P. A. Chacko
Erode Venkatappa Ramasami (EVR) alias Periyar Ramaswami Naicker, 17 Sep.1879 – 24 December 1973.
Known and respected by his followers as Periyar or Periyar Thanthai, EVR was a social reformer and politician. He launched Self-respect Movement and Dravida Kazhakam. He is well known as the father of the Dravidian Movement in Tamil Nadu.
Periyar’s movement challenged and denounced Brahmanical dominance and gender-caste inequality.
Although he joined the Indian National Congress in 1919, he broke off in1925 arguing that in the Congress streaks of Brahmanical dominance were strong. In 1924 he joined Gandhi in the Vaikom (Travancore, today’s Kerala) Satyagraha.
Advocating rationalism, he propagated his own ideology of ‘no god, no religion, no Gandhi, no Congress, and no Brahmins.’
He resisted and countered Indo-Aryan dominence and marginalisation of non-Brahmin Dravidians.
Known as the Socrates of South India, Periyar advocated social reformation, social justice, freedom from caste oppression and untouchability, and equality and social status for women.
He was also known as ‘A Man ahead of his time.’
Countering social domination, he stated: “As long as we give room for domination and the dominators, there will be worries and worried people. Poverty and pestilence will live eternally in the country.”
Criticizing the Brahmin ritual for the dead, he said: “Foreigners are sending messages to the planets. We are sending rice and cereals to our dead forefathers through the Brahmins. Is it a wise deed?”
He posed a warning and an advice to the Brahmins: “I want to say a word to the Brahmins: “In the name of God, religion, sastras, you have duped us. We were the ruling people. Stop this life of cheating us from this year. Give room for rationalism and humanism.”
Periyar’s intellectual acumen, his philosophical clarity, his rational stand, and his voice for the socially oppressed classes mark him out as a remarkable humanist and a political champion for all depressed classes and castes.
