CONCLUSION

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CONCLUSION

The Golden Age of English biography emerged in late Eighteenth

Century, the Century in which the terms ‘biography’ and ‘autobiography’

entered English lexicon. The classic works of the period were Samuel

Johnson’s ‘Critical Lives of the Poets’ and James Bosewell’s ‘Massive Life of

Johnson’. Generally American biography followed English model. By world

war I, cheap handover reprints had become popular. The decade of the 1920s

witnessed a biographical’ boom’. Later, biographical writings developed a lot

and today biographies are written and compiled in the form of the genre. The

presentation of biographies of great men and celebrities in all walks of life is an

adventurous academic research study, in its own right. The present study is

devoted to the great personality of Periyar E.V. Ramasami who widely exposed

his thoughts on rationalism, self-respect, women’s rights and eradication of

thoughts and against the exploitation and marginalization of the indigenous

Dravidians in Tamil Nadu.

The outstanding virtue of Erode Venkata Naicker Ramasami’s (Periyar

E.V.R.) was his frugality and simplicity. His ambitions were high but his wants

were modest. He kept his wants to the barest minimum. He was free from

addiction of any kind. He dressed in the simplest piece of cotton material, ate

whatever was served and slept anywhere when he needed rest. He left behind

him a society, vastly different from the society he inherited, more alert, more

questioning, less gullible, better educated, more modern and in general, closer

to the take off point for a state of living that would be richer in all respects. Till
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his demise in 1973, at the age of ninety-five, it was more than a half a century

of total dedication to the service of the people which have few parallels in the

political history of India. E. V. R. served the human society.

Having understood the sufferings of the Non-Brahmins, he was

determined to releive the non-Brahmins from these sufferings. He found out

that the Hindu religion, its scriptures, temples, rituals, festivals, gods and

goddesses, Gurus, etc were the single source of strength for Brahmins.

Brahmins used it very effectively as the suppressing weapon against

Non-Brahmins for thousands of years. Thus Periyar E.V.R. decided to attack

the Hinduism and all his thoughts on various religions emanated only from this

single anti Brahmin and anti-Hindu ideology.

Periyar is immortal, his movement will never die and its continuous

struggle for promoting human rights and attaining reservation for the

disadvantaged is getting popular and stronger every passing day. His

Movement is working for the upgradation of reservation in Tamil Nadu. Hence

his Movement even after his death is more relevant in the Contemporary Indian

Society. His message on social justice and human rights and his revolutionary

ideas have spread all over the world. His influence in all spheres of life is so

deep and his rationalist thoughts are so powerful to drive the contemporary

society successfully on the path of progress and modernity. Thus the hypothesis

no.9 is substantiated.
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Periyar was a born revolutionary, though born in an orthodox family.

Even in his formative career, he was saturated with the social ideals which he

cherished in his livelihood. In his boyhood days, he used to drink water in the

homes of low caste people. The prevalent social inequalities and religious

inconsistencies agitated the mind of the young Periyar. Hence he never

accepted social evils, religious bigotry and superstition. From his early life

experience, he found that religion was nothing but an exploitative system. Thus

the hypothesis no.1 is defended.

Periyar was a great organizer from his days of youth. His father

recognized his organizing capacity and assigned him many public and social

works. In his active public life, Periyar launched a continuous campaign

against social injustice, exploitation, denial of human rights and inequality. He

realized that in the name of deity and religion, the common people were

exploited and denied the basic rights and therefore he was very strong against

religious fanaticism. He mobilized the people to develop their sense of

reasoning and cautioned them not fall a prey to the blind faith. He thought that

if religion was used to pull down the position of some men and degrade them,

why should we have this religion at all. Periyar vehemently criticized the

practice of offerings given to the purohit as in order to satisfy the soul of dead

ancestors. His Movement stood for women emancipation, reform marriage,

self-respect ideals, temple entry, eradication of untouchability and social

equality. To Periyar, religion abused the majority of human beings and

encouraged exploitation by a small minority, and hence such religion should be

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got rid of. Periyar very clearly pointed out that the most important reason why

Indian Society was backward, was due to superstition and religious

obscurantism. His Movement was totally against social evils which were

sanctioned by superstitious beliefs and unwarranted religious customs. Thus the

hypothesis no 7 is upheld.

Periyar joined the Congress with high hopes and a sense of idealism as

he had always enjoyed the idea of serving the people at large. He was nurtured

by Rajagopalachari in Congress and the latter used to brand Periyar as 'Our

Leader'. Periyar steadily rose to the position of a leader, with independent

qualities and charisma. Periyar’s proven abilities to agitate, organize and to

suffer personal loss were responsible for the laurels acquired by him for the

Congress. Periyar's role in the Congress as a social worker was undoubtedly

significant. Thiru.Vi. Ka. was right in his observation that if at all a prize

should be given to anyone for service to the Congress, the first prize should go

to Periyar. He was imprisoned several times with his wife and also his sister

during the Non Cooperation Movement and other campaigns of the Congress.

For the participation of the Temperance Campaign in 1921, he was sentenced

to imprisonment from December 1921 to January 1922. Again Periyar was

constrained under the Section 144 of the India Penal Code, t to hold any public

meeting or advocate abstention from drink.

Periyar left the Congress Party in 1925 but he kept the real objectives of

the Congress in mind. He severed his connection with the Congress because he

thought that Congress Party was dominated by the Brahmins and the Congress
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was not prepared to give proportional representation to the Non-Brahmins. He

raised the claim for communal representation in many Provincial Conferences

of the Congress. He was convinced that members of the forward community in

Tamil Nadu Congress recorded only lip sympathy and they were not ready to

give equal position and accept communal representation in government

services. In order to work towards these ideals, he formed the Self-Respect

Movement and founded a Tamil Newspaper, Kudi Arasu. His exit from the

Congress accelerated the progress of his rational thoughts. Thus the hypothesis

no.3 is proved.

Being disappointed by the lukewarm attitude of the Congress Party,

Periyar began to support the Justice Party from outside. The Justice Party was

defeated in the 1937 Provincial Elections. Periyar for his part, continued to

speak and write on the need for all Non-Brahmins, whether Self-Respectors or

others, to joins hands to strengthen the Justice Party. The Justice Party lost

many of its leaders. A substantial section of the Non-Brahmins joined Periyar

in the Anti-Hindi Agitation of 1937-1939. Periyar was asked to lead the Party

in 1938. When he took over the leadership of the Justice Party, the

Non-Brahmin Movement synchronized with the Movement of the Periyar. He

began to goad the Justicites before and after the fall of the Justice Party to work

towards the ideal of backward class development. From 1938 to 1944, Periyar

and his Self-Respectors worked hard to rid the Justice Party of self-seekers,

time-servers and opportunists and to reestablish it on a firm political and

ideological basis. With the Salem Resolutions of 1942, when the Justice Party
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committed itself to the cause of a Dravidian Nation, it was born anew and

rechristened Dravida Kazhagam in 1944. The hand of Periyar was strengthened

by C.N.Annadurai when the new party was formed. He attracted both Non-

Brahmins and Depressed Class in huge number towards the Periyar’s

Movement. When the D.M.K was formed in 1949, Periyar’s Movement was

concentrated in the social activities. When the D.M.K came to power in 1967,

Self-Respect Marriages, advocated by Periyar, received legal sanction. Periyar

nurtured many Non-Brahmin Leaders in politics and gave them political

education. They realized the ideals of Periyar. The cumulative effect of

Periyar’s Movement on the social front was the decline of the social and

political prestige of Brahmins in Tamil Nadu. Thus the hypotheses nos.2 and 4

are attested.

Periyar wished to promote his public life along with the ideals of the

removal of Untouchablity and the liberation of the women. These twin ideals

dominated much of his activities and his Movement. He was against the

practice of Untouchability and involved in the propagation of removal of

Untouchability. He viewed that eradication of Untouchability would strengthen

the hands of Indians in their fight against alien rule. The leaderless Kerala

Provincial Congress Committee invited Periyar of Tamil Nadu to take the

mantle of leadership of Vaikom Satyagraha. In 1924, Periyar led the famous

Vaikom Satyagraha in Kerala as the Ezhavas (Depressed Classes) and the

Untouchables were prohibited from entering certain streets in Vaikom on the

ground of low birth. Periyar. declined to give up his campaign although the
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Travancore Maharajah, who was his personal family friend, persuaded him to

give it up. He was imprisoned by the Travancore Government. Thereafter, the

social segregation practice was relaxed and this was the greatest achievement

of Periyar in an another State, and he was, therefore, called the 'Hero of

Vaikom' The Gurukulam issue emerged due to the Brahmin and Non-Brahmin

conflict within the Congress Party. Periyar took up the issue very seriously and

considered discriminatory practices among the inmates of the Gurukulam to be

a glaring case of social injustice. Periyar insisted on the theory of equality and

denounced the degradation observed by one caste over another. Periyar visited

the Gurukulam and failed to dispense with the caste restrictions. Though

E.V.R. sympathized with the untimely death of V. V. Subramania Iyer, he did

not compromise on the Gurukulam Issue. He went on fighting his war of social

justice against the Brahmin Oligarchy. Due to the fight initiated by Periyar over

the Gurukulam Controversy, the dawn of Non-Brahmin Awareness resulted.

On this issue, Periyar was strongly backed by P. Varadarajulu Naidu and

Thiru.Vi.Ka.V.V.Subramania Iyer blamed the attack of the Trio as a malicious

campaign against Brahmins. Periyar demanded the Brahmin question to be

settled even while the British Supremacy lasted in the Country because

otherwise they would have to suffer under the tyranny of Brahminocracy. By

the Gurukulam Issue, Periyar became the Champion of the Non-Brahmin

Leaders in Congress.

In the mean time, Periyar's heroic struggle and his victory at Vaikom

gave encouragement to his followers. When Periyar organized the Self-Respect

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Movement, his followers took an active part in asserting the rights of

Untouchables to enter temples. The Self-Respectors continued to impress upon

the people with Temple Entry Demands. They were involved in quarrels with

temple priests who objected to the entry of Untouchables into the temples.

They went to the court to assert the rights of the Untouchables. When the court

verdict was against them, at last the Self-Respectors decided to boycott temples

or places of worship and destroy temples. Thereafter, Self-Respectors were

rarely involved in the Temple Entry. As the Temple Entry Issue became an all

India issue, Periyar wished the active involvement of Congress, a national

organization, in temple entry affairs. When the Rajagopalachari Ministry

passed the Removal of Civil Disabilities Act and Temple Entry Indemnity Act,

Periyar welcomed those legislations wholeheartedly.

Periyar E.V.R. was a great champion of women rights and their equal

status in the society. He advocated that women should be given equal rights

along with men in the family property. He suggested women getting jobs and

remuneration on the basis of their qualification and gender equality. The

upliftment and liberation of the women was one of the objectives of Periyar

since the beginning of his public life. Just as he was particular that there should

be no social difference between man and man so also it should not be between

men and women. He hated the idea of considering women as an object of

beauty and utility. He advised women to develop self-respect and organize

themselves and come forward and fight social discrimination. He preached and

practised this at a time when the leaders of political parties and communal
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groups did not bother about this aspect in their life mission. He consistently

engaged himself in propaganda against child marriage, and during his own life

time, succeeded in persuading the government to fix the marriage for girls the

minimum age of eighteen years. Periyar had the foresight to anticipate the

population growth in India and advised married couple to limit the birth of

children. He believed that accepting family planning, women would be healthy

because more children make women weak, both physically and mentally. This

weakness compelled her to be submissive to men in the society. The Periyar’s

Movement worked for the eradication of Untouchality and Liberation of the

Women. Thus the hypothesis no. 6 is maintained.

Periyar was a great fighter for Human Rights. He wanted to see a

casteless and classless society in his time. He wanted to bulldoze, dynamite and

blast off the reactionary, obscurantist citadels of superstition and caste bar

which was infinitely worse than the apartheid. He was very eager to see a new

social order where the original sons of the soil are not branded as 'Shudras' and

'Chandalas', He desired that they should be freed from the shackles which are

2000 years old. He wished to witness a social milieu where in Shudras would

cease to be Shudras. He dismissed the Puranas as a bundle of concocted stories.

He was a doughty warrior who waged a remorseless and relentless war against

monopoly by birth. As a multi-faceted personality, he blended the virtues of

will and determination, force and magnetism, courage and resolve and above

all, compassion and love. His thoughts of gender equality, removal of outdated

customs for the emancipation of women, family formation, family planning,

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removal of civil disabilities, property rights to women, basic amenities to the

Depressed Class accorded the status of a pioneer of Human Rights in Tamil

Nadu. According to one thinker, a human right activist is never buried but

sowed'. Though Periyar died, he sowed the seeds for the Human Rights

Movement in Tamil Nadu. Periyar's Movement as a social organization

continues to serve the people by protecting Human Rights. Thus the hypothesis

no.5 is confirmed.

Periyar E.V.R. emerged as a great fighter, armed with the rationalist

thoughts, to form a society based on social justice. He was highly influenced by

the progressive thinkers of the West and wanted to apply the humanistic

approach to the social inequalities which was built upon the varna or caste

system. He tried to form a friendly human society in Tamil Nadu. To achieve

this goal, he made attempts to abolish caste and eradicate the stigma of

Untouchability. He attacked Brahmanism for the prevalence of social

inequality in Tamil Society. He stressed communal amity and harmony among

different communities. His followers opposed those religious people or

organizations which advocated the perpetuation of caste system. The

Self-Respectors opposed those public commercial establishments which

practised distinction and discrimination based on caste.

Periyar's programme mainly aimed at the establishment of a social order

based on equality. He demanded that public places should be accessible to the

Depressed Class. He provided a wide coverage to the speeches of Depressed

Class Leaders and the meetings for the establishment of social justice, in the
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columns of his newspapers and journals. The Self-Respector W.P.A.

Soundarapandian in the capacity of the President of the District Board, issued a

Circular to the bus owners, demanding the facility of Depressed Class

travelling in their buses. The Self-Respectors also took efforts to accommodate

the Leaders of Depressed Class in their organized activities. Periyar stressed

that real development and dignity of the Depressed Class was based on separate

electorate and representation. The Self-Respectors believed that Temple Entry

was a social right and attainment of Temple Entry to all, would remove one of

the roots of the caste system. Periyar advocated intercaste marriages to achieve

the goal of abolition of caste system totally. Periyar demanded communal

representation in government services until the abolition of caste differences.

Under Maniammai’s Leadership, Periyar’s Movement was active. When

the Emergency was proclaimed, Maniammai, the symbol of integration of

Dravidian Forces, was arrested. During the Emergency, she acted with courage,

tact and skill and successfully led the Periyar’s Movement. Her simplicity,

strong will, real concern for the welfare of the common man and zeal to work

for their progress, a real asset to the Periyar’s Movement. She passed away on

16th March 1978. From 1978, K.Veeramani shoulders many responsibilities of

the Periyar’s Movement. He is the Editor of Viduthalai, Unmai and The

Modern Rationalist. He manages several auxiliary organizations, the

educational institutions and charity establishments of D.K.. Like his Mentor, he

is working for the removal of Untouchablity and emancipation of women.

Periyar’s Movement under K.Veermani, is pressing towards reservation for

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Backward Classes both in Central and State Governments. Periyar’s thoughts

are more relevant to the contemporary society. In fact, Periyar’s Movement is

successfully moving ahead even after his demise. Thus the hypothesis no.8 is

established.

Wherever Periyar found the bad things he deprecated them. But his

scale of measurement was always rationalism, humanism and self-respect. It

seems that he considered Sikhism as another form of Hinduism with the

practice of irrational rituals and casteism. His humanism was seen when he

sympathised with the persecuted Jain and Buddhist monks. Again and again he

was seen to be declaring himself that he was neither a theist nor an atheist. But

he preferred to be called even as atheist if it will help him to serve the suffering

sections of the society. Finally it was seen that he declined the existence of

God.Since there are so many philosophies and definitions of God, it is not very

clear which philosophies and definitions of God he rejected. This lack of clarity

of his declaration does not allow us to fix him as an atheist. Religion

themselves fight with each other, refusing others’ philosophies and rejecting

others practices. The pages of History bear enough evidences that religions

destroyed others’ Holy Books, worshipping places and persecuted other

religious people. But those atrocious religions are not labeled Atheistic. Even

many great people refused the existence of God. It all depends on what types of

God that each don’t believe or even believe. When tried to find out the true

cause for his thoughts on religions and God, it was found out that sociological

concepts like self respect and humanism, rather than theological concepts like
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Theism and Atheism moulded his thoughts on Religions and God. Thus the

hypothesis no. 10 is explained

Thus Periyar used all his powers only for the welfare of humanity as he

asked others to do. Periyar neither started Atheistic movement, nor Theistic

movement. He started the self-respect movement only. Unfortunality his

adversaries happened to be a religious group, he had to attack their strength, i.e.

religion. For him, Self-respect is the only important thing, only Humanism

alone was important thing, His interest was in Sociology. For this work he

attacked his theological adversaries. He never bothered about whether there

was God or not. He was bothered only about Humanism and self-respect. That

is why Periyar started self-respect marriage institution, which was legally

recognized by C.N. Annadurai, during his period.

In the place of his tomb, it is inscribed as ‘Suyamariyathai

Sudaroligal’, not as ‘Atheistic lights’. Even in the calendar it is printed as

‘Suyamariyathai Vazhvae Suga Vazhvu’. His books are being sold by self-

respect propaganda institution only. Though he was aware of the atheistic

institutions in the West, he did not start anything in the name of atheism, but he

started everything only in the name of self-respect. Hence, this study concludes

that self-respect and humanism, not theism and atheism influenced Periyar's

thoughts on religions and God.

Periyar was not bothered about Theism and Atheism. He was very much

worried about Humanism. His Love for humanity was so much that he worked

for the self – Respect of the suppressed and oppressed Dravidian race, as its
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only true and sincere leader. When a religious group, Aryans, exploited the

Dravidians, he opposed them and their religion, which as a “divinely ordained”

law was providing them with all the higher standard of living to them out of the

blood and sweat of the oppressed Dravidians.

His entire struggle was to lead his race towards modern Age and make

them to live like modern people of advanced countries. He was ready to fight

anyone or anything that stood in the way of his progress. In fact, modern age

moulded his thoughts on religion and God. Hence, this study concludes that

sociological concepts like self- respect and humanism, not theological concepts

like theism and atheism influenced Periyar’s thoughts on religions and God.