Periyar

Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy, better known as Periyar, was born on 17 September 1879 and died on 24 December 1973. He was an Indian social activist and politician who founded the Self-Respect Movement and the Dravidar Kazhagam. Many consider him the key figure behind Dravidian politics and a major force in India’s left-wing political landscape. Periyar first joined the Indian National Congress in 1919.

International travel (1929–1932)

He took part in the Vaikom Satyagraha and was jailed twice during that campaign. He left the Congress in 1925. Between 1929 and 1932, he travelled through British Malaya, Europe, and the Soviet Union, experiences that later shaped his Self-Respect Movement’s push for caste equality. In 1939, he became head of the Justice Party, which he turned into a social organisation called the Dravidar Kazhagam in 1944.

That group later split, and in 1949 one faction led by C. N. Annadurai formed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). Even while continuing the Self-Respect Movement, Periyar called for an independent Dravida Nadu, a homeland for Dravidian peoples. He championed rationalism, self-respect, women’s rights, and the abolition of caste.

Early years

He fought against the exploitation and marginalisation of non-Brahmin Dravidians in South India and opposed what he saw as the dominance of Indo-Aryan India. Since 2021, the state of Tamil Nadu has marked his birthday as Social Justice Day. Periyar was born Erode Venkata Ramasamy on 17 September 1879 in Erode, then part of the Coimbatore district in the Madras Presidency. His family were Kannada-speaking Balija merchants.

His father was Venkatappa Nayakar (or Venkata), and his mother was Chinnathyee Muthammal. He had an older brother, Krishnaswamy, and two sisters, Kannamma and Ponnuthoy. Later he became known as “Periyar,” which in Tamil means “respected one” or “elder.” He married at age 19, and his only child, a daughter, lived just five months. His first wife, Nagammai, died in 1933.

He remarried in July 1948, and his second wife, Maniammai, carried on his social work after his death in 1973; the Dravidar Kazhagam continued to advocate his ideas. In 1929, at the First Provincial Self-Respect Conference in Chengalpattu, Periyar announced he was dropping his caste title, Naicker, from his name. He spoke three Dravidian languages: Kannada, Telugu, and Tamil.

He attended school for five years and then, at age 12, joined his father’s trade. As a child, he listened to Tamil Vaishnavite gurus who gave discourses at his home, hosted by his father. Young Periyar began questioning contradictions he saw in Hindu mythological stories. Over time, he concluded that people used religion as a mask to deceive the innocent, and he made it his duty to warn others against superstition and priests.

Kashi pilgrimage Incident

In 1904, Periyar travelled to Kashi to visit the Shiva temple of Kashi Vishwanath, one of Hinduism’s holiest sites. There he witnessed what he considered immoral activities—begging and floating dead bodies. His frustration with mainstream Hinduism grew when he encountered what he called “Brahmanic exploitation.” One particular event at Kashi deeply affected his thinking. Free meals were offered to guests at the worship site, but Periyar was shocked to be refused food at choultries that served only Brahmins.

Driven by extreme hunger, he tried to enter one eatery disguised as a Brahmin, wearing a sacred thread on his bare chest. The gatekeeper, however, spotted his moustache—Brahmins, according to Hindu shastras, were not allowed to have them—and pushed him out into the street. With hunger unbearable, Periyar ate leftovers from the street. He later learned that the eatery that had turned him away was built by a wealthy non-Brahmin from South India.

Member of Congress (1919–1925)

This discriminatory treatment shattered his regard for Hinduism, as the reality of Kashi clashed with his image of a holy place welcoming all. Until this trip, Periyar had been a theist; afterward, he became an atheist. Periyar joined the Indian National Congress in 1919, after quitting his business and resigning from public posts. He served as chairman of the Erode Municipality and threw himself into constructive work: promoting khadi, picketing toddy shops, boycotting foreign cloth, and fighting untouchability.

In 1921, he was imprisoned for picketing toddy shops in Erode. When his wife and sister joined the agitation, the movement gained force, and the administration compromised. He was arrested again during the Non-Cooperation movement and the Temperance movement.

In 1922, Periyar was elected president of the Madras Presidency Congress Committee at the Tirupur session, where he strongly pushed for reservations in government jobs and education. His efforts were defeated within the Congress due to discrimination and indifference, leading him to leave the party in 1925. The Vaikom Satyagraha was a nonviolent campaign led by the Congress Party to gain access for all people to the public areas around the Vaikom Temple in the Kingdom of Travancore. Travancore had a rigid and oppressive caste system—Swami Vivekananda once called it a “lunatic asylum.” In the small town of Vaikom, strict untouchability laws barred Dalits and others from the temple area.