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PERIYAR PREDICTED IN 1925
A social reform question which figured in the columns of The Hindu in April, 1925, was the controversy over the functioning of the Tamil Gurukula Vidyalaya at Shermadevi in Trinnevelly District conducted by V.V.S.Aiyer, one time revolutionary and associate of Bharati. Dr.Varadarajulu Naidu and other non- Brahmin leaders had objected to non-Brahmin boys of the institution being asked to take their meals separately. The matter went to Gandhiji who advised interdining but employment of Brahmin cooks. Dr.Varadarajulu Naidu was not satisfied with this arrangement as he did not like the condition about employing Brahmin cooks. He asked for the return of money subscribed to the funds of the Gurukula. In a letter published in The Hindu on April 15, V.V.S.Aiyer said that except in the case of two Brahmin boys in the case of all other Brahmin and non-Brahmin students there was common dining, and he made it clear that no Brahmin taken into the Gurukula thereafter would be given any exemption from the general mess. Speaking at a public meeting at Salem, E.V.Ramaswami Naicker said they must settle the Brahmin question even while the British supremacy lasted, otherwise they would have to suffer under the tyranny of what he called “Brahmnocracy”…The controversy was one of the contributing factors for E.V.Ramaswami Naicker drifting away from the Congress and later forming an organization of his own whose avowed objective was to eliminate Brahmins and Brahmin influence in Tamil Nadu.
Courtesy : ‘A Hundred Years of The Hindu’
published by Kasturi & Sons Ltd.
Brahminism
If today the Hindu society in general is sunk in the quagmire of corruption, nepotism and immorality, much of the blame should be apportioned to the brahmanas themselves.
…..except for keeping the Vedic fires and studying or teaching the Vedas, they (sudras) were allowed to live a decent life like any other member of the Aryan Society. And, they were certainly entitled to the acquisition of spiritual knowledge and wisdom, though not through the vedas, but through the secondary works like the itihasas and the puranas.
Source : ‘The Caste System – A Monograph’, Swamy Harshanada, published by Ramakrishna Math,
Bangalore – 560 019, Second Edition, December 2000. – Page 29.
THE PREDICTION A REALITY EVEN IN 2016
Periyar believed if you are sincere about an independent India, it must be independent of caste – Dr.K.Veeramani, President, Dravidar Kazhagam
For followers of Periyar E.V.Ramasamy, however, the day meant a transfer of power from the “British to the brahmins and baniyas”. “It was not Independence in the true sense. That was why our party workers hoisted black flags to mourn the day. Even in Chennai, we wore black shirts in protest. Our protest did not go down well with many and our party workers were attacked by hooligans in Cuddalore and Tirunelveli,” says K.Veeramani, president of Dravidar Kazhagam.
Defending that stand, Veeramani says his organization had a legitimate right to oppose the departure of the British from the country at that point of time as they left without settling the issue of casteism. “Dravidar Kazhagam followers will not participate in the Independece day celebrations. They will boycott it,” he quotes Periyar as saying in a statement on August 9, 1947.
Stating that Periyar believed more on social integration than national integration he says, “He believed that if you are sincere about an independent India, it must be independent of caste.”
Courtesy : ’The Times of India’ -15th August 2016
