Periyar Ramasami saw himself as inherited - and transformation - these traditions. He was particularly inspired by the late Victorian rationalism and atheism, and fascinated by the radical world view of the European Enlightenment and the new cosmology propounded by modern science. Feminist and anarchist debates that had developed in the late nineteenth century Europe and socialism as the ideal of the rule also attracted his attention. Straddling two distinctive responses to the modern time that is forged in the context of colonial rule and the other in the heart of capitalist development, he brought to public life in India, a rare and obsessive genius for critical reason, argument, and social mobilization.
Declaring himself against the religious and social authority of the Brahminic order, the mesmerizing indecencies of the caste system, the power of religion and other writings lore and custom of consciousness and the privileges and power of men to order, he called for the destruction of the caste and patriarchy, to and build their place in a society rested on self-respect, common equity, and camaraderie.
Periyar political brilliance was leavened and enriched by his existential sense of injustice caste. He noted that the caste system refused to respond to the so-called untouchables and women, their physical integrity - in other words, it causes not only political and social suffering, but an ontological harm than good. Heal this hurt, he argued, it was necessary to cultivate the spirit. He was convinced that only one reason that critical was fearless of learning and was open to the present and the story could adequately answer the Protean List of the caste order. He did not think that this order could be overthrown by force and instead counseled patient and persistent persuasion and the construction and reconstruction of critical civic culture that does not compromise human freedom, dignity and intelligence. Deeply conscious set the millennial nature of the task he had himself and his movement, he often does not notice that, since the time of the Buddha such an effort, since this attempt which, as of caste society on its head.
Periyar ideas were ground in the debate, argument and action. All his life he has with the present, with the here and now of the policy without a sense of past and future. He often threw himself into the very vortex of historical events are, braving derision, desertion and loneliness. On the other hand, he refused, exhausted by the demands of political life and remained until his death, raging a philosopher, did not rest his aging head. Neither the convenience of power and office, nor the beguiling attractions of the political popularity is important for him - he compared himself to an ascetic, a barren tree, stood steadfast and strong, held in the roots of a transcendental vision of the greater common good.
Periyar is rich and compelling to have our imagination and renew our time, for all time. He calls in the next few decades to conversation, dissension and dialogue challenges us to fight and resist both create and imagine. Behind the atheist, there was always the prophet, and it is this remarkable combination of rationalist and visionary, we need to claim on the present.
Score: Prof. C. Thangamuthu
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