Periyar place in the history of India is unique. He was a social revolutionary. He worked for the entire transformation of the Indian social Order. It is an order of caste system based on Varna Dharma. The four major social divisions of Varna Dharma are Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisiya and Sudra. Those who is not among those four-fold order - are Panchamas, the untouchables - those not covered.
The Varna-dharma and caste system are sanctified by religious sanction. The Scriptures and the gods approve them maintained. So decided the Hindu kings, according to Manu Dharma, that required a socio-religious code based on Jaathi-Varna (caste) system.
Varna Jaathi system provides a stratified social order. It leads to graded inequality. It is characterized by ascending order the socio-religious privileges and descending order of deprivation. The Brahmins at the top rung of the social ladder enjoy undeserved privileges of birth. They alone have the right to learn and to teach the Sanskrit scriptures, the holy books. They alone have the right to act as a priest in Agamic temple, temple dedicated by special rites and rituals of specific fonts.
Panchamas Sudras and were not taught Vedas and other sacred works. Generally, they were denied education. Learning were robbed reduces it to the position of the a living by manual labor and physical exertion.
were in the lower left box uncertain and superstitious. At the beginning of 20. Dr. BRAmbedkar century when he was a student who could not learn Sanskrit. The same happened with Kumaaran Aasaan, the first renascent Malayalam poet.
The lower caste people were not only denied education, but also basic human rights such as the normal roads, tanks, public facilities, etc.
Even as he fought in Congress (1915-1925) Periyar for civil rights and social equality. He vigorously advocated communal representation in education and employment opportunities. When he found the Congress stubbornly resisting his attempts to promote social justice and win civil rights for all, finish it Congress founded and Self-Respect Movement in 1925.
Periyar implemented throgh experience that political freedom would be a false recovery service without cultural emancipation of the common people and social equality. Now he has sacrificed his life and everything for the creation of an enlightened egalitarian society. The Self-Respect movement, which he renamed committed in Dravidar Kazhagam, in 1944 as a non-political organization for the realization of Periyar's ideals for the way laid down by him.
Periyar was convinced that unless that person is blind faith in God and religion are not removed, a real progress and equality could not be reached. And he touted rationalist ideas and exposed the unjust, oppressive, uncivilized and vulgar aspects of the Hindu religion, followed by more than 85 percent of the people of the country. He had to swim against the current. People of all religions, Hindus, Christians and Islam began to criticize him for his atheistic propaganda. But his devotion to the truth, honest work, humanistic approach and open methods endeared him to all parts of people, theists and atheists.
Periyar sought to acquire a total social revolution, not by violent means, but by the people more knowledge and free thinking, not bound by religious beliefs and traditional customs.
As Marx dialectical materialism is the basis for later developments in the communist thought, Periyar rational humanism leads to real Dravidar movement.
- Prof. Dr.N.Velusamy
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