Dr. Soma Ilangovan,
President, Periyar International, USA
UNESCO on June 27th1970 gave a citation. “Periyar the Prophet of the New Age, the Socrates of South East Asia, Father of the social reform movement and arch enemy of ignorance; superstitions; meaningless customs and base manners”.
The prophets of the various religions spoke of what god told them! But Periyar the only Prophet after Buddha told men what he learned from watching with his own eyes and thinking with his own brain! Life’s experience with knowledge gained gave Buddha and Periyar the courage of their convictions to tell their fellow men and women how to live a better life filled with happiness for themselves and others.
His basic ideology is Humanism. His Humanism consists of ideas that all are equal, man should have self respect and one should treat others as he or she would like to be treated by others. The imbedded inequality on the basis of caste was cruel and evil. The basics of varna supposedly created by god himself who could not change it even if he wanted to was the most inhuman statement made to men and women. The inherent slavery of women as only objects to serve men for their needs puts half the population in an inhuman life.
His search to eradicate these led him to where religious leaders were hiding that is behind god who was created by theses same people to master the rest of the population. Self respect does not completely translates what he called “suya mariathai” in Tamil. It means more. It means not only respect but a certain pride and self confidence that no one is superior. We will embark on spreading these ideologies around the world only for one reason and that is , it is our duty to society !
We will use the only omnipresent and omnipotent that we know that is the cell phone and the social media and the likes of which that the world is communicating freely today. We will invite young people all over on these principles of living together in the noble way of equality and justice. We will conduct International conferences and who knows may be one day have our own Noble Prize for Social Justice and even an Olympic Competition.Who ever or the team that has done the best to carry the torch of Social Justice in the most competitive way will win !
The Social Media’s power to spread the message will be utilized well and the Humanism which will be the only “ism” that will survive will bring happiness to one and all! Long live Periyar!
Dr. Sithanandam Sadhasivam,
Maryland, USA
I am happy to be among the like minded intellectuals and friends. The German philosopher spoke that there is no God, optimistically much to the opposition of the religious fundamentalist still harboured on it and told bodly, ‘God is dead’. It is the myth and the time will tell, that the body of the dead god is removed. He was hopeful optimistic god is dead and rationalism is the future and humanism flourishes. In this background, think over Periyar. Periyar was the first to break the myth and proclaimed that everyone is equal, there is no god and don’t waste time.
