Who was Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy 'Periyar'

Periyar is considered to be the 'Father of the Dravidian Movement', he worked against the Brahminical dominance, caste prevalence, and women oppression in Tamil Nadu.

Megastar Rajinikanth who has courted controversy for his comments on noted social activist and politician  E V Ramasamy Periyar has refused to apologise for his comments, even as protests have broken out in Chennai against the actor's remarks demanding an apology from him.

The controversy is on Rajini's comment at the 50th-anniversary event of the weekly magazine Thuglak, where the 69-year-old actor lauded the magazine's founder late Cho Ramaswamy for carrying a story from 1971 rally in Salem, that was led by Periyar himself. Rajini stated that in the rally pictures of Lord Ram were garlanded with slippers and that Thuglak was the only magazine to carry the story. 

Who was Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy

Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy, commonly known as Periyar which means elder, was born on September 17, 1879 in Erode — then a part of the Coimbatore district of the Madras Presidency, he died on December 24, 1973 at the age of 94. He is considered to be the 'Father of the Dravidian Movement'. He worked against the Brahminical dominance, caste prevalence, and women oppression in Tamil Nadu.

He is credited to have started the Self-Respect Movement and is the founder of Dravidar Kazhagam. He promoted the principles of rationalism, self-respect, women’s rights and eradication of caste.

As hugely revered as Periyar is, he was an extremely controversial figure even when he was alive. He had joined the Congress party in 1919 but decided to quit the party in 1925 accusing it of being dominated by Brahmins. He floated his own party by the name Justice Party which was later renamed Dravidar Kazhagam. 

All the Dravidian political offshoots which exist today including AIADMK, DMK, DK, PMK, MDMK are based on his ‘anti-Brahminism’ and ‘anti-Hindi’ ideology that he pioneered. 

Periyar led several agitations to abolish caste, tell people to take pride in Tamil language and fought against the imposition of Hindi.

Periyar propagated the realisation that everyone is a created as equal and the differences on the basis of caste and creed were man-made to keep the innocent and ignorant as underdogs in the society. His speeches were targeted towards the illiterate masses but scores of educated people were also swayed by his ideology.