Periyar: A Political Biography of E.V. Ramaswamy

by Bala Jeyaraman

They decided to organize a non-Brahmin political alternative to the Congress.

He had become the chairman of the Erode Municipal Council the previous year and this had brought him in close contact with the Congress chairman of the Municipal Council of the neighbouring town of Salem—a lawyer named C. Rajagopalachari.

Didn't know about the relationship between Rajaji and Periyar

Soon, Congressmen from neighbouring towns kept him busy with requests to promote khaddar in their areas. In November

This act resulted in a loss of an annual revenue of fifty thousand rupees to him and sent shock waves through the Congress.

Periyar cut down his grove at a huge personal loss but also got himself arrested by personally picketing toddy

1920 elections and formed the first government under the new diarchal4 system of governance. By 1923, a sizeable section in the Congress regretted boycotting the legislature and wanted to participate in the electoral process. They split from the Congress and formed the Swaraj Party. The Swarajist faction was led by Rajaji’s rival, S. Satyamurti5 in the Madras Presidency. Periyar, however, stayed with the Rajaji faction.

Periyar’s reputation as an organizer soon thrust him into the forefront of the struggle against untouchability in Vaikom, a town in the princely state of Travancore ruled by the king, Moolam Thirunal.

part of a clemency proposal due to the king’s death, Periyar was released from prison. He was arrested again almost immediately for organizing protests. This time, he was sentenced to six months in jail.

Almost all major party posts were occupied by the Brahmins and Brahmin leaders like Rajaji and Satyamurti displayed their nepotism by appointing Brahmins to various posts.

He obtained the money through Santhanam. Periyar and Naidu hit back with an anti-Brahmin campaign within the party.

The failure to get the Congress to do anything concrete with regard to ending caste discrimination within the party opened the eyes of Periyar to the futility of staying with the Congress.

reservations as it threatened their dominance. In the next six years, Periyar attempted as many times to include the issue of communal representation on the party platform.

A month later, he announced the formation of a new organization—the Self-Respect Movement (Suya Mariyadhai Iyakkam)

He started a whirlwind tour of the state to promote his new radical policies. He spoke in favour of communal representation and against Varnashrama dharma—division of Hindu society according to the occupation of the people.

Self-Respecters’ agenda was radical for their times. They wanted to do away with all religious and caste differences and the rituals that originated from them. They wanted to establish a casteless, classless society where a man’s birth would have no impact on his social status.

As a symbol of their opposition to Varnashrama dharma, the Self-Respecters burned the Manusmriti

late 1927, Rajaji made a final attempt to bring Periyar back into the fold of the Congress. He arranged for Periyar to meet with Gandhi, who was on a visit to Bangalore (now Bengaluru).

He placed three demands before Gandhi—the Congress, the Hindu religion and the domination of Brahmins had to be destroyed. Gandhi did not accept any of them. A frustrated Periyar renounced his earlier respect for Gandhi and started thinking of him as an ideological foe. It was at this point he stopped referring to Gandhi as ‘Mahatma’.

S. Muthiah Mudaliar, one of the new ministers, was a supporter of communal representation. The new cabinet soon issued a government order for implementing the communal representation legislation passed six years earlier in 1921.

‘Naicker’ from his name as a symbol of renouncing caste. It was an extremely bold act during a time when almost everyone used a caste suffix; Periyar was putting his principles to practice.

To facilitate such marriages, Periyar devised a new rationalist marriage system called the ‘Self-Respect marriage’.

The Self-Respecters demanded equality of the sexes in all spheres of life. They wanted equal property rights, advocated sexual freedom and endorsed contraception. Periyar went as far as denouncing the concept of chastity which he believed was a tool of male oppression.

husbands, instead of wives, on how to handle issues like contraception and family planning. But in the Self-Respect Movement, it was the women who did all the talking and they targeted wives instead of husbands.

By 1929, the Self-Respect Movement had a footprint in almost all Tamil speaking districts of the state. Its growth had been rapid due to a well-organized propaganda machinery and generous financial backing from non-Brahmin industrialists and landowners.

In 1930, the Self-Respecters began a campaign against the Devadasi practice. Moovalur Ramamirtham, a Self-Respecter, who had been a Devadasi herself, was at the forefront of the campaign. A bill for abolishing the practice was tabled in the legislative council by the state’s first female legislator, Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy.

Around this time, Periyar got into a huge controversy for encouraging Adi-Dravidas (Dalits) to convert to Islam. He had to issue a lengthy explanation in Kudi Arasu for his stance on conversion. He reasoned that Islam was the only religion that did not discriminate on the basis of birth and for an Adi-Dravida, conversion would offer a way to shed his shackles and live a dignified life.

1931 was a year of great change for Periyar and the Self-Respect Movement. They were slowly drifting apart from the Justice Party.

The Congress was occupying the nationalist space in the political spectrum.

towards socialism was purely due to political pragmatism. To attract the nationalistic-minded youth, they started getting closer to the communists. While moving toward new ideals, Periyar ensured that their anti-Congress nature remained undiluted.

virulent attacks on religion in their journals and public speeches. W.P.A. Soundara Pandiyan Nadar,

became suspicious of his companion S. Ramanathan and expelled both of them from the country on 19 May 1932.

Abandoned by its rich supporters, it attracted communists like M. Singaravelu Chettiar,

Congress, too, had been bitten by the socialist bug and had started adopting similar policies.

Periyar was found guilty under section 124 of the IPC23 and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in the Coimbatore jail; he found himself in the cell next to that of his old rival, Rajaji.

Periyar was arrested again in 1934 for publishing a Tamil translation of Bhagat Singh’s pamphlet, ‘Why I am an atheist’. He had to tender an apology to the government to secure his release.

Self-Respect Movement with the Congress Socialist Party.25 Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar of the Justice Party also offered him a chance to campaign for them in the 1934 council elections.

It was around this time that Periyar first met a young college student named C.N. Annadurai (Anna),26 who would go on to become his protégé and later, a bitter rival.

Not only did Justice lose the 1934 council elections, but it also got trounced in the assembly elections three years later.

While the Congress was endearing itself to the working class of the state, the Justice leaders were doing just the opposite—disillusioning their former supporters by living opulently.

Only Periyar and the Self-Respect Movement stuck doggedly to the sinking Justice ship.

insstence on the justice party

compulsory learning of Hindi in the presidency’s schools. The Congress’ obsession with Hindi had its roots in Gandhi’s belief that Hindi would be able to unite Indians linguistically against the colonial power.

protest were the Shaivites,32 who regarded Tamil as divine and the mandatory teaching of Hindi as an attempt to destroy it.

The Justice members of the legislature (conveniently ignoring the fact that it had been their government which had first introduced Hindi in the schools earlier in 1931),

He warned that ninety per cent of the non-Brahmin children would fail their exams if Hindi was made mandatory.

of North India. Kudi Arasu carried cartoons titled ‘Acharyar Sagasam’ (The misadventures of the acharya) depicting Rajaji as a villain trying to stab Tamil Thai (mother Tamil) and even disrobing her.

His fiery speeches denouncing Brahmins and Hindi whipped up the population.

With Periyar in jail, the agitation took a more militant turn under the leadership of the second-rung leaders like Annadurai.

Rajaji’s increasingly authoritarian attitude had the Congress worried. The Criminal Law Act had been originally enacted by the colonial government to crush the Congress’ Non-Cooperation Movement in the early 1930s.

But it soon morphed into a demand for Dravida Nadu—a federation of areas where the four major Dravidian languages37 were spoken.

Periyar hoped that the idea of Dravida Nadu would engage the public’s imagination like Jinnah’s demand for a separate state for Muslims.