PERIYAR - The Father of Modern Tamil Nadu

 

    We can write the biographies again and again for the leaders on their birthday. But I want to differ by speaking about their ideologies than their biographies to take their ideas to the society. September 17 is the birth anniversary of EVR Periyar. The revolution that old man gave to Tamil Nadu was not an ordinary one. We can talk about individual events and his works for pages and pages. But the base over which he created that revolution is very simple. Just two words!

'Reason' and 'Self-respect’ 

These are not two separate words, but mutually inclusive. Only if we start to reason, we will get a feel of self-respect. Only if we have respect over oneself, then only we will use our brain and Reason. He saw an age old Tamil land, which was trapped in age old traditions, cultures, beliefs and the people are blindly following these social laws without any questions. They accepted that all their worries and poverty are because of karma and they were working hard in the belief of getting wonderful life in the next birth. They accepted the caste system as told by the so called God. This was not just an idealistic belief, but it resulted in poor and extractive social institutions. One good example is, the percentage of Forward class people in Tamil Nadu before 1920s was only 3 to 5% but they were occupying the government jobs of more than 95%. This also resulted in poor representation of the Non-Brahmins in politics, economic, social and civil spaces.

Even in the time of struggle for independence, the people were not questioning the reason for their under-privileged state and the hegemony of the higher castes. Periyar saw the independence struggle as "the usage of the large masses by the higher caste people to get their power back from the outsiders" and he completely rejected the idea of independence, as it is just a transfer of power. He found that the real independence lies in the freedom of the common people from their own submissive thoughts and these social inequalities. They have to respect themselves, their work, their mind, and their birth. So self-respect is the thing which has to be built in the people's thought. He demanded this Social Independence over Political Independence from the British. He found that 'Reasoning' is the means to achieve it...

He came out of Congress and started 'The Self-Respect movement'. He questioned everything which was put in the way to achieve self-respect. He questioned God, Culture, Stereotypes, Chauvinism and literally broke every chain preventing people from achieving self-respect. He left nothing untouched. And he wrote tons and tons of pages about all these baseless beliefs in his magazines like Kudiyarasu, Viduthalai etc.

He wrote about Feminism, Anti-Casteist, Atheism everything can be connected to reasoning and self-respect. He opposed Domination in all way and claimed Domination is his only enemy in all forms! One simple example is, he asked "Why even the oppressed people are oppressing women in their home?! If self-respect is importance for you, then she also deserves that". And he told to the women that "No men will give u freedom. No men can be feminist. You can only fight for your freedom". His book ‘Why Women were Enslaved?’ have addressed issues related to the subjugation of women in the name of chastity, body politics and social constructions, far before other feminist literature started to address these things on other parts of the world.  These words were told to develop self-respect among women not to disgrace men.

He travelled throughout Tamil Nadu. Spoke in as many public meetings as possible and have spoken his last meeting even 5 days before his death at the age of 94 with Hernia killing his abdomen. He faced severe opposition from higher caste and orthodox people i.e.Sanatanis. They threw foot wears over him, stones and even faeces. But he didn’t care about these things and didn’t stop till his death.

He started a culture of distributing pamlets before the start of the meeting. After the reading was completed by the audience, he started his talk. He started a culture of questions at the end of every meeting. He discussed some scientific base in all his talks. In the way he created an Intellectual push in the Tamil society. Study circles were created throughout Tamil Nadu. Newspapers were read and discussed on nook and corners of Tamil Nadu, like barber shops, Tea shops, Playgrounds etc. Regional newspapers in a simplified way for the understanding of common masses went to some high peaks because of that intellectual revolution in Tamil Nadu, in which he was also a reason.

Though in political field, Justice party have created an opposition to the upper caste hegemony even before EVR, he is the one who identified the base of that social evil and tried in the social field till his death to uproot that using the tool 'Reason'. He merged his ‘Self Respect movement’ with Justice Party and gave birth to a party called ‘Dravidar Kazhagam’. The cultural evolution this kazhagam has done in Tami Nadu is a whole separate topic to talk about. Standing in the front of opposing the cultural domination of North India in the name of Hindi, this party supported the ‘Anti Hindi Agitations of Tamil Nadu’. This Kazhagam later gave birth to many regional Dravidian political parties which carried that opposition to cultural domination of New Delhi.  This base gave the push for later Dravidian politics which raised Tamil Nadu to the top in so many Development indicators.

His Intellectual revolution in Tamil Nadu can be compared with the Renaissance movement in Europe, as there also they have shifted the importance from religion to individuals. Renaissance scholars like Rousseau, Voltaire have been advocating for this scientific reasoning in Europe. This has been done by EVR Periyar singlehandedly here.

And in the world of "Believe me, I’m the God or I’m from God.." He is the only person I have known in history who told that "Don’t accept just because i have said that. I’m a plain person. Analyse it with your brain. Accept the things which are reasonable and reject the rest".

And that is why we love him. He is the one who have made 20th century, the 'Self-respect age in Tamil Nadu'. On the birth anniversary of our beloved ‘Father of Modern Tamil Nadu’, we ensure that the Flame of reason he lit won’t go out!

The name is தந்தை பெரியார். Erode Vengadappa Ramasamy 'Periyar'.

 

-Rowthiran (haribharathi777@gmail.com)