112 Facts About Periyar

Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy, commonly known as Periyar, was a Tamil social activist and politician.

Periyar was the organizer of the Self-Respect Movement and Dravidar Kazhagam and is considered the architect of Dravidian politics.

Periyar joined the Indian National Congress in 1919 and participated in the Vaikom Satyagraha, during which he was imprisoned twice.

Periyar resigned from the Congress in 1925, believing that they only served the interests of Brahmins.

Periyar promoted the principles of rationalism, self-respect, women's rights and eradication of caste.

Periyar opposed the exploitation and marginalisation of the non-Brahmin Dravidian people of South India and the imposition of what he considered Indo-Aryan India.

Periyar had one elder brother named Krishnaswamy and two sisters named Kannamma and Ponnuthoy.

Periyar later came to be known as "Periyar", meaning 'respected one' or 'elder' in Tamil.

Periyar married when he was 19, and had a daughter who lived for only 5 months.

In 1929, Periyar announced the deletion of his caste title Naicker from his name at the First Provincial Self-Respect Conference of Chengalpattu.

Periyar could speak three Dravidian languages: Kannada, Telugu and Tamil.

Periyar attended school for five years after which he joined his father's trade at the age of 12.

Periyar used to listen to Tamil Vaishnavite gurus who gave discourses in his house enjoying his father's hospitality.

In 1904, Periyar went on a pilgrimage to Kashi to visit the revered Shiva temple of Kashi Vishwanath.

Periyar's frustrations extended to functional Hinduism in general, when he experienced what he called "Brahmanic exploitation".

The gatekeeper at the temple concluded that Periyar was not a Brahmin, as Brahmins were not permitted by the Hindu shastras to have moustaches.

Periyar was a theist until his visit to Kasi, after which his views changed and he became an atheist.

Periyar joined the Indian National Congress in 1919 after quitting his business and resigning from public posts.

Periyar held the chairmanship of Erode Municipality and wholeheartedly undertook constructive programs spreading the use of Khadi, picketing toddy shops, boycotting shops selling foreign cloth, and eradicating untouchability.

In 1921, Periyar courted imprisonment for picketing toddy shops in Erode.

Periyar was again arrested during the Non-Cooperation movement and the Temperance movement.

In 1922, Periyar was elected the President of the Madras Presidency Congress Committee during the Tirupur session, where he advocated strongly for reservation in government jobs and education.

Periyar's attempts were defeated in the Congress party due to discrimination and indifference, which led to his leaving the party in 1925.

Periyar was invited to lead the movement as he was the President of the Madras Presidency Congress.

Periyar questioned what he felt was the subjugation of non-Brahmin Dravidians as Brahmins enjoyed gifts and donations from non-Brahmins but opposed and discriminated against non-Brahmins in cultural and religious matters.

Periyar declared his stance to be "no god, no religion, no Gandhi, no Congress, and no Brahmins".

Periyar rebelled against Brahmin dominance and gender and caste inequality in Tamil Nadu.

Periyar, after establishing the Self-Respect Movement as an independent institution, began to look for ways to strengthen it politically and socially.

Periyar toured Malaya for a month, from December 1929 to January 1930, to propagate the self-respect philosophy.

Periyar visited Egypt, Greece, Turkey, the Soviet Union, Germany, England, Spain, France and Portugal, staying in Russia for three months.

The tour shaped the political ideology of Periyar to achieve the social concept of Self-Respect.

Panneerselvam, and Periyar organised anti-Hindi protests in 1938 which ended with numerous arrests by the Rajaji government.

Periyar claimed that the introduction of Hindi was a dangerous mechanism used by the Aryans to infiltrate Dravidian culture.

Periyar reasoned that the adoption of Hindi would make Tamils subordinate to the Hindi-speaking North Indians.

Periyar claimed that Hindi would not only halt the progress of Tamil people, but would completely destroy their culture and nullify the progressive ideas that had been successfully inculcated through Tamil in the recent decades.

In 1937, when the government required that Hindi be taught in the school system, Periyar organised opposition to this policy through the Justice Party.

However, a few who disagreed with Periyar started a splinter group, claiming to be the original Justice Party.

Periyar was convinced that individuals and movements that undertake the task of eradicating the social evils in the Indian sub-continent have to pursue the goal with devotion and dedication without deviating from the path and with uncompromising zeal.

In 1956, despite warnings from P Kakkan, the President of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, Periyar organised a procession to the Marina to burn pictures of the Hindu God Rama.

The activities of Periyar continued when he went to Bangalore in 1958 to participate in the All India Official Language Conference.

Five years later, Periyar travelled to North India to advocate the eradication of the caste system.

On 24 December 1973, Periyar died at the age of 94.

Periyar spent over fifty years giving speeches, propagating the realisation that everyone is an equal citizen and the differences on the basis of caste and creed were man-made to keep the innocent and ignorant as underdogs in the society.

Communal differences in Tamil society were considered by many to be deep-rooted features until Periyar came to the scene.

Periyar thought that an insignificant minority in society was exploiting the majority and trying to keep it in a subordinate position forever.

Periyar wanted the exploited to sit up and think about their position, and use their reason to realise that they were being exploited by a handful of people.

Likewise, Periyar explained that wisdom lies in thinking and that the spear-head of thinking is rationalism.

Periyar had written in his books and magazines dozens of times of various occasions that British rule is better than self-rule.

Periyar blamed the capitalists for their control of machinery, creating difficulties for the workers.

Periyar stated that there is no use to simply acquiring titles or amassing wealth if one lacks self-respect or scientific knowledge.

Periyar added that "any opposition not based on rationalism, science, or experience will one day or another, reveal the fraud, selfishness, lies and conspiracies".

Periyar's philosophy preaches that human actions should be based on rational thinking.

Periyar preached that the Brahmins had monopolised and cheated other communities for decades and deprived them of self-respect.

Periyar stated that most Brahmins claimed to belong to a "superior" community with the reserved privilege of being in charge of temples and performing archanas.

Periyar felt that they were trying to reassert their control over religion by using their superior caste status to claim the exclusive privilege to touch idols or enter the sanctum sanctorum.

Periyar thought that age and social customs were not a bar to marrying women.

Periyar was keen that women should realise their rights and be worthy citizens of their country.

Periyar fought against the orthodox traditions of marriage as suppression of women in Tamil Nadu and throughout the Indian sub-continent.

Periyar fiercely stood up against this abuse meted out against women.

Periyar fought fiercely for this and advocated for women to have the right to separate or divorce their husbands under reasonable circumstances.

Periyar criticised the hypocrisy of chastity for women and argued that it should either apply to men, or not at all for both genders.

Further, for the liberation of women, Periyar pushed for their right to have an education and to join the armed services and the police force.

Periyar held that, in matters of education and employment, there should be no difference between men and women.

Periyar wanted thinking people to see their society as far from perfect and in urgent need of reform.

Periyar wanted the government, the political parties and social workers to identify the evils in society and boldly adopt measures to remove them.

Periyar stated that while Christian and Islamic religions were fulfilling this role, the Hindu religion remained totally unsuitable for social progress.

Periyar argued that the government was not for the people, but, in a "topsy-turvy" manner, the people were for the government.

Periyar attributed this situation to the state of the social system contrived for the advantage of a small group of people.

One of the areas of Periyar's focus was on the upliftment of rural communities.

Periyar wanted to eradicate the concept of "village" as a discriminatory word among places, similar to the concept of "outcast" among social groups.

Periyar advocated for a location where neither the name nor the situation or its conditions imply differences among people.

Periyar further advocated for the modernisation of villages by providing public facilities such as schools, libraries, radio stations, roads, bus transport, and police stations.

Periyar felt that a small number of cunning people created caste distinctions to dominate Indian society, so he emphasised that individuals must first develop self-respect and learn to analyse propositions rationally.

Periyar stated that the caste system in South India is, due to Indo-Aryan influence, linked with the arrival of Brahmins from the north.

Periyar argued that birds, animals, and worms, which are considered to be devoid of rationalism do not create castes, or differences of high and low in their own species.

Periyar claimed that Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada came from the same mother language of Old Tamil.

Periyar explained that the Tamil language is called by four different names since it is spoken in four different Dravidian states.

Periyar stated that if words of North Indian origin are removed from Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam, only Tamil will be left.

Periyar believed that Tamil language will make the Dravidian people unite under the banner of Tamil culture, and that it will make the Kannadigas, Andhras and the Malayalees be vigilant.

However, Anita Diehl explains that Periyar made these remarks on Tamil because it had no respective feminine verbal forms.

Periyar further explained that the older and more divine a language and its letters were said to be, the more they needed reform.

Periyar hailed the Thirukkural as a valuable scripture which contained many scientific and philosophical truths.

Periyar praised Thiruvalluvar for his description of God as a formless entity with only positive attributes.

Periyar suggested that one who reads the Thirukkural will become a Self-respecter, absorbing knowledge in politics, society, and economics.

One of Periyar's quotes on the Thirukkural from Veeramani's Collected Works of Ramasamy was "when Dravida Nadu was a victim to Indo-Aryan deceit, Thirukkural was written by a great Dravidian Thiruvalluvar to free the Dravidians".

Periyar asserted that due to the secular nature of Thirukkural, it has the capacity to be the common book of faith for all humanity and can be kept on par or above the holy books of all religions.

Periyar became very concerned about the growing North Indian domination over the south which appeared to him no different from foreign domination.

Periyar wanted to secure the fruits of labour of the Dravidians to the Dravidians, and lamented that fields such as political, economic, industrial, social, art, and spiritual were dominated by the north for the benefit of the North Indians.

Periyar was clear about the concept of a separate nation, comprising Tamil areas, that is part of the then existing Madras Presidency with adjoining areas into a federation guaranteeing protection of minorities, including religious, linguistic, and cultural freedom of the people.

In 1953, Periyar helped to preserve Madras as the capital of Tamil Nadu, which later was the name he substituted for the more general Dravida Nadu.

In 1955 Periyar threatened to burn the national flag, but on Chief Minister Kamaraj's pledge that Hindi should not be made compulsory, he postponed the action.

The reason for this action was that Periyar held the Government responsible for maintaining the caste system.

Periyar was sentenced to six months imprisonment for burning the Indian constitution.

Periyar wrote an editorial on 'Tamil Nadu for Tamilians' in which he stated, that by nationalism only Brahmins had prospered and nationalism had been developed to abolish the rights of Tamils.

Periyar advocated that there was need to establish a Tamil Nadu Freedom Organization and that it was necessary to work towards it.

Periyar criticised Subramanya Bharathi in the journal Ticutar for portraying Mother Tamil as a sister of Sanskrit in his poems:.

Periyar claimed, on several occasions, that to eliminate the caste system, driving away the Brahmins was crucial.

Periyar believed that south Indians, especially Tamils, were a separate race and the Brahmins who came from the north were intruders and possibly Jews.

The main difference between them came out when Periyar stood for the total eradication of Hinduism to which Gandhi objected saying that Hinduism is not fixed in doctrines but can be changed.

Periyar was generally regarded as a pragmatic propagandist who attacked the evils of religious influence on society, mainly what he regarded as Brahmin domination.

Anita Diehl explains that Periyar cannot be called an atheist philosopher.

Anita Diehl explains that Periyar saw faith as compatible with social equality and did not oppose religion itself.

On Hinduism, Periyar believed that it was a religion with no distinctive sacred book or origins, but an imaginary faith preaching the "superiority" of the Brahmins, the inferiority of the Shudras, and the untouchability of the Dalits.

Periyar said "It will be more difficult to abolish Islam and Christianity from society", and "What was said 2000 years ago can not be relevant today".

Periyar viewed Christianity as similar to the monotheistic faith of Islam.

Periyar explained that the Christian faith says that there can be only one God which has no name or shape.

Periyar took an interest in Martin Luther - both he and his followers wanted to liken him and his role to that of the European reformer.

Periyar found Buddhism a basis for his philosophy, though he did not accept that religion.

Periyar stated that what he was propagating could be found in the teachings of Buddha given 2000 years ago and wanted to revive them as an independent movement.

Periyar claimed that Buddha Vihars at Srirangam, Kanchi, Palani and Tirupati were converted into Hindu temples.

Periyar, who was then an observer in the Justice Party, criticised Munuswamy Naidu, saying:.

Sathyaraj and Khushboo Sundar starred in a government-sponsored film Periyar released in 2007.