen to nor read	7.8	9.2	58.3	4.4	20.3	206
Others	15.8	0.0	68.4	5.3	10.5	19

Table IX(d)  
READING NEWSPAPER AND NEW CONGRESS (In percentages)

	For	Sympathise with	Against	Not heard of	No opinion	Sample size
Tamil only	7.3	22.8	46.4	0.6	22.9	791
Tamil and English	9.6	28.9	39.4	0.0	22.1	249
English only	0.0	9.1	54.5	9.1	27.3	11
Listen to reading	5.0	23.3	45.0	1.7	25.0	180
Neither listen to nor read	2.9	14.1	34.0	15.1	33.9	206
Others	26.3	5.3	36.8	5.3	26.3	19