[p. 429] Sometimes referred to as EVR, but more often as Periyar (“Great Man”), E. V. Ramasami (1879–1973) was born into an affluent orthodox Hindu family of Erode, Tamil Nadu. Like Gandhi, his early education, travels, and independent spirit led him to criticize Hinduism, especially the institution of Untouchability, and he soon devoted his life to social and political reform. As an advocate of social equality, he moved quickly from leadership in local politics to a strong commitment to the Indian National Congress, where he showed a Gandhian flair for involving the masses. He championed the Non-cooperation Movement in 1920, sharing all of its goals, including its loyalty to Gandhi’s leadership. By 1922, though, as this phase of the freedom struggle ended, the first signs of his disenchantment with the Congress appeared. Focusing on his primary concern of caste reform, he clashed sharply with Brahman Congress leadership in Madras; but soon his opposition to them was augmented by his disillusionment with Gandhi. As Ambedkar also discovered, at this time Gandhi was not ready to oppose unequivocally all the caste institutions of Hinduism. Periyar quickly became a genuine radical in this respect. His sweeping social critique took him even further than Ambedkar, since he attacked not only Gandhi, the Brahmanical caste system, and Hinduism, but all religion. His special ire was reserved for people of his own, Hindu background; he seems not to have targeted Islam or Christianity, but he criticized the Rāmāyana and the Laws of Manu for their oppressive stances toward non-Brahmans and non-elites.
In 1925 Periyar started his own “Self-Respect Movement.” This led him, like Gandhi, to imprisonment for his resistance to unjust laws, but Periyar concentrated on the injustice of the Brahmanical social system rather than that of British rule. Gandhi, Ambedkar, and Periyar were all three prominent critics of caste, but the last was the most extreme, as well as the only one among them who led an anti-Brahman effort, known as the Dravidian movement, in the heart of the conservative south of Tamil Nadu. When he left Congress, Periyar expressed his creed and policy in heretical terms: “No god; no religion; no Gandhi; no Congress; and no Brahmins.” Among our responders to Gandhi, this decree might have been shared completely only by M. N. Roy, because even Ambedkar had his religion, and accommodated Congress.
After years of service in state and national politics, and nearly two decades of involvement in the social reformist Justice Party, in 1939 Periyar demanded an independent [p. 430] Dravida Nadu, which would be free from the domination of Brahmans, caste hierarchy, and Hindi-language imposition. In 1944 he changed the name of his party to Dravida Kazhagam, and in 1948 this split to give rise to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). Largely because of agitation spearheaded by his party, the compulsory learning of Hindi was abolished in 1948, and the separate state of Tamil Nadu was carved out of the Union in 1956.
In an incisive comparative analysis of the ideas of Periyar, Ambedkar, and Gandhi, Nicholas B. Dirks makes it clear that although all three critics of caste recognized its profound roots in traditional India, and strongly opposed the tyranny of social hierarchy, Gandhi's persistent defense of varnashrama dharma was intolerable to the other two. This was the tipping point, or the test that Gandhi failed. With the same logic and language that led Gandhi, the caste reformer, to defend and embrace the inclusive spirit of Hinduism, both Periyar and Ambedkar deemed Hinduism hopeless, incapable of eradicating its worst evil. Both were “obsessed,” as Dirks observes, with Gandhi's dominant role in the whole project of Indian nationalism. They came to view him as ingenuous or misguided, and moved off in a different direction. From their perspective, Gandhi argued that “caste must go,” but then offered up, as a sop to hierarchical Hinduism, a perverse interpretation of varnashrama dharma. Far better than this, in their view, would be a democracy, free of all vestiges of caste and Untouchability.
The excerpts from Periyar below show that his definition of both India's damnation and its hope for future redemption revolved around principles of equality and justice, always tested in the context of caste and Brahmanism.
Although initially a Gandhi supporter and member of the Tamilnadu Congress Party Committee, in the mid-1920s Periyar broke with both over the issue of guaranteed reservations for low- or out-caste people in a putative free India. The first two selections show his change in attitude between 1926 and 1927.
Some people ask me why I continue to stay in the Congress. I do so only because of the desire to reconvert the Congress that [presently] works for Brahmin career opportunities into the organization that existed prior to the past couple of years, the Mahatma Gandhi Congress. This worked for the welfare of everyone, and is therefore the real Congress of Non-cooperation. If such a reconversion occurs, then the selfish leaders of today will disappear. When one listens to Gandhi's words sometimes the precarious hope remains that such a restoration is still possible. If the hope completely disappears I will leave Congress.
[Kudi Arasu, 8 August 1926, 22; page numbers here and below refer to S. V. Rajadhurai and V. Geetha, Periyar: Suyamariyathai Samatharmam (Coimbatore: Vidyal Pathipagam, 1999), trans. Rajan Krishnan and slightly emended for English by R. F. McDermott.]
[p. 431] Periyar, like many other critics, faulted Gandhi for his sacrifice of political to religious principles.
Giving up his own basic principles for the sake of consensus and unity, Mahatma withdrew himself into his ashram like an ascetic or a Sankaracharya. It led to a situation that resembled a religious Mutt [ashrama] where rituals are regularly performed and devotees go to sing the praise of the saint and are rewarded with fame and glory. The reason why Gandhi's principles came to be undervalued and the Gandhi Mutt was established is because of the lunacy of seeking consensus and unity at the cost of principles. Since lunacy is a mark of a saint, it might suit Mahatma Gandhi. He could still return to his original principles but now that seems unlikely. I am certain that any institution, individual or country divorced from its core principles can only go astray, and Gandhi has lost sight of his.
[Kudi Arasu, 12 June 1927, 23.]
Late in life, when asked to ruminate on Gandhi's legacy, Periyar made the following observations.
Why did the Brahmins make Gandhi Mahatma?
Comrade Gandhi proclaimed: 1) I am a conservative Hindu; 2) I believe in the prescriptions of the Vedas and the Epics; 3) I believe in the various incarnations of God; 4) I believe in the Varnashrama Dharma as laid down in the Vedic texts; 5) I believe in worshipping these idols. He also acted in accordance with these beliefs. Therefore, he was made a Mahatma.
Why did the Brahmins assassinate him?
He came to say that: 1) I don't believe that something like the traditional concept of God exists; 2) There is no truth exclusive to Hinduism; 3) Both Allah and Ram are the same; 4) It is not the privilege of only Brahmins to be educated; 5) I value the Koran as much as I value the Vedas; 6) The mosques seized by force should be vacated and returned to Muslims. Therefore, he was killed.
[Viduthalai, 12 April 1951, 735.]
Rachel Fell McDermott, Leonard A. Gordon, Ainslie T. Embree, Frances W. Pritchett and Dennis Dalton, eds., Sources of Indian Traditions, vol. 2: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, 3rd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), pp. 429–431.