September 17 is the day EV Ramaswamy (aka Periyar) was born.
A thread on why Tamils should erase the memory and legacy of this hateful bigot.
EVR sought help from the Muslim League to divide south India. When India became independent, he said power had been transferred from the British to Aryans.
In 1957, EVR wrote that Jinnah got Pakistan by unleashing rivers of blood, and that EVR’s followers must do the same to create Dravidistan.
Part of the plan for Dravidistan involved the genocide of Brahmins. Sami Chidambaranar in his hagiography of EVR titled Tamizhar Thalaivar (“The leader of the Tamizhs”), writes: “To destroy caste discrimination burn the pictures of Nehru and Gandhi and also the Constitution of India. If all these methods fail to give us results, then we should start beating and killing the Brahmins; we should start burning their houses.”
The magazine EVR edited, published articles praising the ascendancy of Adolf Hitler and warned Brahmins in Tamil Nadu that they should learn from the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany and opt for course correction. Even after the fall of the Nazi regime, the approach of EVR, particularly when he addressed his cadre, was the same.
When Nagammai, the first wife of EVR, wanted to go to temple, EVR could not win over her by his arguments. So he secretly went to some of his ‘minor’ friends and showed them his first wife and told them that she was a new Dasi in the town asking them to make her consent to their desires. Consequently they started teasing and stalking her from the temple. Traumatised by this his wife stopped attending the temple. Later she came to know that this was a trick played by her rationalist husband.
EVR had contempt for the Scheduled Castes. On 25 December 1968, a group of 44 women and children, the families of SC agricultural landless workers striking for a wage hike, were burnt to death by the henchmen of non-Brahmin landlords in a village in Thanjavur. EVR said: “The workers should be taught to live with what they receive as wages.”
EVR made it clear that he identified himself with the welfare of non-SC non-Brahmins. He ranted in 1950: “Today in the society there are three major divisions: Brahmins, Shudras, and Panchamas. In this, the Brahmins, because they are upper castes, are getting the concessions they need. The Panchamas because they are low castes are getting the concessions they need. It is the Shudras who are in the middle, who are suffering from lack of concessions.”
In a speech made on 30 March 1951, EVR called Silappadikaram, the great Tamil epic written by llango Adigal, as “nothing but a propaganda tool of Aryans”. Condemning Tamil scholars who were conducting a seminar on the epic, he said: “Can a true Dravidian or a true Tamizh conduct a conference on Silappadikaram? I can only say that those who conduct a conference on this work are simply those who want to be certified as ‘good boys’ by the Brahmins. What is there in Silappadikaram, except the fact that it is a propaganda text of the Aryans? From the commencement to the end it is filled to the brim with Aryan concepts and nothing else.”
Kamaraj, the most powerful Tamil leader of the era, never accepted the racist and anti-Hindu views of EVR. He said: “If love for the nation grows then the language will also flourish. Dravidianists criticize Tamizh literature but they seldom do anything positive. To be frank they are actually harming Tamizh language and culture. Why do we oppose the Dravidian movement? Because it is harming the Tamizh society. So we must oppose this movement. They are creating confusion by instigating Dravidian racial feelings. … The Dravidian movement opposes Purana-Ithihasas. Purana-Ithihasas instill in us sense of justice, Dharmic intelligence and love for the nation. Can we deem these as superstitious?”
(This article has been compiled from the tweet thread posted by @ByRakeshSimha on September 16, 2024, with minor edits to improve readability and conform to HinduPost style guide)
