The streets of Secunderabad tremble with chants of “Marwari Go Back.” What appears to be a spontaneous outburst over a petty market quarrel happened in August is, in reality, the latest eruption of a carefully imported political virus, one with roots not in Telangana, but in Tamil Nadu’s radical Dravidian past.
Behind the movement stands the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), a Tamil Nadu–based Dalit centric party with ambitions that stretch far beyond its borders. VCK’s Telangana unit members such as Jilukara Srinivas and Pagidipalli Shyamson are now channeling an ideology forged nearly a century ago by E.V. Ramasamy Naiker, a man known for propagating divisive ideas and disturbing the social harmony under the guise of social reformer in Tamil Nadu.
E.V. Ramasamy’s ideological descendants are once notorious for driving Telugu Brahmins out of Tamil Nadu through fear and violence, are now exporting that hostility to Telangana. Far from an innocent protest, the “Marwari Go Back” campaign is a deliberate rebranding of his hate politics, threatening to fracture Telangana’s delicate social fabric and destabilize its economy.
Tamil Nadu’s Test Runs: How Hate Campaigns Were Perfected
The Telangana “Marwari Go Back” campaign did not emerge in a vacuum; it is the product of strategic playbook long tested in Tamil Nadu, where political and fringe groups have repeatedly experimented with anti-North Indian rhetoric. In February 2021, in Trichy, the fringe Muslim party Tamil Makkal Jananayaka Katchi (TMJK), founded by an associate of radical preacher Palani Baba, circulated pamphlets demanding the expulsion of Marwari traders, accusing them of financially supporting the BJP. When police arrested TMJK cadres for incitement, their supporters celebrated their release as a victory, transforming law enforcement into a spectacle of political legitimization.
Earlier, in January 2020, Tamil nationalist outfits allied with Islamist organizations forcibly padlocked eighteen Marwari-owned shops in Thanjavur, pressuring traders to leave under the pretext of protecting local interests. The following year, in August 2020, leftist and separatist groups converged at the Golden Rock Railway Workshop in Trichy, demanding 90% local reservations and publicly denouncing North Indian hires as “colonial exploiters” of Tamil labour. These recurring episodes created a culture in which anti-North Indian sentiment was normalized, framed as protection of local identity rather than overt xenophobia.
By quietly endorsing such narratives through alliances in the DMK-led coalition, the VCK lent credibility to these campaigns. What was once Tamil Nadu’s laboratory of ethnic resentment has now been adapted and exported to Telangana, providing a ready-made playbook for the “Marwari Go Back” movement.
Telangana’s Turn: The “Marwari Go Back” Campaign
The so-called “Go Back Marwari” movement in Telangana is nothing but a dangerous cocktail of imported hate politics, economic jealousy, and identity manipulation. Far from being a genuine people’s movement, it is a calculated attempt to stoke regional and casteist resentments by targeting a particular business community that has, for decades, contributed to the state’s economy through trade, jobs, and investment.
Labeling Marwari traders as “outsiders” is both false and divisive. For generations, Gujarati and Rajasthani families have lived in Hyderabad, Warangal, and Secunderabad, building industries, schools, and philanthropy networks that benefitted locals. Since the 7th Nizam’s tenure, they have run businesses in Hyderabad and, during the Razakar atrocities of the 1940s, played a crucial role in protecting women, families, and the rights of Hindus in the Old City.
To now demonize them as exploiters is not just an injustice it is a revival of divisive Dravidian-style “sons of the soil” politics that Telangana had once rejected.
What is most alarming is that this movement is openly xenophobic. The slogans of “Marwari Go Back” echo the dangerous tones of hate campaigns from the past, where communities were targeted simply because of their linguistic or business identities. Such scapegoating not only damages Telangana’s inclusive social fabric but also risks driving away investment and trade, leaving the real poor and unemployed even worse off.
The so-called agitation was ignited by what appeared to be a minor parking dispute at Secunderabad’s Monda Market in mid-August 2025, but the reality tells a far more orchestrated story. On June 22, 2025, Pagidipalli Shyamson posted on Facebook predicting a “Marwari Bhagav” uprising, signaling that the later clash would be exploited to frame Marwaris as agents of economic domination. When the altercation occurred weeks later, VCK moved swiftly to brand it as a symbol of North Indian “economic invasion,” transforming a localized dispute into a campaign of ethnic resentment.
And who exactly is this Shyamson? At 32, he briefly surfaced as a candidate in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from the Secunderabad constituency on a VCK party ticket, though his political debut went largely unnoticed. His educational journey halted in 2007 after scraping through the 10th standard at the Zilla Parishad High School in Madirpuram, Khammam district. No higher studies, no professional grounding and yet, he now parades around as a savior of Telangana’s downtrodden, conveniently dropping his full name in favor of a sleeker, market-ready “Shyamson.” It seems rebranding isn’t just for businesses it’s also for half-baked politicians with full-blown ambitions.
The tactics deployed mirrored E.V. Ramasamy’s confrontational blueprint from Tamil Nadu. VCK and its allies orchestrated bandhs and boycotts on August 22, accusing Marwaris of “job theft” and counterfeit trade. Divisive speeches by Jilukara Srinivas on public platforms echoed Naiker’s confrontational rhetoric, while Left wing singers such as Goreti Ramesh released songs endorsing the boycott, converting art and local traditions into instruments of propaganda.
What presents itself as Telangana’s spontaneous resentment against outsiders is, in truth, a carefully repackaged import of Tamil Nadu’s politics of division. It exposes how fringe groups and radical political actors are hijacking social grievances to fuel communal and regional hate. If unchecked, this movement could set a precedent for more ethnic and business-based targeting in the future, undermining the state’s growth and peace.
Telangana at the Crossroads
The “Marwari Go Back” campaign is not a protest, it is an import of Periyarist extremism, carefully engineered by VCK and its allies. From pogroms in Tamil Nadu to boycotts in Telangana, the throughline is unmistakable: scapegoat outsiders, inflame local resentments, reap political capital.
If unchecked, this movement threatens to unravel Telangana’s pluralist ethos and drive wedges between communities that have coexisted for generations. The warning signs are already flashing: violent rhetoric, orchestrated bandhs, and social media campaigns framing traders as enemies of the state.
Telangana has a choice to resist this ideological contagion or risk becoming the next frontier of Dravidian extremism.
E.V. Ramasamy Naiker’s Toxic Legacy: The Birth of Dravidian Hatred
E.V. Ramasamy Naiker, who founded the Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) in 1944, preached rationalism and social equality. Yet beneath this rhetoric lay a worldview steeped in resentment — one that cast North Indians and Brahmins as “Aryan oppressors.” The irony, however, is striking: though E.V. Ramasamy himself hailed from a Telugu-speaking Naidu family, his movement unleashed some of the most vicious assaults on Telugu Brahmins in Tamil Nadu. During the 1950s and 1960s, mobs inspired by Dravidian propaganda targeted Telugu households, issuing threats, destroying property, and even celebrating the public burning of Hindu texts. Thousands of Telugu families were compelled to abandon their ancestral homes and flee to Andhra Pradesh for safety.
The infamous anti-Hindi agitations added another layer of hostility, as what began as protests against linguistic imposition soon spiraled into targeted attacks on Telugu bureaucrats, teachers, and shopkeepers, many of whom were branded as “collaborators” of the so-called Aryan agenda. Beyond physical violence, cultural vilification became a weapon: E.V. Ramasamy himself mocked Telugu contributions to Tamil culture, belittling Telugu literature, and deriding the dominance of Telugu cinema in Tamil Nadu during that era.
Historians have since argued that this was not reform but racism disguised as rationalism — an ideology rooted in the now discredited “Aryan Invasion Theory” that deepened communal mistrust and left enduring scars on Telugu–Tamil relations.
VCK Talgnana: new Torchbearers
Founded in 1989 by Thirumavalavan, the VCK blended Ambedkarite Dalit politics with E.V. Ramasamy’s radical Dravidianism. Over time, the balance tilted toward the latter. VCK leaders not only target caste oppression but also frame North Indians as colonial occupiers, a theme Thirumavalavan himself likened to “Israelis in Palestine.”
The party’s alliances with separatist Tamil outfits and radical Muslim organizations in Tamil Nadu have given it both street muscle and ideological ammunition. From backing anti-North Indian job protests in Trichy to applauding campaigns against Marwari traders, VCK has consistently weaponized resentment for political gain.
By 2023, VCK had its eyes on Telangana. With Srinivas as state president and Shyamson as its electoral face, the party began seeding Periyarist rhetoric into Telangana’s Dalit and student movements. Both men have honed the art of scapegoating: accusing Marwaris and Gujaratis of monopolizing trade while presenting themselves as liberators of the “oppressed locals.”
The author is General Secretary of Legal Rights Protection Forum, Hyderabad based legal advocacy group.
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