Dignity of Self-Respect: How Periyar Reimagined Society Beyond Caste, Religion, Patriarchy

2025 is the centenary of the Self-Respect Movement of Periyar E. V. Ramasamy. The term ‘self-respect’ encapsulates the main ideals of the movement—abolition of the distinctions between untouchables and Brahmins, the rich and the poor and the man and the woman—the distinctions undergirded by the hierarchical caste order with Brahminism as its ideological prop.

Though the movement was centred in the Tamil-speaking areas of the Madras Presidency and Pondicherry, it reached out to the downtrodden masses in Dharavi and Pune, the princely state of Travancore, and migrant Tamil communities in Malaya, Singapore, Ceylon and Burma.

Privileging ‘self-respect’ as the birthright of human beings as against the claim of B. G. Tilak’s Swaraj, Periyar argued that caste does not make for a healthy sense of the self, and to develop such a sense, one would have to practise self-respect, learn to value one’s self. In fact, this had to precede all other values and objectives, including freedom and self-rule, in short, even Swaraj. Periyar defined self-respect in diverse ways, and depending on the context of his utterance and the historical moment in which that utterance was required, self-respect was aligned to socialism, Islam and to the Buddhist notion of samadharma. Periyar’s use of the word ‘samadharma’, as a counter to Manudharma, and as an adjunct of socialism, which he argued had to do with the logic of just distribution, whereas ‘samadharma’ required a just and equal ethics which implicates all of us, the form of that ethical consensus that we forge with each other, that we shall hold and exercise rights and compassion in common.

Periyar’s criticism of Hinduism proceeded from his understanding of caste as a system and ideology. The Brahminical ideology determined what the women and men of the Hindu faith ate, how they dressed, whom they married, their choice of a profession, their relationships with each other, their behaviour in public places, their political choices, and their modes of worship—in short, a religious sensibility was manifest in each and every action of the Hindu. Hinduism was fundamental to the very organisation of caste society and had to be viewed not merely in terms of beliefs, faith and the succour it offered to the believer, but in terms of its material everyday existence. Periyar’s idea on Brahminical patriarchy drew its sustenance from his rejection of the conventional ideal of chastity. Periyar argued that ‘child rearing’ could be taken up by the men as well. By making parenthood rather than motherhood the decisive factor in the nurture and care of human life, Periyar liberated the female body and thus granted the female person a will and subjectivity. He also attacked the fetishisation of the female body and urged women not to internalise the notions of beauty and become mere ‘pegs’ on which one hangs jewellery.

The politics of the Self-Respect Movement was defined in two ways: as a critique of Congress nationalism and political non-Brahminism. The people who practiced ‘self-respect’ understood political non-Brahminism as a creed that rejected what it termed the hierarchical privileges of the caste order, as opposed to Brahminical pride and social power, and endorsed the rights of untouchables to an equal, self-respecting and free existence, which upheld women’s reproduction rights as well as their right to education and independence. Further, even when Periyar supported governments that appeared to him to be receptive to the ideals of social justice, he never allowed such support to interfere with his critical work in the civil and public realms. He was insistently critical of electoral politics and legislative exercises, which to him, were inexorably given to instrumental reasoning and limited goals. He felt that being active in this sphere could prove corrupting—and so decided to keep away from it, and instead function as a permanent dissident and critical movement in society.

The Self-Respect Movement drew inspiration from the Russian Revolution, though it abhorred violence manifesting in any form. The only English weekly the Self-Respect Movement has ever published was Revolt, launched from Erode on November 7, 1928, which, in the words of the leader written for its first anniversary number, was “that memorable day in the history of the nations, the day of the… immortal Revolution in Russia...”. One can see from the journals of the Self-Respect Movement hundreds of articles on the achievements of Soviet Russia, some of which looked for the social markers of women’s progress in civil society as well. (It had great admiration for King Amanullah Khan of Afghanistan and Mustafa Kemal Pasha of Türkiye for overturning the centuries-old dress code for women). Periyar had the preamble and the first section of the ‘Communist Manifesto’ translated into Tamil and published it in the weekly journal Kudi Arasu before leaving on a ‘global tour’, which was only a ploy to enter into Soviet territories. After returning to Erode by the end of 1932, he and S. Ramanathan, a veteran of the Self-Respect Movement, translated seven articles of Lenin on religion into Tamil and published in Kudi Arasu. A few months later, Kudi Arasu featured the first Tamil translation of Friedrich Engels’s ‘The Principles of Communism’, and during 1937-38, a full-length biography of Karl Marx was published.

The Self-Respect Movement forged close contact and a comradely relationship with Babasaheb B. R. Ambedkar. It was the ‘self-respect’ journals that introduced Babasaheb to Tamil Nadu through its reports on the Mahad Satyagraha and Kalaram Temple Entry Movement and it mobilised all its strength to support the separate electorate demand. Similarly, from 1935 onwards, it supported Ambedkar’s decision to leave the Hindu fold, and not to die as a Hindu. Periyar, however, was unhappy about Babasaheb’s decision to join the Constituent Assembly as he felt that the latter’s legislative labour would only be harvested by the ‘North Indian Aryans’. In post-Independent India, Periyar disagreed with Babasaheb’s solution to the Kashmir problem and also his advocacy of aligning with the US. But these political differences were overcome with Periyar’s support to Babasaheb on all other issues.

Periyar maintained that social inequalities derived from one’s birth would remain active under any economic system—as a deterrent to any radical change in society—and would even reproduce the economic disparities that were abolished. Pointing out that it was under the caste system that several people became wealthy and acquired a superior status, he insisted that even the implementation of the Communist doctrines in full force could not bring about any reform in a hierarchically organised caste society and that, therefore, the first and fundamental task of a socialist in this country was to abolish the caste system. Periyar’s position was not agreeable to the ‘socialists’ (future Communists) in the Self-Respect Movement like M. Singaravelu, who insisted on ‘class struggle’ and broke away from Periyar to join the Congress Socialist Party in 1936. It was precisely during this period that Periyar was able to get a copy of Annihilation of Caste by Ambedkar, and translated into Tamil and serialised it in Kudi Arasu.

The pages of the ‘self-respect’ journals were filled with a variety of articles ranging from scholarly critiques of the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita and the Puranas to the translations of anti-clerical articles from the West—essays of Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Paine and Robert G. Ingersoll on the one hand, and the writings of R. P. Paranjpye, J. Krishnamurti and M. Singaravelu on the other. These journals also featured the atheist writings of Bertrand Russell and Bhagat Singh. Some of the stories of G. Boccaccio were also translated and published along with one or two articles by Rahul Sankrityayan and Meghnad Saha. All these initiatives were intended to cultivate a rationalist outlook and critical thinking amongst the ‘self-respect’ followers and the general public.

Periyar’s genius—for example, his profound knowledge of the Indian philosophical systems, as seen in his article ‘Materialism or Prakritivad’, written from what Periyar called ‘the perspective of Nirvana’—remains to be explored by those interested in understanding Periyar and his anti-caste movement.

Despite Periyar’s radicalism with which he selflessly spent nearly 75 years of his long life, the ‘realpolitik’ of the political parties that claim his legacy has led them to get immersed in the logic of the Westminster system, resulting in the emergence of powerful intermediate castes whose ‘caste pride’ entails the increasing number of atrocities against Dalits. While Tamil Nadu has done better than the rest of the country as many indicators would show, in interpersonal caste relationships, however, it is becoming intolerant and violent whenever the norms of castes are challenged. It is a sad reality that the genuine followers of Periyar should be concerned with, besides seriously engaging themselves with the critique of the entire Dravidian movement generated by the new crop of Dalit intellectuals.

(Views expressed are personal)

S. V. Rajadurai is a Tamil Nadu-based writer and translator and has authored nearly 60 books. His latest book is Periyar: Caste, Nation And Socialism