science and self respect-periyar on modern science

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Economic & Political Weekly EPW april 3, 2010 vol xlv no 14 27

Science and Self-Respect:Periyar on Modern Science

Senthil Babu D

This essay seeks to understand

the place that modern science

occupied in Periyars political

discourse and what was the

nature o the science that was

constructed, in his reconstitution

o Dravidian politics.

Born E V Ramasamy Naicker in 1879

in a middle class amily in Erode,

Periyar gave up ormal schooling at

the age o 10 to help his amily business.

He took to religious mendicancy at the age

o 19 but soon gave it up, having become

sceptical o religious aith and practice; he

returned home soon, to abandon all aith

in religion.1 He took to active politics soon

ater. In a climate o increasing politicisa-

tion o the non-brahmin movement, he

joined the Congress and emerged as an

important non-brahmin leader in the

party. However, he quit the Congress Party

on grounds o brahminical discrimination

and started the Sel-Respect Movement

in 1925.2 Since then Tamil society wit-

nessed one o the most inuential propa-

gandist at work, with a declared political

agenda o no God, no Gandhi, no brahmin,

no religion.3 He championed the cause o

the socially oppressed through his sel-

respect movement and later with the or-mation o Dravidar Kazhagam in 1944.

His staunch radicalism and atheistic

sensibilities have been attributed to many

inuences. However, he seems to have been

inuenced by the American Free Thought

movement, especially R G Ingersoll.4 By

the sheer orce o his propaganda among

the Tamil people, with whom he remained

in constant touch through writings and

public speeches, Periyar remained a major

iconoclastic leader in Tamil politics till

his death in 1973.5 In act, it has been

pointed out that Periyars thoughts and

ideas could well be considered the

thoughts and strategies o the Dravidian

movement itsel.6

Rationalising Science

Periyars goal was a new Tamil republic.

He envisioned science to be endowed with

rationality, a rationality he was proessing

in the struggle or this new Tamil republic.

Science, in his case, was not genericallyounded on rationality but drew upon a

political discourse o rationality. Science

was seen to guarantee a rational belie in

progress, rendering in the process the

much-needed legitimacy or the ideal o

Tamil nationhood based on sel-respect.

Modern science seems to have been

eectively appropriated to enable such a

vision, at least the possibility o it. This

article tries to reconstruct this process oappropriation, with a sensitivity towards

both his political ideas and the terms in

which modern science was embedded in

his ideology.

Rationality or Periyar was character-

ised by understanding based on evi-

dence and its necessary anti-thesis was

non-empirical understanding7 religion

being the epitome o the latter. Religion,

the root cause o all existent evils, was

seen by him as undamentally invalid or

it did not contain the possibility o subject-

ing itsel to scrutiny, It is only knowledge

that could comprehend religion and not

vice versa.8 Religion and rationality, writ-

ten with a capital R, thereore were unda-

mentally irreconcilable. Such a materialis-

tic understanding was sought to be sub-

stantiated through a reading o history

where Periyar argued that the origin o re-

ligions was related to the evolution o dis-

ciplinary norms and rules in primitive so-

cieties. However, it was the elite, or theirselfsh interests, who legitimised religion

with the notion o god, which he termed

mans frst mistake. Further, with changes

over time, belies became dated and when

the intelligentsia sought to change the

ignorant masses reused, either persisting

with the old or creating new belies

through a process o selective appropria-

tion rom the old and addition o new

orms. This process invariably results in

religious conicts, leaving no space or the

growth o knowledge.9

For Periyar, in matters o this world and

in human social lie, there is no ruitul

purpose that could be expected o revel-

ling in the past with divine philosophies

that are only used to avert change.10 Laws

o such progress, then, dictate the nature

o change that knowledge systems under-

go. Accordingly, or him, it was science

that relocated causality in worldly matters

rom god to Man.11 I any society has

to progress, then, it is only scientifcknowledge and a scientifc way o lie

that could help attain the goal. There has

Senthil Babu D ([email protected]) is an

activist with the peoples science movement in

Tamil Nadu.


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COMMENTARY

april 3, 2010 vol xlv no 14 EPW Economic & Political Weekly28

been a progressive liberation o religious

belies with the growth o scientifc knowl-

edge, with various aspects o scientifc

endeavour becoming known to people,

including the illiterate masses, through

acts like artifcial rain, wireless and

telegraphy and other modes o communi-

cation. Vested interests in society, inorder to exercise their hegemony over the

masses, still perpetuate religious belies,

at times even using science to justiy their

irrational acts.12

It is due to the intervention o such

vested interests in society that institutions

like religion are sustained. Looking or

reasons that help such a process, Periyar

identifed the lack o rational thought

as one o the primary reasons. In act,

all extant evils inequality, ignorance,

enmity and dehumanisation could be

linked to this lack o rationality, which

subverts the core o social lie, that is, mu-

tual help.13 Social reorms, thereore, or

Periyar did not mean repairs here and

there to make things appear apparently

coherent but to enact new oundations.14

Periyars vision o the new Tamil republic

was strongly based on such an under-

standing o progress and change. What is

interesting is the manner in which he

envisioned the new republic.

Relieving the PastHow did such an understanding o soci-

etal progress bear upon Periyars own lo-

cation in the history o the Tamils? First, it

required Periyar to contend with the past

at two dierent levels. Reerring to the

Aryan invasion theory in the reading o

the Tamil past, he embarked on a criticism

o Sanskritic Hinduism, whose contempo-

rary embodiment were brahmins; and a

range o entities that included the Saivites,

theirPuranas and Tamil literature o the

past. Politically contesting these entities

in the present would also mean question-

ing their past. Periyar, not merely ques-

tioned but invalidated it15 or it was

the past that institutionalised social op-

pression and inequality. The past had

to be relinquished, in order to create

new oundations.

It was the Aryan invasion that subju-

gated the Dravidians as sudras and

sustained their subjection in the garb o

religion; thus Tamil society was subverted

in its march towards knowledge. That is

why, Tamil society, ...today stands patheti-cally unable to produce a Newton, Edison

or Marconi.16 On the other hand, the

Tamil past was also not all that glorious.

For, he asks, i our Rishis, Saints, Alwars

and Nayanmars had made a glorious past

or us, why is it that we are not even in a

position to manuacture a sheet o metal

that would not bend?17 The Saivites were

part o that past. Periyar made this clear

when he points out the trajectory that his

movement had taken.

We brought down upon ourselves the ury o

the Brahmins... who hated us or our disa-

greeable task o exposing them to masses.

Then came the Saivites (Saiva Siddhan-

thists), who were worse than the Brahmins

in the cruel suppression o the thousand

communities below them...18

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COMMENTARY


Thereore, i the goal o new Tamil re-

public was to be achieved, it could be pos-

sible only by relieving the people rom the

clutches o the past, which, in turn, meant

the recovery o sel-worth by the oppre-

ssed. Periyar thus denied any possibility o

a dialogue with the past because it was

incessantly brahminical and oppressive. Iit were so, where would the cultural

resources, including historical legitimacy,

necessary or the nation in the anticipa-

tory come rom?

It should be understood here that, Peri-

yars quest to invalidate the past was part

o his political programme to empower

the oppressed who were victims o this

very past. In such a context, political

empowerment would involve denying

authority not just to the conservatives/

status-quoists traditions, but to all construc-

tible traditions, thus leaving his utopian

projection as the only guide to action. It

would ollow that uture society would

have to be undamentally dierent rom

the past models. Historical legitimacy,

then, would have to be anchored upon a

new interpretation o history, a dierent

relationship between the past and the

present that, in his wider eorts to insti-

tute a new social order, simultaneously

renders current tradition alse and hismap o the uture as true.19

Periyar conceptualised such a philo-

sophy o history, wherein the local past is

set aside and the ocus is on civilisational

processes as a hallmark o history. In

civilisational terms, progress, rationality

and science were the prime movers. For

Periyar, a true history o world civilisation

would have to be read in terms o the

victory o the non-believers vis--vis the

believers. It was with the eorts o the

ormer, helped by modern science, that

the incorrect belies o the latter have

been exposed. However, such a civilisa-

tional march came at a price in the shape

o martyrs like Bruno, Galileo and

Copernicus.20 Lamenting the non-cogni-

sance o such developments among the

people, who had learnt nothing rom his-

tory and science, he urther explains

how inevitable it is to repose aith in

progress. Here, progress is associated not

merely with materialistic values but alsothe ever-changing values that had accom-

panied the civilisations march. For

instance, he delineates rom the past, the

changing centres upon which values have

been contingent upon in culture.

In the past to deliberate upon religion

and puranas were respectable values, that

acquired central place in that culture.

But today, they are replaced by matters

substantiated by practical evidencescience and scientists are most respected

today.21

Extending the same logic to political

realm, he argues that nationalism and pa-

triotism were things o the past, while in

the present values like world citizenship

and universal brotherhood were gaining

currency. Thereore, in his scheme o civi-

lisational advance, marked by develop-

ment o rationality and science, progress

was a never-ending process conditioned

by what he calls the taste o the times.

Then, values considered valid today

would be absurd in the uture; to use his

words, todays rational belies would be

tomorrows ignorance, including my own

legacy.22 It was this sel-reexivity that

gave Periyars political ideal its strength

and appeal. Such a aith in history and

rationality seems to have been the key

sustaining actor in the enormous task o

social reconstruction on the basis o

equality and justice....we have come to the painul but inevitable

conclusion that the task o thoroughly revo-

lutionising an age-old system in a country

o antiquated culture and habits cannot be

done eectively without taking a rationalist

view o lie.23

Colonial Conundrum

The anticipated Tamil nation then, in Peri-

yars understanding, would have to draw

its cultural resources or legitimisation

rom the human civilisational and its en-

gine o progress science, which is en-

dowed with rationality and has become a

cultural universal. This requires urther

qualifcation, or such a shaping o science

as a cultural universal was, at a dierent

level, also conditioned by the colonial

presence. This, we try and explain with an

eort to understand Periyars views on

language, was yet another important cul-

tural resource or him.

During the period under investigation,

the question o language was one o theprimary concerns upon which social con-

icts seem to have been enacted. Periyar,

also recognised the importance o lan-

guage, as a cultural resource and also be-

cause it was vital or the acquisition o

knowledge. His scathing critique o brah-

minical hegemony and the Saivite claims

was developed through the manner in

which he elucidated the language ques-

tion. He tried to undamentally alter theterms in which the language debates were

being conducted. One o the most com-

mon arguments, rom both sides, was the

antiquity o their languages, Sanskrit and

Tamil, respectively. For Periyar, who had

no reverence or the past per se, antiquity

o a language meant not pride and glory,

but the necessity o more reorms in

that language.24

He detested Sanskrit, or it epitomised

brahminical oppression. In act, he even

claimed that it was Sanskrit that carried

germs o some evils. Citing reasons or

this claim, he shows how words like jati

and kannigadhanam, or instance were

non-existent in Tamil meaning there

was no caste and womens oppression in

the then Tamil society. It were the Aryans,

who had brought with them such evils. So,

Sanskrit had to be rejected.25

Tamil was also likewise criticised.

Annoyed with the claims o antiquity o

Tamil over Sanskrit, he asks,

even i one concedes that Tamil was older

than the Aryan language, what has it done

to the Tamils. It is completely useless or

science...in the age o [the] spread o

science, Tamil has kept Tamilians in a world

o absurdities...what is there in Tamil that

enables us to understand the intricacies,

nuances and techniques involved in ex-

periments and in the constitution o proper

knowledge as in medicine, engineering

and law?26

However, Tamil had to be privileged

vis--vis Sanskrit not in terms o utilitari-

an values but on moral terms or, he

says ...there is no doubt that Tamil is

better than Sanskrit in terms o character

and purpose.27 But, it had to improve a

lot, i it was to play an enabling role in

empowering the oppressed. For Periyar,

in the given circumstances, it was knowl-

edge o English that was the required in

ounding the Tamil republic. In English,

Periyar conceived the best possible re-

sources knowledge. Thereore, English would make the Tamil society move

aster to the world o knowledge. English


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april 3, 2010 vol xlv no 14 EPW Economic & Political Weekly30

was seen as an embodiment o rationality

and science.

It is the English who introduced the tele-

graph, electricity, cinema, aeroplane, radio

and x-rays not Tamil or the northern lan-

guage that came and spoilt Tamil. Sanskrit,

its shastric and epical traditions enslaved

our rationality. English reed us rom slav-ery and subjected our thought to reason... it

has brought us to reject anything beyond the

bounds o rational thought, practical experi-

ence and history... In act, it would not be an

overstatement to say that it was English that

inused in us the quest or reedom.28

Thus, English, as a language would

make possible scientifc thought and a sci-

entifc way o lie. However, appropriation

o a particular language did not mean, or

him an unqualifed recognition o political

structures that come along with the lan-

guage. For Periyar, British rule among

many things was also a harbinger o mo-

dernity, but it was not spared o criticism.

Social issues were essentially political

in Periyars estimation.29 His critique o

colonialism was not on the plane o know-

ledge but on moral terms. He says,

the record o the English is also not so

clean. Their history shows how much worse

they had been in matters o religion, than

us. But where did their Gods and priests go?

They are here. They were packed o rom

England to be sent here along with provisionor maintenance costs.30

The Englishmen at home instead in-

volved themselves in scientifc research

leading to progress. While he was critical

o colonialism,31 Periyar, on the other

hand decidedly overlooked the contradic-

tion, or what matters was the utility o a

particular language, not beauty or any

other values. For the sake o acquisition

o knowledge there could be no bounda-

ries, be it linguistic or territorial. There

exists no appropriate word, book or

language or the acquisition o knowl-

edge,32 or knowledge is universal. As

mentioned earlier we see how Periyar

builds up the image o science endowed

with rationality as a cultural universal.

Thus, a local culture in the process o

knowledge appropriation reconstitutes

particular images and values associated

with science. It ollowed that the antici-

pated Tamil nation should also contribute

towards the march o civilisation. TheTamil nation, then had to create ...a liter-

ature unbounded by religion, a universal

literature of natural knowledge, an irrefu-

table literature of science.33

Periyars politics was characteristically

made distinct by the concept o Sel-Re-

spect, that is, sel-worth and dignity or

the socially oppressed, who had lost it in

the past due to brahminical hegemony.

The idea o a new Tamil republic then wasundamentally contingent on this notion

o sel-respect a polity where there was

no place or inequality and oppression.

The anticipated Tamil nation would be an

embodiment o sel-respect; the move-

ment to achieve this goal would be an em-

bodiment o rationalism. Thus, the ideal

o sel-respect and rationality were to

empower each other.

Purposive Pedagogy

The purpose o education was to inculcate

sel-respect and rationality. Periyar devel-

ops his critique o the education system on

this basis. The education system, being a

communicative process, was ideological

the ideologies being determined by

learned elite/upper caste who try and sub-

vert the process o education by legitimis-

ing religiosity and nationalism. This sys-

tem produced learned men who were

slaves o such ideologies. Moreover, the

prevailing pedagogic system was wrought with contradictions between textbooks

and lie experience.34 Rejecting education

based on books that does not serve the

purpose o inculcating knowledge, Periyar

envisaged alternative pedagogic strate-

gies. Such an alternative conception was

anchored on teachers, or it was they who

get implicated in machinery that perpetu-

ates ignorance. The lieline o education

was thereore dependent on a set o

rational minded teachers who could

abide by the results o knowledge and

defnitely not on the so-called pandits

who, with their obsession with the past,

could only work against change.

They could never encourage research that

could lead to newer and newer discoveries,

or their complacent and sel-envisaged

task would orever remain studying the

Tolkkapiyam.35

He also pleaded or extra-institutional

mechanisms or inculcation o scientifc

knowledge, which he saw as a part andparcel o ones popular culture. In parti-

cular, he stressed the importance o

exhibitions scientifc and otherwise.

Exhibitions meant the public display o

machines, technologies and discoveries

which would then help in the process o

making scientifc rationality and its end

technology accessible to the whole o

society, which at the moment was only at

the hands o a ew. Scientifc knowledgewill have to be recovered rom the elite to

be relocated at the public domain.36

Periyar, inuenced by socialist doctrines,37

also believed that technology which

could provide leisure to labour had been

subverted by the capitalists who control

it.38 The role o technical education was

equally stressed, that would properly ac-

commodate the varying interests o stu-

dents rom dierent social backgrounds.39

Thus ar, we have tried to show that sci-

ence, as an embodiment o rationality was

to ratiy a New World order.40 In the

process it assumes distinctive roles and

embodies particular values that would

suit the needs o a radical political agen-

da. To this extent it was instrumental

knowledge. But it was also seen as a cul-

tural universal, made possible by the con-

struction o an alternative philosophy o

history marked by progress on a civilisa-

tional plane. The dialogue that Periyar en-

tered into with modern science was on hisown terms, wherein science, embodied in

a political discourse o rationality, legiti-

mated his vision o a new Tamil republic.

In this mode o dialogue, interestingly, e-

orts at domesticating new knowledge de-

nied any place or the indigenous tradi-

tions o knowledge or they were all over-

whelmingly brahminical and oppressive.41

Freedom was thus interlocked with ra-

tionality and reeing onesel rom the

clutches o the intolerable past.

I the brahmin could take to science as

occupations, without imbibing the culture

and the values associated with its source,

the anti-brahminical discourse then, re-

constitutes a social order where hierar-

chies could only be dependent on who is

more rational and who is less.42 Science

then was not generically ounding ration-

ality but drawing upon a primarily politi-

cal discourse o rationality. In this case,

solutions to the problem o social order

are to be modeled on knowledge. Theprotagonist delineates what meaningul

knowledge could be and what absurd,


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COMMENTARY


within the public space, which is also

simultaneously a cultural domain. For the

practices involved in the generation and

justifcation o knowledge were them-

selves assigned political credence, a possi-

bility that emerges out o a society that was

trying to come to terms with its present.

Against such a background o culturalconsolidation, what happens to institution-

alisation and proessionalisation o modern

science in indigenous society? Speaking

or this particular case, it seems that the

agenda was to postpone it till the birth o the

new nation. Perspective rom the studies o

science and colonialism seems to indicate

that nationalism was oten an important

stimulant in the process o institutionali-

sation. However, at least in this case, when

nationalism was sought to be subverted,

institutionalisation was to occur in the

uture. When utopian projections become

the only possible guide or action and when

simultaneously, any recourse to the past

was to be blocked using a reading o the

past, in terms o its local, particular, tran-

sient causes and contexts, the radical thus

rees himsel o any criticism o judgment.43

How could, then, one say that science was

domesticated, but incompletely so?

Notes

1 For a detailed biography, see Sami Chidambaranar(1983).

2 For Periyar s emergence in Dravidian politics, seeNambi Arooran, Tamil Renaissance and Dravidian

Nationalism 1905-44, Koodal publishers, 1980,Madurai: 152-251.

3 S Chidambaranar, op cit, p 85.

4 The inuence o American ree thought in theconstitution o Dravidian nationalism is best doc-umented in B Rajannan (1978).

5 A closer look at Periyar s lie is rendered by AnithaDiehl (1978).

6 S Chidambaranar (1983), op cit, p 21.

7 V Anaimuthu (ed.), Thoughts of Periyar E V R,1974, Thinker s Forum, Trichy, Vol II: 1062.

8 V Anaimuthu (ed.), (1974), Vol II: 1166.9 Ibid, p 1054.

10 Ibid, p 961.

11 Ibid, p 1052.

12 Ibid, p 1053, passim.

13 Ibid, p 1116.

14 Ibid, p 1065.

15 M S S Pandian, Denationalising the Past Nation in E V Ramasamys Political Discourse,

Economic & Political Weekly, 6 October 1993.

16 V Anaimuthu, op cit, p 972.

17 Ibid, p 1122.

18 V Anaimuthu (ed.), (1974), op cit, Vol I, pp XV-XVI.

19 For interesting parallels in the context o EuropeanRenaissance, see Stephen Pumrey, The Renais-sance Science o History in S Pumrey et al (1991).

20 V Anaimuthu (1974), Vol II, p 1128.

21 Ibid, p 1152.

22 Ibid, p 1120.

23 V Anaimuthu, (1974), Vol I, pp XV-XVI.

24 V Anaimuthu, (1974), Vol II, p 960.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid, pp 987-92.

27 Ibid, p 989.

28 Ibid, pp 970-71.

29 For Periyar, society and politics were not two di-erent entities that they had to be dealt with sepa-rately. He says, since politics encompasses every-thing that is borne on the people and thereoresociety including economy, education, business,

industry, knowledge and so on...to separate thetwo is to negate social change...it is the minoritythat rules that has a vested interest in separatingthe two, ibid, p 309.

30 Ibid, p 1094.

31 For a more recent reading o Periyar s standpointtowards colonialism and the language question,see M S S Pandian (1996).

32 V Anaimuthu (1974), op cit, p 1000.

33 V Aniamuthu (1974), op cit, p 977 (emphasis added).

34 Ibid, p 1178.

35 The Tolkkapiyam is an ancient Tamil treatise ongrammar and linguistics, ibid, p 1250.

36 Ibid, p 1211.

37 Espec ially ater he undertook a tour to Russia andother countries in Europe. He considered atheismas the organising principle o Soviet Russia. For a

discussion, on his brie encounter with communismsee S V Rajadurai and V Geetha (1996).

38 V Araimuthu (1974), Vol II, p 1117.

39 Ironically, the DK o today runs coaching classes orUPSC examinations. Perhaps bureaucratic structures

would legitimate a Tamil republic, yet to arrive.

40 Arnold Thackray (1974).

41 Dhruv Raina postulates three hypothetical stageso assimilation. One, the auto-didact situated inindigenous systems o knowledge and pedagogicallytrained in modernity who assigns himsel the tasko setting up the terms dialogue; two, the auto-didactbecomes proessional and becomes a participant inthe nationalistic struggle; and three, science comeso age on its own with the First Science Congress.Would political appropriation in popular culture,ollow any such pattern at all, seems to be a chal-

lenging task to answer. See Dhruv Raina (1997).42 V Anaimuthu (ed.), (1974), Vol II, p 1052. Periyar

demarcates the possibility o only three types obelie in society less rational, rational and morerational the scientist representing the extremeright o the spectrum.

43 Pumrey while discussing the various ways thathistoricism was used by conservatives and radi-cals, points out how they were all part o(a) changes in Renaissance culture and belies,and (b) ideological conicts. His interpretation oradical historicists is paralleled with Periyar,here. S Pumrey, The Renaissance Science oHistory in S Pumrey, 1991, op cit, see note 19.

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REVIEW OF WOMENS STUDIESOctober 31, 2009

The Law, Gender and Women Kalpana Kannabiran

Nonconformity Incarnate: Women with Disabilities,

Gendered Law and the Problem of Recognition M Pavan Kumar, S E Anuradha Indian Muslim Women, Politics of Muslim Personal

Law and Struggle for Life with Dignity and Justice Razia Patel

Bringing Rights Home: Review of the Campaign for a Law on Domestic Violence Indira Jaising

Conjugal ity, Property, Moralit y and Maintenance Flavia Agnes

Women, Forestspaces and the Law: Transgressing the Boundaries Sagari R Ramdas

Womens Land Rights in South Asia: Struggles and Diverse Contexts Meera Velayudhan

Outside the Realm of Protective Labour Legislation:Saga of Unpaid Labour in India Padmini Swaminathan

Judicial Meanderings in Patriarchal Thickets: Litigating Sex Discrimination in India Kalpana Kannabiran

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science and self respect-periyar on modern science

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