{"id":25241,"date":"2024-07-22T08:22:23","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T02:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=25241"},"modified":"2025-04-07T16:30:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T11:00:57","slug":"periyar-ev-ramasamy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/periyar-ev-ramasamy\/","title":{"rendered":"Who was Periyar E.V. Ramasamy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Periyar E.V. Ramasamy:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy (17 September 1879 \u2013 24 December 1973), commonly known as Periyar or Thanthai Periyar, was an <strong>Indian social activist<\/strong> and <strong>politician<\/strong> who <strong>started the Self-Respect Movement<\/strong> and <strong>Dravidar Kazhagam.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>He is known as the <strong>&#8216;Father of the Dravidian movement&#8217;<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>He <strong>rebelled against Brahminical dominance<\/strong> and <strong>gender and caste inequality<\/strong> in Tamil Nadu.<\/li>\n<li>He <strong>joined<\/strong> the <strong>Indian National Congress<\/strong> in 1919, <strong>but resigned <\/strong>in 1925 <strong>when he felt<\/strong> that <strong>the party<\/strong> was <strong>only serving the interests of Brahmins<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>He questioned the subjugation of non-Brahmin Dravidians, as Brahmins enjoyed gifts and donations from non-Brahmins but opposed and discriminated against non-Brahmins in cultural and religious matters.<\/li>\n<li><strong>In 1924<\/strong>, E.V. Ramasamy <strong>participated in<\/strong> non-violent <strong>agitation (satyagraha) in Vaikom<\/strong>, Travancore.\n<ul>\n<li>He came to be known widely as a leader of the lower castes after he led the movement in 1924 that <strong>demanded the entry of Dalits in temples in Kerala<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>He is known the most for his <strong>Self-respect Movement,<\/strong> that aimed at generating pride in lower castes.<\/li>\n<li>From 1929 to 1932, Ramasamy made a tour of British Malaya, Europe, and the Soviet Union, which influenced him.<\/li>\n<li>In 1939, E.V. Ramasamy <strong>became the head of the Justice Party<\/strong>, and in 1944, he <strong>changed its name to Dravidar Kazhagam.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>While continuing the Self-Respect Movement, he <strong>advocated for an independent Dravida Nadu<\/strong> (land of the Dravidians).<\/li>\n<li>E.V. Ramasamy promoted the principles of <strong>rationalism, self-respect, women\u2019s rights,<\/strong> and the <strong>eradication of caste.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>He opposed the<\/strong> exploitation and <strong>marginalisation of the non-Brahmin Dravidian people<\/strong> of South India and the <strong>imposition of<\/strong> what he considered <strong>Indo-Aryan India.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, <strong>he believed in<\/strong> the <strong>ideas of Tamil saint Thiruvalluvar<\/strong> and hence held faith in the idea of a <strong>single, formless God.<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: Who was Thiruvalluvar?<\/h3>\n<p>He was a poet and philosopher, and is regarded as a cultural icon by Tamils. He is fondly referred to as Valluvar by Tamils. His most popular work is Thirukku\u1e5ba\u1e37, a collection of couplets on ethics, politics, economy and love.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/tamil-nadu\/periyar-vision-ott-app-launched-by-dravidar-kazhagam\/article68429095.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Periyar Vision OTT app launched by Dravidar Kazhagam<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy , commonly known as Periyar or Thanthai Periyar, was an Indian social activist and politician who started the Self-Respect Movement and Dravidar Kazhagam. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":25242,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-25241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}