On his 45th death anniversary, a look at legacy of Dravidian patriarch Periyar who worked against caste discrimination & superstition.

There is no god, there is no god, there is no god at all
He who invented god is a fool
He who propagates god is a scoundrel
He who worships god is a barbarian
– E.V. Ramasamy Periyar

Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy, commonly known as “Periyar”, is now the focal point of Dravidian parties, Communists, Dalit outfits, Tamil nationalists and feminists in Tamil Nadu. Periyar, who died 45 years ago on 24 December 1973, left behind a legacy that had an astounding influence on how the state operates today.

Early life

E.V. Ramasamy was born to Venkata Naicker and Chinnathaai on 17 September 1879 in Erode district of what is now Tamil Nadu. Belonging to a rich trading family, Periyar stopped his school education at the early age of nine to assist his father. Though he had religious gurus who came home to teach him the shastras, the young Ramasamy was not interested. At the age of 19, he was married to a 13-year-old girl, Nagammai.

On a pilgrimage to Kasi (Varanasi) in 1904, Periyar observed the dynamics of Hinduism. The Hindu rituals and discrimination that he saw in the sacred place made him conclude that Hinduism was nothing but a Brahminical exploitation.

Party politics

In 1919, Periyar joined the Congress under the influence of his close friend C. Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) and went on to head the Congress Committee of Madras Presidency. But he left soon after his demand for communal representation in the party was defeated during the Tirupur session.

In the Congress, he actively participated in movements relating to khadi, liquor prohibition and abolition of untouchability. He was also jailed for participating in the non-cooperation movement. In his initial days in politics, he held various positions in the Erode municipality.

Periyar’s deep dive into the radical on-ground politics started with a trade union movement in Nagapatinam in 1925. His first encounter with Singaravelan, the pioneer of communist ideology in the state, also happened on this occasion. He also started his Self-Respect Movement around this time.

He went on to join the Justice Party, which eventually became the Dravida Kazhagam (party) in 1944. When the Muslim League’s demand for Pakistan came up, Periyar’s Dravida Kazhagam also demanded for a separate Tamil country.

In 1950, he presented a vision where he said that the Dravida Kazhagam would be a platform to lead social and religious reform. “The final agenda of this party is to destroy all religion,” he said.

But this didn’t stop here. It also envisioned a separate Tamil country. In fact, Periyar announced that the country’s first Independence Day would be marked as a day of sorrow for failing to form a separate Tamil country.

Periyar was at the forefront of the protests against Hindi imposition. He believed that Hindi was an Aryan language and making it compulsory in education was an attempt to conquer Dravidian culture. During this time, he also gave the slogan “Tamil Nadu for Tamilians” in a meeting in 1938.

His party never contested any election. Like many others in the party, his protege C.N. Annadurai, who had ambitions of electoral politics, left the party to start his own Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in 1949.

Periyar also founded a newspaper, Kudi Arasu, where he wrote to disseminate his ideas of social justice and self-respect. This became his full-time activity until his death at the age of 97.

The Soviet effect

Periyar was absorbed by the Bolshevik Revolution and hence decided to visit the Soviet Union. After his trip in 1932, he wrote vastly about the socialist republic in Kudi Arasu. Later, he also wrote a series in the name ‘Unmai’, inspired from the Bolshevik party’s ‘Pravda’, both meaning truth. He was also the first person to translate the Communist manifesto into Tamil.

“In the socialist country, there is no God, no religion, or no belief in Shastras. No human being considered high or low,” he wrote in an essay.

A radical feminist

Periyar had seen child marriage from close quarters in his community, and was resistant to the idea. He once organised for his niece, who had become a child widow, to get remarried.

Periyar was one of the few leaders who encouraged women to be active in politics and step out into the streets. The mass movement of 1921 against the toddy shops (Kallukadai Mariyal) and the anti-Hindi agitation of 1937 witnessed many women on the vanguard because of him.

It was a Dalit woman, Meenabal, who first addressed Ramasamy as “Periyar” at a women’s conclave in 1938 in Chennai. Periyar was a strong proponent for women’s education and gender equality. He insisted that women have the right to choose their life partners and also to walk out of a failed marriage. He said that bearing a child too is, ultimately, a woman’s choice.

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