Periyar

Thanthai Periyar was born in Erode. A rationalist par excellence, he spent the better part of his life in his efforts to root out superstitious and irrational beliefs. An atheist, he staunchly opposed belief in God.

Born in a well-to-do family, he managed his family business. His increasingly unorthodox views led to frequent misgivings with his parents, especially his religiously devout mother. He embarked on a trip to Varanasi, which would change the course of his life.

The incident at Varanasi, where he had to eat the rejected food is too well-known to be recounted here. Rest as they is history.

On returning to Tamil Nadu, he became the District Collector of Erode. As the father figure of Erode, he implemented many welfare schemes and fought the vested interests in favour of the common man.

Soon, he started gaining fame for his efforts and met Mahatma Gandhi on many occasions.

He visited Russia and other countries and he gained invaluable knowledge of life outside Tamil Nadu and India, that would prove decisive in molding his beliefs. He extolled the so-called backward sections of the society to shun their identities, which he believed had been unjustly imposed on them to stall their progress and deny them any access to knowledge of any kind. Periyar encouraged them to move to other countries, where they will be accepted on par with other members of the society, without any prejudice or bias, that were widely prevalent in those times in India.

He encouraged Kamaraj to take up the leadership of TN as the CM. Kamaraj publicly acknowledged Periyar as his leading beacon. Kamaraj during his 3 term tenure as the CM, single-handedly transformed the face of TN forever. More on Kamaraj here.

Periyar lived out his entire life, fighting the social evils. When the inevitable end came at the age of 95, Periyar had done more for the oppressed people in TN than any other individual had ever done.

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