Periyar's writings on women were at the heart of his commitment to a radical concept of freedom. Periyar is known most not only for his atheism and radical critique of religion (Manoharan, 2022a) but also for his commitment and contribution to anti-caste thought and politics (Manoharan, 2020; 2022b). However, crucial, perhaps even central, to Periyar's politics of Self-Respect was his approach to the women's question. In this chapter, we discuss how Periyar's approach to the women's question was grounded not only in a rights-based discourse, but also in a freedom-based discourse; not just freedom from patriarchy, but also sexual freedom in a radically libertarian sense. More importantly, Periyar argued that freedom for women took priority over freedom from colonialism, and challenged patriarchal tendencies within Indian nationalism.

Scholars engaged with feminist politics have looked at the critical importance given to the women's question and gender in the Self-Respect Movement (SRM). In their readings on gender politics in India, Anandhi and Velayuthan (2010) highlight the ‘limitations in theory itself in dealing with diversities and subalternity’ and argue that in a scenario where gender intersects with caste and class, the theory and methods used ‘should generate knowledge from the margins’. While feminist scholars such as Uma Chakravarti (2018) and Sharmila Rege (2013) have discussed the intersections of caste and patriarchy, others who have studied the Periyarist politics of gender—Anandhi (1991), Geetha (1998), and Hodges (2005)—have meticulously captured what we very broadly call Self-Respect perspectives and made important contributions to the study of women’s politics of and from the margins of Tamil Nadu.

‘Periyar had hatred towards the Brahmins and preached violence against them.’ ‘Periyar favoured the powerful among the non-Brahmin castes.’ ‘Periyar sidelined the Dalits.’ These are the three main accusations against Periyar by his critics on the issue of caste. In an earlier paper (Manoharan, 2020), I have questioned the last two criticisms. In this chapter, I will address the first. Periyar was opposed to casteism in all its forms. In India, he identified the dominant form of casteism to be Brahminism, a ritual birth-based social hierarchy that derived legitimacy from scriptures, practices, traditions, and values associated with Hinduism and had material consequences. This led Periyar to be vehement in his criticism of the castes that were scripturally considered the highest, the Brahmins, and most sympathetic to the castes that were considered to be the lowest, the ‘untouchables’. He understood that caste had a secular–material dimension as well, which was interconnected to the ideological–ritual dimension.

Working in the historical context that he did in Tamil Nadu, Periyar's approach to caste identified three broad social categories—the Brahmins, the Dalits,1 and the ‘Shudras’. His primary target of criticism was the first, the Brahmins. This led to counter-accusations that he was unfairly targeting only one community for casteism. But as I have discussed earlier (Manoharan, 2022), he often challenged the non-Brahmins for internalizing casteism, for subscribing to notions of hierarchy over others, and for the lack of an egalitarian spirit.

This final chapter takes a closer look at how Indigenous peoples’ pasts were excluded from history research and teaching under the Japanese colonial regime. Imperial historians created an outside narrative – a mix of silencing and othering – that drew heavily on colonial tropes of difference and backwardness. As a result, Taiwanese–Japanese encounters were only reluctantly included in the otherwise expansive historiography of early modern foreign relations. This may seem a contradiction to Murakami’s fascination with Indigenous sources such as the Sinkan manuscripts. Sinkan manuscripts, which refer to land rental agreements concluded during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and are in itself colonial hybrids, mirrors his obsession with the discoverable written archive and thus another aspect of his scholarly colonialism.

Focusing on the implementation of southern seas history (nan’yō shi) at the Japanese imperial university in Taipei under Murakami’s tutelage, the chapter examines the effects of colonial knowledge practices on imperial Japan’s expansion into Southeast Asia. Drawing inspiration from postcolonial studies and decolonial thought, the chapter maps out how Murakami, along with his students and peers, researched, disseminated, and ultimately marginalized Indigenous and local agency in Southeast Asian and Taiwanese history. It examines the long-term historiographical effects of relying heavily on European colonial records, curricular and language choices, and a general overemphasis on Japanese historical agency.

Periyar's reading of social injustice was rooted in a set of conceptual insights on how power shapes economic relations in caste society. A proponent of socialism (samadharmam), he was however critical of the political priorities of mainstream left parties. To him, they failed to recognize the scope of caste-based power in shaping the economy. His insights on the nature of this power continue to unsettle and challenge more popular narratives of justice. Through a close reading of his own work and secondary sources, this chapter maps how Periyar's original conceptualization of power in India fed into his interpretation of the economic domain. Periyar held that status-based stratification and ideological hegemony exercised by caste elites fundamentally shape economic outcomes. The ritually sanctified division between mental and manual labour and their hierarchizing were particularly important to him. Periyar believed that economic justice can therefore be secured only through waging a counter-hegemonic struggle against caste-sanctioned hierarchies and the ideological apparatus that upholds such status-based stratification. The primary contention that the chapter makes is that in Periyar's political imaginary, the ‘economic’ was a sub-set of the ‘social’. Redistribution of economic power could not be sustained without addressing the social institutions that help reproduce economic hierarchies and concentrate economic power.

In 1928 a ‘friendship testimonial’ in the form of an obelisk was erected in the Japanese town of Onjuku in Chiba (see Figure P.1). The obelisk stands at the presumed site where the Spanish colonial official Don Rodrigo de Vivero (1564–1636) stepped ashore after being rescued from a shipwrecked journey from the Philippines to Mexico in 1609. This Prefectural Historic Monument, known as the Mexico Commemorative Tower, manifests historical ties with Chiba’s sister city Acapulco across the Pacific. A year after the construction of the obelisk, historian Murakami Naojirō (村上直次郎, 1868–1966) published a Japanese translation of Vivero’s memories of Japan.

This chapter presents Murakami Naojirō’s multifaceted life in chronological order. Providing details about Murakami’s educational background, career stages, and publication history, this chapter traces his imperial agendas and epistemological impact in East and Southeast Asia. It emphasizes the entangled nature of his life and work as a translator historian and scholar diplomat who held influential academic positions during the Japanese Empire, as well as his rehabilitation in Jesuit-led Christian history circles toward the end of his life. A variety of genres have been consulted to develop a comprehensive understanding of Murakami’s professional life across archives, universities, and government offices and how his various posts shaped the global circulation of knowledge.

This chapter focuses on Periyar and Tamil cinema, particularly early Tamil cinema of the 1930s and the cinema of the Dravidian ideologues whom he mentored. The purpose is to engage with what has generally remained a contested terrain because of the common perception of Periyar's aversion to mainstream cinema vis-á-vis the penchant of his chief lieutenants like C. N. Annadurai (Anna) and M. Karunanidhi for it. One of the main reasons for the split of his protegees from the party he founded, the Dravidar Kazhagam (Federation of Dravidians; DK), to form the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Federation for the Progress of Dravidians; DMK) was their investment in electoral politics. Periyar, being a social reformer, who was preoccupied with the upliftment of the people on the fringes, oppressed by the systemic entrenchment of caste, religion, and gender, had his priority on questioning the status quo and challenging reactionary and regressive forces. Therefore, electoral ambitions predicated on consensual or concessional politics and opportunistic coalitions were anathema to him (Venkatachalapathy, 2021). Conversely, the Dravidian ideologues of the split faction veered towards electoral politics and believed in the potential of popular cinema for disseminating Dravidian ideology as filtered through the lens of mass appeal to mobilize people with the resultant electoral gains in terms of votes. Thus, the fascination of commercial cinema was, one could argue, at the root of the contention between the leader and his close and trusted disciples.

Periyar, to many in Tamil Nadu, was an atheist and iconoclast who called out belief in gods, superstitions, and rituals. He, of course, was all of that. But despite his rejection, he had a close engagement with religion and his critique was rooted in a close reading of religious texts, practices, and the values they espoused. He also creatively drew upon extant critiques of religion, Vedic and Abrahamic, and scholarly debates of his times to propound an alternative humanist ethic rooted in justice and fraternity. This chapter maps the multiple sources of his critique of religion and outlines the contours of his call for an ethical life.

There was much overlap between Periyar's thoughts and the critiques of scripturally sanctioned hierarchies of caste by spiritual and secular thinkers, both those who preceded him and those who lived in his times. Even though he was influenced by modernist critiques of religion emerging from the West, it is important to note that his views were in line with a long lineage of materialist philosophical traditions in the subcontinent.

Periyar became a militant atheist only in his forties. It was his vehement criticism of Brahminical Hinduism that led to his position of atheism. Periyar, on several occasions, observed that he was least interested in talking about God and religion.

Introduction

In 1935, at a conference of Senguntha Mudaliars in Tiruppur, C. N. Annadurai (Anna, 1909–1969), then a twenty-six-year-old graduate, met E. V. Ramasamy (Periyar, 1879–1973). Impressed by the non-Brahmin youth who wanted to enter public life rather than seek a government job, Periyar was quick to take him under his wing. In less than three years, Anna was playing a major role in the Self-Respect Movement (SRM), becoming one of Periyar's chief lieutenants in the 1938–1939 anti-Hindi agitation which made the Dravidian movement a mass organization and effectively put Tamil assertion at the centre stage of politics. It was in the course of this mass-based agitation that the Justice Party was absorbed by the SRM and, in 1944, rechristened the Dravidar Kazhagam (DK). In 1949, Periyar's most brilliant protégé became his rival, breaking away to form the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). In 1967, the DMK dethroned the Indian National Congress (Congress). The intervening decades were marked by bitter hostility and rivalry between the DK and the DMK.

Immediately after the DMK's 1967 victory, there was a rapprochement. Since then, it has been customary to collapse the two into a unified Dravidian movement. The rivalry between the DK and the DMK has been completely elided by party ideologues, chroniclers, and historians.

Periyar's writings on women were at the heart of his commitment to a radical concept of freedom. Periyar is known most not only for his atheism and radical critique of religion (Manoharan, 2022a) but also for his commitment and contribution to anti-caste thought and politics (Manoharan, 2020; 2022b). However, crucial, perhaps even central, to Periyar's politics of Self-Respect was his approach to the women's question. In this chapter, we discuss how Periyar's approach to the women's question was grounded not only in a rights-based discourse, but also in a freedom-based discourse; not just freedom from patriarchy, but also sexual freedom in a radically libertarian sense. More importantly, Periyar argued that freedom for women took priority over freedom from colonialism, and challenged patriarchal tendencies within Indian nationalism.

Scholars engaged with feminist politics have looked at the critical importance given to the women's question and gender in the Self-Respect Movement (SRM). In their readings on gender politics in India, Anandhi and Velayuthan (2010) highlight the ‘limitations in theory itself in dealing with diversities and subalternity’ and argue that in a scenario where gender intersects with caste and class, the theory and methods used ‘should generate knowledge from the margins’. While feminist scholars such as Uma Chakravarti (2018) and Sharmila Rege (2013) have discussed the intersections of caste and patriarchy, others who have studied the Periyarist politics of gender—Anandhi (1991), Geetha (1998), and Hodges (2005)—have meticulously captured what we very broadly call Self-Respect perspectives and made important contributions to the study of women’s politics of and from the margins of Tamil Nadu.