Periyar’s Message Spreads Across The World
The ideas and ideals, the values and principles of Periyar are
steadily spreading far and wide. The fact that year after year
increasing number of people in different parts of the world enthusiastically participate in his birth-day celebrations is an indication of the growing awareness and acceptance of the views and the way of life he advocated.
Seminars and celebrations are organised to discuss the services and views of Periyar in Canada, America, United Kingdom, Gulf countries, Myanmer , Malaysia, Singapore etc., besides the various states in India. In Tamilnadu, the state in which he was born, brought up and where he mainly carried on his activities, not a day passes without some meeting or other is conducted to spread his message.
Adopting all kinds of constitutional and democratic means, Dravidar Kazhagam works with zeal and sense of duty to see his noble ideas and ideals reach all the people in Tamilnadu, in other states and in other parts of the world. The daily and the magazines he had been running are now modernized. They are: Viduthalai, the Tamil rationalist daily, Unmai, the Tamil fortnightly and The Modern Rationalist, the monthly. (An additional edition of Viduthalai has been started two years ago in Tiruchirappalli).Periyar Pinju, a Tamil monthly for boys and girls, is being published since a few years ago.
Audio and Video relays are made using internet facilities to explain Periyar’s ideas, to indicate how they are propagated and to show their beneficial impact.
Several volumes of Periyar’s writings and speeches have been regularly brought out as popular and library editions. Several thousand copies of the books are sold through depots as well as mobile facilities.
Kudi Arasu, the Tamil weekly, edited by Periyar from 1925 to 1949 entirely changed the outlook and revolutionized the thinking of the Tamil People. His ideas published in those volumes are now being chronologically published in compact volumes.
More and more translations of Periyar’s works in English and in other languages like Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi and French are being brought out.
Periyar Public Trusts maintain medical care and run educational institutions in Chennai, Tiruchirappalli and Thanjavur. From the primary school to the university thousands of boys and girls get quality education upto post graduate level. They have received encomiums from dignitaries like V.P.Singh, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi besides academicians from within and outside the country.
Beasides the Periyar Centre in Chennai, those in Delhi are proud additions to reach out to wider circle.
Thus Periyar is globalised surely and steadily. He is needed to cure the ills of the world. His Self-Respect philosophy will serve as an appropriate basis to build a brave new world free from injustice, inequity, cruelty, superstition, fear, hunger, disease, poverty etc.
He began his public life to fight against man made psychological instruments of human exploitation in the form of unquestioning faith in God, religion and scriptures. They created mental shackles in the form of soul (Atma), rebirth, doctrine of Karma and fate. The very victims of suppression and exploitation accepted their lowly condition as pre-ordained and divinely ordered. Periyar undertook the task of awakening and uplifting such people by instilling the spirit of self-respect, self-help, free thought and equal respect for all humans, without any sense of inequality based on birth.
Periyar began his service amidst stiff opposition. His friends advised him not to critise God, religion and scriptures. If he gave up his rationalist views he could soon gain great popularity, they counseled. But Periyar did not want to become popular by giving up the task of spreading truth. He was sure that people will realise in future that there is no God, and that true morality is not based on religion. He was confident that secular humanism will win the day. And he is proving to be prophetic.
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