PERIYAR AND HIS IDEOLOGIES

by K. Veeramani

E.V.Ramasami respectfully addressed as Periyar (the great)
was born on 17th September, 1879 with a silver spoon to a wholesale
trader at Erode, a town in Tamil Nadu. He was a school dropout but
acquired efficiency and unalloyed wisdom. With his extra cute and
rationalist ideology he started ridiculing the ghosts, goblins and gods.
He found out that humans alone are not only responsible in creating
their our gods but also enslaving themselves to their creation. The
result superstitions, rituals, religious killings, social injustices, women
enslavement, untouchability, deprivation of education and
unemployment to the lower rungs, heinous hegemony of the Brahmins
in the Hindu caste system. As god is the root cause for these evils
‘rout god’ was his war cry. He felt that unless and until god is
abandoned, liberty, equality and fraternity will have no meaning at all.

16 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 30, 2014

About the author

K. Veeramani (கி. வீரமணி) was born in Cuddalore, South Arcot District, Tamil Nadu; his original name was Sarangapani. He had his primary education at Cuddalore and entered Annamalai University for higher education. He obtained his master's degree in economics in 1956 . He received his Bachelor of Law degree from Madras University in 1960.

K. Veeramani came into limelight when as a boy of just 10 he was allowed address the gathering in the Justice Party Salem conference in 1944. He was introduced as activist by Annadurai. Apart from one year in which he practiced as a lawyer in Cuddalore, his career has been as a social worker. He began working with Periyar in 1956, and assisted Periyar in editing Viduthalai, the rationalist daily of Dravidar Kazhagam. In 1962 he was made the Executive Editor of Viduthalai and since 1978 has been the Editor. The Managing Committee of the Dravidar Kazhagam elected K. Veeramani as General Secretary of the Dravidar Kazhagam on 17 March 1978. He was active in the social campaigns and agitations launched by Periyar for support of "socially discriminated people", and was incarcerated forty times for his activities. He was jailed under MISA for a year in 1976 for opposing the Emergency. He was again jailed in 1978 for showing Black flags against Indira Gandhi for imposing Emergency while in power.