The early twentieth century forged an enduring conversation between Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, a dialogue of dissent and dignity that travelled across regions through ideas, writings, and movements. Social justice leaders and reformist currents from Maharashtra profoundly influenced the Non-Brahmin movement in the then Madras Presidency, shaping its moral vocabulary and political courage. Those historic connections were consciously recalled and reanimated during the Self-Respect Movement Centenary Conference held on 3rd and 4th January 2026 at the Bright High School campus, Bhandup (West), Mumbai. Over two days, the conference unfolded as remembrance and renewal, stitching together the past’s unfinished arguments with the present’s urgent demands.
Tamil Session, Honours, and a Moral Reckoning
The first evening’s Tamil session set the tone with warmth and purpose. In a hall filled with delegates from Mumbai and Tamil Nadu, the centenary was marked not by ceremony alone but by recognition of service. P.Ganesan, President of Mumbai Dravidar Kazhagam presided over the conference.
Veteran Periyar activists N. V. Shanmugarajan, A. Balasubramaniam, K. Dharmalingam, R. Omprakash (Pune), Gnana Ayyappillai, and S. P. Chezhiyan were honoured with the Periyar Award, presented by K. Veeramani, President of the Dravidar Kazhagam. The awards acknowledged lives spent translating principle into practice, affirming that movements endure because ordinary people persist extraordinarily.
As the evening progressed, eight resolutions were drafted and read aloud, culminating in a collective endorsement that rippled through the hall. The resolutions called upon the Tamil Nadu Government to enact an Anti-Superstition Act on the lines of Maharashtra; demanded pathways for reservation benefits for migrant Tamils in their states of residence; urged the Union Government to operationalise the 33 percent reservation for women; insisted on restoring the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme to its original spirit; pressed for Union Government schemes to be issued in state languages rather than only in Sanskrit; demanded social-justice-based reservations in judicial appointments; and appealed to Tamils to name their children in Tamil. Moved by S. Kumaranarasan, the resolutions were adopted with resounding applause, the hall briefly becoming a parliament of conscience.
When K. Veeramani addressed the gathering later that night, his words braided history with instruction. He spoke of the pride in celebrating the centenary on Maharashtrian soil and recalled thePhules and ShahuMaharajas architects whose influence seeded the non-Brahmin movement in Tamil Nadu. He reflected on Periyar’s decisive break from office to public life, offering it as a lesson in ethical leadership. The hall erupted when he marked 3 January 2026 as the 196th birth anniversary of Savitribai Phule, a reminder that revolutions often wear the quiet clothes of education. His insistence that Periyar’s ideas spread like science itself, unstoppable, closed the night on a note of resolve.
The English Session, Ideas in Conversation
The second day opened with an English session designed to place the Self-Respect Movement in a wider intellectual frame. Chaired by S. Kumaranarajan, Chairman of the Lemuriya Foundation, Mumbai, the session gathered voices from law, labour, media, medicine, and activism. The keynote address traced how self-respect functions as an ethical engine, turning dignity into policy and equality into institutional practice.
Among the speakers, Yeshwant Chaware, associated with Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Samsodan – Aani Prakashan Sansth reflected on constitutional morality and the distance between law on paper and justice on the ground. Former Rajya Sabha Secretariat Joint Secretary S. N. Sahu, Advocate Suresh Mane, President of the Bahujan Republican Socialist Party, Vivek Kumar, Union Bank OBC Employees Welfare Association of Maharashtra, Muktha Dabolkar, Sub-Editor at Andhashradha Nirmulan Vartapatra, Social Activist Aishwarya Balakrishnan, M.D., had delivered theist thought provoking speeches.
The Chief Guest, Dr.K. Veeramani, drew the threads together. He reminded the audience that the Dravidian movement had engaged Maharashtra’s social politics for nearly a century, even as Jyotirao Phule had planted these ideas two centuries earlier. Citing the Justice newspaper’s 1927 editorial condemning Aryan dominance at Shivaji’s coronation and recalling C. N. Annadurai’s writings on Shivaji, he underlined a long-standing southern attentiveness to Maharashtrian debates. “We are in Tamil Nadu, you are in Maharashtra,” he said to applause, “but we are one family raising our voice for social justice.” His practical maxim followed: expand what unites us; ignore what divides us.
The Marathi Session, Translation as Solidarity
The evening transformed into a Marathi-language session, signalling not a change of audience but an expansion of it. The hall filled with Tamil and Marathi-speaking participants who listened closely as rationalist arguments crossed linguistic bridges. A.Ravichandran, President of the Mumbai Rationalists Association, inaugurated the session in Marathi, setting a tone of shared inquiry. Addresses followed from Bhimrao, Sudesh Koderav, Periyar Bala, Treasurer of the Mumbai Dravidar Kazhagam, and Rajaram Patil.
To ensure that ideas travelled freely across languages, A.Ravichandran and Siddharthan offered concise Tamil summaries of the Marathi speeches. The atmosphere was electric yet attentive, applause punctuating points on non-Brahmin rights and rationalist ethics. When K. Veeramani delivered the concluding address, the session found its moral cadence. He recalled the 1929 Self-Respect Conference held in Maharashtra under the Samaj Samata Sangh, where Dr. B. R. Ambedkar spoke and five thousand comrades participated including lot of women, a fact recorded in Periyar’s Revolt. He revisited moments of defiance by Sahu Maharaj and warned against attempts to appropriate Ambedkar’s legacy. The labour of comrades, he affirmed, never goes in vain; rights are won through struggle; a new social-justice society must be built by courage.
Valediction: Voices, Youth, and the Measure of Success
Before the final close, V. C. Vilvam, one of the coordinators, invited participants to share reflections. Stephen Ravikumar, affectionately described by the President as a “Dravidian Bishop,” and R. Tamilselvan, State President of the Tamil Nadu Rationalists Association, offered thoughtful responses. Children from Tamil Nadu spoke on Periyar, while Mumbai’s Periyar Buds Arivumalar and Senthamizh Arasi were honoured for exemplary fieldwork. Every publication brought from Tamil Nadu sold out, a quiet but telling index of the conference’s reach.
Afterword: A Century That Refuses to Sit Still
The Self-Respect Movement’s centenary in Mumbai did not behave like an anniversary. It behaved like a workshop of the future. Maharashtra’s formative influence on Tamil Nadu’s social justice movements was thus recalled successfully
