Men should not touch
each other, see each other; and cannot enter temples, fetch water from
the village pond: in a land where such inhuman practices are ripe, it is
a wonder that the earthquakes have not destroyed us, volcanoes not burnt
us; it is a wonder that the earth has not split at its heart and plunge
this land into an abyss, that a typhoon has not shattered us. I leave it
to you to decide if you still like to trust to a divinity that has not
punished us thus; if you still consider that God a just God, a Merciful
Being. How long do you desire a vast section of the oppressed, the
depressed classes to remain patient, peaceful and quiet? Would you
consider it wrong if these oppressed were to choose death rather than
lead such a life as the do now?
Periyar E. V. Ramasami
.
PERIYAR: A RAGING PHILOSOPHER
Periyar E V Ramasami
(1879-1973) founded the Self-respect movement in 1925 – to preach and
act against the evils of caste hierarchy and its custodian, the
Brahminic domination on the one hand and the cultures that perpetuated
female subordination on the other. His was a radical dissenting
position, marked by an iconoclasm of the mind and spirit. Such
dissenting voices had, in fact, emerged in the Tamil country in southern
India in the late 1880s. There existed then a local chapter of the
National Secular Society of England, which upheld the importance of
reason, critical enquiry and preached atheism and free inquiry. During
the same period, a Dalit autodidact and reformer, Pandit Iyothee Thass
outlined his program of social revolution, calling for a complete
overthrow of caste society and the religious faith that propped it up
and substituting, in its place, a new social order, founded on the
egalitarian and pacifist principles of Buddhism.
Periyar Ramasami saw
himself as inheriting – and transforming - these traditions. He was
particularly inspired by late Victorian rationalism and atheism, and
fascinated by the radical world-view of European Enlightenment and the
new cosmology propounded by modern science. Feminist and anarchist
debates that had unfolded in late nineteenth century Europe and
socialism as an ideal of rule also attracted his attention. Straddling
two distinctive responses to the modern moment, the one forged in the
context of colonial rule and the other in the heart of capitalist
development, he brought to public life in India a rare and compulsive
genius for critical reason, argument and social mobilization.
Declaring himself
opposed to the sacral and social authority of the Brahminic order, the
indecencies of caste system, the mesmerizing power of religion and other
scriptural lore and custom over consciousness and the privileges and
power of men, he called for the destruction of the caste order and
patriarchy, and to build in their place a society that rested on
self-respect, common justice and comradeship.
Periyar’s political brilliance was leavened and enriched by his
existential sense of caste injustice. He noted that the caste order
denied to the so-called untouchables and women their very bodily
integrity – in other words, it caused not merely political and social
suffering, but an ontological hurt as well. To heal this hurt, he
argued, it was necessary to cultivate the mind. He was convinced that
only a critical reason that was unafraid of learning and which was open
to the present and history could adequately answer the protean cunning
of the caste order. He did not think that this order could be overthrown
through violence and instead counseled patient and sustained persuasion
and the building and re-building of a critical civic culture, which did
not compromise human freedom, dignity and intelligence. Deeply aware of
the millenarian nature of the task he had set himself and his movement,
he often noted that not since the time of the Buddha had there been
such an effort as this, which sought to stand caste society on its
head.
Periyar’s ideas were
honed in the context of debate, argument and action. Throughout his long
life, he engaged with the present, with the here and now of politics,
without losing a sense of the past and the future. Often, he threw
himself into the very vortex of historical events, braving scorn,
desertion and loneliness. On the other hand, he refused to be exhausted
by the demands of political life and remained, till his death, a raging
philosopher who did not wish to rest his graying head. Neither the
comforts of power and office, nor the beguiling attractions of political
popularity mattered to him – he likened himself to an ascetic, a barren
tree that stood steadfast and resilient, held in its roots by a
transcendent vision of the greater common good.
Periyar’s rich and
compelling imagination is ours to own and renew, for our times, for all
times. He calls across the decades, asking for conversation, dissension
and dialogue asking us to both fight and create, resist and imagine.
Behind the atheist there was always the prophet and it is this
remarkable combination of the rationalist and visionary that we need to
claim for the present.