'Stigma as Sudras'
The Modern Rationalist|November 2020
On July 27, 1969, Thanthai Periyar headed a rationalist conference at Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu. The central idea of his speech was that we would continue to be degraded as ‘Sudras’ as long as fanatics blame our people for making the idols in temples impure by our touch. The content of this speech is in brief as follows:
M.R. Manohar
'Stigma as Sudras'

Dear comrades,

A rationalist conference is being held at this moment. We must infer from this that it is our duty to propagate rationalist views and eradicate irrational thoughts and practices.

Belief in god, religion, scriptures and ancient mythologies as well as fabricated history are against rationalism. They are detrimental to our society. They keep us degraded at all times and hinder our knowledge. We remain gullible and superstitious by their impact. They aggravate our ignorance. We are striving to eradicate this degradation and our aim is to draw our people out of the darkness of ignorance.

Long ago people used to behave like barbarians. They attempted to destroy things useful for humankind. They were incestuous and ignorant of the meaning and value of life. We are propagating to eradicate gods, religion and ancient scriptures fabricated by those people.

We should have in-fact eradicated all these long ago. We do not aim at destroying anything which came into vogue when we were all fully civilised. We look back at the period prior to that when barbaric people designed gods, scriptures and myths. No one with an iota of sense would oppose our protest. Barbarians who generated all those falsehood have made their heirs adhere to them irrationally. Their descendants are following them selfishly and safeguarding them with a malicious ulterior motive. This necessitates our protest. This is the only factor behind our provocation. People who were incestuous, soaked in barbarism are being considered upper caste people while people who led a clean life adhering to the codes of morality are degraded as low caste people. Why should this deplorable condition continue? Great thinkers, sages and saints who lived in this country had never bothered about the disgraceful life of the repressed people.

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