S. V. Rajadurai and Vidya Bhushan Rawat’s joint effort in bringing out a book on the most original iconoclast of South Asia, Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, titled Periyar: Caste, Nation and Socialism, published by People’s Literature Publication, Mumbai, is now available on Amazon and Flipkart. This volume presents an innovative method of documenting the pioneering contributions of a leader like Periyar, and it reflects the scholarship of Rajadurai, who has played a pivotal role in popularizing Periyar in English.
What makes the book distinct is its dialogic structure, inspired by Paulo Freire’s conversational method, in which Rajadurai responds to Rawat’s carefully crafted questions across 14 chapters, covering a wide range of themes from Periyar’s conception of Dravidanadu to his engagements with Ambedkar, Buddhism, caste annihilation, Pakistan, the Constituent Assembly debates, and several lesser-known episodes of his North Indian tours and Bombay conferences organized largely by RPI and Ambedkarite groups.
The book records Periyar’s nuanced positions, including his candid defense against accusations from certain Dalit activists, his contentious relations with leaders like Rajagopalachari and Kamaraj, and his interactions with communists and Dalit dissenters. A significant addition lies in three appended chapters that reveal aspects of Rajadurai’s own life and mission, unavailable elsewhere.
Particularly notable is the exploration of Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste, a text Periyar translated into Tamil and serialized in Kudi Arasu. Rajadurai details Periyar’s solidarity with Ambedkar’s anti-Brahminical struggles, his acknowledgment of the Round Table Conferences, and his critiques of Gandhi.
Beyond his reputation as an atheist and iconoclast, the book underscores Periyar’s deep engagement with Buddhism—his participation in conferences in Ceylon, his organization of meetings in Erode, and his collaborations with Ambedkar and RPI workers. Such narratives enrich our understanding of Periyar as a comprehensive humanist and reformer, later recognized by UNESCO.
The chapters also revisit Periyar’s fraught relations with the Justice Party, the Congress, and the subsequent formation of the Self-Respect Movement, with Rajadurai illustrating how leaders like Anna, Karunanidhi, and Veeramani shaped and sustained the Dravidian movement under his influence.
Rawat’s probing questions bring depth to these narratives, particularly in relation to controversies such as Kilvenmani and Meenakshipuram, Dalit massacres during and after Periyar’s time, and the persistence of caste violence in Tamil Nadu today. Interestingly, the chapter on land reforms is a mere page and a half, exposing the movement’s inadequacies in addressing Dalit economic deprivation.
Rajadurai highlights that Tamil Nadu still has the highest proportion of landless Dalits in the South—around 73 percent—making caste clashes largely agrarian conflicts between landowners and landless Dalits. The persistence of feudal mindsets even within sections of the Dravidian leadership underscores this unresolved tension.
Rajadurai’s reflections also reveal his disillusionment with the left parties, whose entrenchment in Brahminical frameworks undermined radical reform agendas. The Naxalite strategy of violent elimination of class enemies, which briefly influenced Rajadurai, also failed to transform the socio-economic realities of Tamil Nadu. Nevertheless, the Periyar project’s enduring impact lay in its challenge to the Arya-Brahmin conspiracy and its mobilization of Dravidian identity against structural oppression.
While Dalit critics have faulted Periyar for not addressing their specific grievances more robustly, Rajadurai argues that Periyar consistently stood with the oppressed, though the sheer scale and internal contradictions of the movement inevitably gave rise to disputes.
For Periyar, socialism meant equality through proportional representation and the self-respect of all individuals. He translated the Communist Manifesto into Tamil and emphasized that caste inequality was rooted in agrarian structures. His clashes with Gandhi, his leadership in the Vaikom Satyagraha, his repeated imprisonments for temple-entry struggles, and his advocacy of women’s liberation and family planning in the 1930s demonstrate his radicalism in both social and economic spheres.
Periyar’s fight for caste-based reservations, especially his leadership in pressuring Nehru’s government to amend the Constitution in 1951 to restore backward class rights after the Supreme Court struck them down, is also recounted in detail. Ambedkar, as Law Minister, supported this amendment. Rajadurai also recalls events like the Meenakshipuram conversions, countered by Hindutva forces with political money power, and shows how Periyar’s tactical support for conversions provided Dalits temporary relief from caste oppression. Ultimately, Periyar’s samadharma envisioned a Dravidian country rooted in equality and dignity for all.
The book’s wider contribution is to spark fresh debate on the relevance of Periyar in contemporary India. It interrogates the limitations of the Dravidian movement, both in addressing class inequities and in broadening its scope beyond Tamil Nadu. The narrowing of the Dravidian identity, despite its historical linkages to the Indus and Harappan civilizations, has weakened its ideological reach.
Rajadurai and Rawat argue that intellectual collectives must re-examine non-Brahmin movements, critically evaluate source material often mediated by Brahmin translators, and expand the study of caste and class annihilation in light of Periyar and Ambedkar’s visions.
Periyar: Caste, Nation and Socialism thus provides a compelling foundation to continue the agenda of liberating India’s oppressed classes from Brahminical and capitalist exploitation. It offers an honest appraisal of Periyar’s achievements and limitations while urging new approaches to strengthen the unfinished tasks of social and economic justice.
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*Chairman, Institute for Economic and Social Justice; Former Member, Union Public Service Commission; Former Vice Chancellor, Dravidian University, Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh
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