Periyar E. V. Ramasamy and the eradication of caste
Encyclopedia
Periyar E. V. Ramasamy (September 17, 1879 – December 24, 1973), also known as Ramaswami, EVR, Thanthai Periyar, or Periyar, was a Dravidian
Dravidian peoples
Dravidian peoples is a term used to refer to the diverse groups of people who natively speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. Populations of speakers of around 220 million are found mostly in Southern India. Other Dravidian people are found in parts of central India, Sri Lanka,...

 social reformer and politician from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, who founded the Self-Respect Movement
Self-Respect Movement
The Self-Respect Movement was founded in 1925 by Periyar E. V. Ramasamy in Tamil Nadu, India. The movement has the aim of achieving a society where backward castes have equal human rights, and encouraging backward castes to have self-respect in the context of a caste based society that...

 and Dravidar Kazhagam
Dravidar Kazhagam
Dravidar Kazhagam or Dravida Kazhagam was the first fully Dravidian party in India. It was a radical party formed by E. V. Ramaswamy, also called Thanthai Periyar of erstwhile Madras Presidency...

. On the caste system in India, Periyar dealt harshly with the practice of discrimination and its subordination of the different levels it created in society. He attacked those who used the system to take advantage of the masses through exploitation and subjugation.

Philosophy

Periyar felt that a small number of cunning people created caste distinctions in order to dominate over society. That was why he emphasized the view that we must first develop self-respect and learn to analyze propositions rationally. A self-respecting rationalist will readily realize that caste system has been stifling self-respect and therefore he will strive to get rid of this menace. One of Periyar's quotes on caste was, "a sizable population today remains as Untouchables, and another sizable population exists in the name of Sudras and as serfs, coolies and menials. Who wants an independence that cannot help change these things? Who wants religion, scriptures and gods, which cannot bring about a change in this sphere"?

Periyar explained that the caste system in south India is, due to Indo-Aryan influence, linked with the arrival of Brahmins from the north
North India
North India, known natively as Uttar Bhārat or Shumālī Hindustān , is a loosely defined region in the northern part of India. The exact meaning of the term varies by usage...

. Ancient Tamil Nadu
Ancient Tamil country
The Sangam period is the classical period in the history of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and other parts of South India, spanning about the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE...

 (part of Tamilakkam
Ancient Tamil country
The Sangam period is the classical period in the history of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and other parts of South India, spanning about the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE...

) had a different stratification of society in four or five regions (Tinai), determined by natural surroundings and adequate means of living. Periyar also mentions that birds, animals, and worms, which are considered to be devoid of rationalism do not create castes, or differences of high and low in their own species. But man considered to be a rational being, is suffering from these because of religion. He further explains that amongst dogs you do not have a Brahmin dog, or a Pariah
Pariah dog
The term pariah dog originally referred to Chinese/Indian feral dogs of a particular type, but it is now used by the United Kennel Club to refer to a purebred dog category.- Feral dogs of India :...

 (untouchable) dog. Among donkeys and monkeys we also do not find such things. But, amongst men there is such discrimination.

Periyar argued on how a person with an iota
Iota
Iota is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 10. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Yodh . Letters that arose from this letter include the Roman I and J and the Cyrillic І , Yi , Je , and iotified letters .Iota represents...

 of sense or rationalism in could do such things such as giving special treatment only to Brahmins. Some examples practiced were for lower castes to fall at their feet and to even, sometimes, wash their feet and drink that water. Periyar explains that if this is Hindu doctrine and philosophy, such a religion must go. He gives examples of rituals such as christening, house warming, marriage, and for puberty, that they are for the Brahmin's gain as the only ones to conduct these occasions. We do not respect our knowledge nor are we ashamed of our actions. Are we merely a mass of flesh and bones? Why should anybody get angry when I say all these to make you think over. Who is responsible of our degradation? Is it religion or government"?

Gandhi advocated for the caste system in its preservation. On the question of Untouchables being prevented from drawing water from wells and entering temples, Gandhi suggested having separate wells and temples made for them instead. Periyar argued against this by demanding the Vedas
Vedas
The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....

 of Indo-Aryans to be burnt and their deities to be destroyed since it was their creation of the castes and Untouchables. He also went on to state that "it was absurd to quote religion, god, or religious doctrines to render people as lowest castes".

Periyar argued that the caste system has "perverted peoples ideas about human conduct. The principle of different codes of conduct for each caste based on birth and life, led in accordance with it for centuries, have spoiled the Hindu mentality almost beyond repair, and destroyed the idea of uniformity in conduct. Graded inequality has got so much into the Hindu blood that general intelligence is warped and refused to mend even after English education and higher standards of living".

Hereditary Education Policy

In 1952, Rajaji introduced a new education policy based on family vocation which its opponents dubbed Kula Kalvi Thittam (Hereditary Education Policy). As per this policy, schools will work in the morning and students had to compulsorily learn the family vocation of their caste in the afternoon. Thus, a carpenter’s son would learn carpentry, a priest's son chanting hymns, and a barber’s son would learn hair cutting and shaving after school. Periyar felt that this scheme was a clever device against Dalits and Other Backward Class
Other Backward Class
The Central Government of India classifies some of its citizens based on their social and economic condition as Scheduled Caste , Scheduled Tribe , and Other Backward Class . The OBC list presented by the commission is dynamic and will change from time to time depending on social, educational and...

es as their first generation was getting educated only then.

Periyar demanded its withdrawal and launched protests against the Kula Kalvi Thittam which he felt was caste-based and was aimed at maintaining caste hegemony. Rajaji quit in 1954, and his successor Kamaraj scrapped it after becoming chief minister.

Removal of caste names

Periyar realized that the domination of Brahmins was not restricted to the spheres of administration
Public administration
Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....

 and worship
Worship
Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. The word is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship — to give, at its simplest, worth to something, for example, Christian worship.Evelyn Underhill defines worship thus: "The absolute...

. It was found that most of the hotels in Tamil Nadu indicated on the name boards that they were maintained by Brahmins and only served Brahmins. Periyar organized agitations
Agitator
An agitator is a person who actively supports some ideology or movement with speeches and especially actions. The Agitators were a political movement as well as elected representatives of soldiers, including the New Model Army of Oliver Cromwell, during the English Civil War. They were also known...

 throughout Tamil Nadu for the removal of the words "for the brahmins" and "by the Brahmins" from the name boards of hotels. He drew the attention of the common people and particularly the philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...

s to this practice in the chowltries of feeding the Brahmins and non-Brahmins separately. Today this practice is no longer in existence.

Inter-caste marriages

Periyar encouraged inter-caste marriages in order to combat the superstitions of the caste system
Caste system in India
The Indian caste system is a system of social stratification and social restriction in India in which communities are defined by thousands of endogamous hereditary groups called Jātis....

 practiced in India. He pointed out that a marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...

 is a contract between a young woman and a young man and it is not a function for the parents to get involved in for a reason or another. Generally, orthodox
Orthodoxy
The word orthodox, from Greek orthos + doxa , is generally used to mean the adherence to accepted norms, more specifically to creeds, especially in religion...

 elders arranged the marriages of their children and tried to perpetuate the dowry system
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...

. One of the projects of the Self-Respect Movement started by Periyar was to make young people realize that a marriage is the concern of a young man and a young woman and that other considerations brought in by the parents were utterly irrelevant. The Self-Respect Movement also pointed out that there were facilities for registering marriages and that the practice of employing Brahmin priests to conduct the marriages betrayed the superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....

 of the concerned people and encouraged exploitation by Brahmins. In the course of over the past fifty years, thousands of weddings between people of different communities and without the intervention of Brahmin priests have taken place as a result of the influence that the Self-Respect Movement has exerted on society. Arignar Anna in his capacity as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu passed a law in 1967 by which marriages conducted without the intervention of priests became lawful marriages.

Service to the backward classes

As soon as Periyar entered the Congress
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...

, he realized that the Brahmins had many more government jobs than the non-Brahmins and that higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...

 was more or less their prerogative
Prerogative
In law, a prerogative is an exclusive right given from a government or state and invested in an individual or group, the content of which is separate from the body of rights enjoyed under the general law of the normative state...

. He wanted the Congress to pass a resolution demanding communal representation in education and in employment. Though he tried hard for five years continuously, he could not persuade the Congress party to realize the need for such a resolution. Therefore he left the Congress, supported the Justice party, started the Self-Respect Movement and finally got the government of Madras to pass a law on communal representation in education and employment.

Kumarasami Kamaraj
K. Kamaraj
Kumarasami Kamaraj better known as K. Kamaraj was an Indian politician from Tamil Nadu widely acknowledged as the "Kingmaker" in Indian politics during the 1960s. He was the chief minister of Tamil Nadu during 1954-1963 and a Member of Parliament during 1952-1954 and 1969-1975...

 was thoroughly convinced that Periyar was only demanding justice for the non-Brahmins who had been neglected and exploited by certain sections of the people for hundreds of years. Therefore he readily accepted Periyar's suggestion that poor people should have free education. When Kamaraj became Chief Minister of Madras he allowed all children to have free education up to standard ten. Through Periyar's spirit of social service, Kamaraj introduced the free mid-day meal scheme for school children and later granted free books and free clothes to school children. When Kalaignar Karunanidhi
M. Karunanidhi
Muthuvel Karunanidhi is an Indian politician and a former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. He is the head of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam , a Dravidian political party in the state of Tamil Nadu. He has been the leader of the DMK since the death of its founder, C. N...

was Chief Minister in 1969, he extended free education up to the pre-university class. As a result of Periyar's devoted service for the cause of the under privileged, scheduled caste men and women occupy high positions in government offices and also serve as doctors and engineers.
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