Periyar E.V. Ramasamy must easily be one of the most controversial political personalities of 20th century India. a people’s man, he spent the last 50 years of his long life practically on the move, haranguing at street corners, frequently getting abused and having stones thrown at him. The Tamils are rightly proud of him because he was one of his kind. Periyar was a proud person, but never selfish. His love for the Tamil people and the underprivileged was unquestionable. He did not know how to mince words and often went overboard. He truly detested religion, God, caste, social discrimination, Brahmins, the ideas of Gandhi and the very idea of India.
Of the three major leaders who stoutly opposed Gandhi, two, Jinnah and Ambedkar, are well-known and their works are available in English. The third, Periyar, is familiar to non-Tamils only through a minuscule, translated portion of his enormous output and some adulatory accounts of his life by his admirers. There is not a single biography of him in either Tamil or English, which satisfactorily covers his extraordinary journey. Not that contemporary historians, especially non-Tamil ones, are complaining. As far I know, none of them has made any serious effort to a get a complete picture of Periyar.
The lacuna is cleverly being exploited by Periyarist intellectuals who, without any compunction, attribute to Periyar views which they think he would have been better off possessing. Periyar was stark black and white—the person you get today is a highly colourised and heavily touched-up version of his real self. There is no doubt that his real self itself had much to commend. He was, by a long chalk, the greatest social reformer of Tamil Nadu who kept asking uncomfortable questions. The problem was he almost always thought he had all the right answers himself and came down heavily on those who said they too had a few alternative answers.
THE GANDHI DEVOTEE
Denne historien er fra October 07, 2019-utgaven av Outlook.
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Denne historien er fra October 07, 2019-utgaven av Outlook.
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Layers Of Lear
Director Rajat Kapoor and actor Vinay Pathak's ode to Shakespeare is an experience to behold
Loss and Longing
Memories can be painful, but they also make life more meaningful
Suprabhatham Sub Judice
M.S. Subbulakshmi decided the fate of her memorials a long time ago
Fortress of Desire
A performance titled 'A Streetcart Named Desire', featuring Indian and international artists and performers, explored different desires through an unusual act on a full moon night at the Gwalior Fort
Of Hope and Hopelessness
The body appears as light in Payal Kapadia's film
Ruptured Lives
A visit to Bangladesh in 2010 shaped the author's novel, a sensitively sketched tale of migrants' struggles
The Big Book
The Big Book of Odia Literature is a groundbreaking work that provides readers with a comprehensive introduction to the rich and varied literary traditions of Odisha
How to Refuse the Generous Thief
The poet uses all the available arsenal in English to write the most anti-colonial poetry
The Freedom Compartment
#traindiaries is a photo journal shot in the ladies coaches of Mumbai locals. It explores how women engage and familiarise themselves with spaces by building relationships with complete strangers
Love, Up in the Clouds
Manikbabur Megh is an unusual love story about a man falling for a cloud. Amborish Roychoudhury discusses the process of Manikbabu's creation with actor Chandan Sen and director Abhinandan Banerjee
