Periyar E. V. Ramasamy Quotes (47 quotes)

Cho Ramaswamy's remarks quoted in India Today in Builders & Breakers For the People http://www.india-today.com/itoday/millennium/100people/durai.html. About Periyar

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy Quotes

“Man treats woman as his own property and not as being capable of feelings, like himself. The way man treats women is much worse than the way landlords treat servants and the high-caste treat the low-caste. These treat them so demeaningly only in situations mutually affecting them; but men treat cruelly and as slaves, from their birth till death.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Quoted in [.http://books.google.co.in/books?id=ibnZAAAAMAAJ Indian Journal of Social Development: An International Journal, Volume 7], p220.
Marriage

“If god is the root cause for our degradation destroy that god. If it is religion destroy it. If it is Manu Darma, Gita, or any other Mythology (Purana), burn them to ashes. If it is temple, tank, or festival, boycott them. Finally if it is our politics, come forward to declare it openly.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Veeramani, January 1981 (2005) Collected Works of Periyar E.V.R., Third Edition, Chennai. The Periyar Self-Respect Propaganda Institution, p. 489.
Society

“There is no use of simply acquiring titles or amassing wealth if one has no self-respect and scientific knowledge.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Quoted in “Collected works of Periyar E.V.R.” p. 511.
Society

“We do not need to explain how the Aryans entered and settled in the Dravidian country (tira¯vit»a na¯» t»u), and subjugated and oppressed the Dravidians. Nor do we need to explain how before the Aryans entered the Dravidian country, the Dravidian country had a civilization and arts of the highest rank.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Periyar in Periyar & Pseudohistory Thanthai Periyar EVR http://www.thanthaiperiyar.org/special-pages/pseudohistory/ a pseudohistorical propaganda. Aryanism

“I am accused of ruining the world. What is it I am going to gain by ruining the world? I do not understand what the Brahmin devotees actually feel. Will anyone carry on propaganda to ruin the world? I hope they would soon think with reason.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Brahminism

“Money lending is a horrible profession. If we are to call it otherwise it is lawful plundering.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, p. 514.
Reform

“If we have a girl at home who has attained puberty, some one should come and ask for alliance. Otherwise the girl will have to remain a virgin only. But in a Brahmin’s house if there is a girl who has attained puberty the Brahmin will go from door to door seeking a bridegroom. This is the difference between the Aryan and the Dravidian customs.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, p. 517.
Aryanism

“When the purpose of clearly exposing the differences between the Aryan and the Tamil culture, civilization, conduct and creed Thirukkural was written. I am of that firm view.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Society

“Whomsoever I love or hate, my principle is the same. That is, the educated, the rich and the administrators should not suck the blood of the poor.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Quoted in Quotes of Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, Velivada.com
Society

“You cannot expect any rational thought from a religious man. He is like a rocking log in water.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Quoted in “Collected works of Periyar E.V.R.” p. 50.
Rationalism

“As long as we give room for domination and the dominators, there will be worries and worried people. Poverty and pestilence will live eternally in the country”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Quoted in “Collected works of Periyar E.V.R.”, p. 54.
Society

“I have not talked of anything to despise the Brahmins, just because they are born as Brahmins.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, p. 517.
Brahminism

“We see morality in speeches and writings. We do not find it in practice. We are having different regulations for the males and the females. Our code of conduct is unfair to women. Child marriage is abolished. If there is right to divorce, right for widows to remarry and if women are now given certain rights, we will not see prostitution in the country. It will gradually disappear.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, p. 512.
Marriage

“Wisdom lies in thinking. The spear-head of thinking is rationalism”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Quoted in Collected works of Thanthai Periyar E.V. Ramasami [sic http://books.google.co.in/books?id=edx4AAAAIAAJ, Volumes 1-11], p. 49. Rationalism

“A male has the right to wander about as he pleases. He has the right to marry any number of girls. This practice has led to prostitution.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, p. 513.
Marriage

“The word ‘Sudra’ which means ‘Son of prostitute’ should not find a place even in the history hereafter. We will not allow it to find a place in the dictionary or encycl”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

In the Collected Works of Periyar E.V.R., p. 490.
Society

“As there was no open opposition to Aryanism from the beginning, it grew in stages and made us degraded”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Quoted in Collected Works of Thanthai Periyar E.V. Ramasami, Volume 1 http://books.google.co.in/books?id=I2xDAAAAYAAJ, p. 56. Aryanism

“Village reform is not merely cleaning the roads, constructing schools and worshipping monasteries. It is not mere celebration of festivals.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, p. 513.
Reform

“Because our ladies mostly attend Kalatshepams, (Religious discourses) they have fallen prey to the superstitions, blind beliefs, and immorality by the false and fictituous propaganda of the Brahmins”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Quoted in Collected Works of Periyar E.V.R., p. 517.
Society

“There should be no differentiation amongst the people. All should be treated as equals. On this basis the Brahmin must give up his false prestige. In the interest of the society. I say that the blind beliefs should be given up. If the newspapers “Hindu” and the “Swadesamitran” carry on false propaganda that I am communal, I am not responsible for that.””

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, p. 518.
Society

“By helping the poor, we must be able to remove their poverty. By extending help to one here and one there in the form of providing food will not remove poverty”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

In Collected works of Periyar E.V.R. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=7iFuAAAAMAAJ, p. 489. Society

“While all men are born as equals, to say that Brahmins alone are the highest and all others are low as Pariah (the Untouchables) or Panchama is sheer nonsense. It is roguish to say so. It is a big hoax played on us”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Quoted in “Collected works of Periyar E.V.R.”, p. 482.
Brahminism

“Marriages should culminate on account of the wishes of the couple. It is their knitting of the hearts that should lead to marriages.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, pp. 518 & 519.
Marriage

“Foreigners are sending messages to the planets. We are sending rice and cereals to our dead fore-father through the Brahmins. It is a wise deed?”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, p. 511.
Rationalism

“Brahmins cannot hope to claim a high and superior status forever. Times are changing. They have to come down. Then only they could survive with dignity. Otherwise they will one day be forfeiting their high status. It will not be by force. It will be just laws of the land and the people.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Veeramani, Collected Works of Periyar, p. 516.
Brahminism

“It gave me extraordinary pleasure to fling at the pundits their own contradictions and Thus perplex Them. It also gave me the reputation, among our neighbours of being a clever speaker. I believe that it was this experience which deprived me of faith in castes and communities, in religion, in "puranas", in "sastras" and in god.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Brahminism Source: Quoted in Rationalist /Social Reformer http://www.uni-giessen.de/~gk1415/periyar.htm

“The enormous privileges given to Brahmins by the Vedas were sacrosanct only as long as they went unchallenged. The challenge rose in the Tamil country like a whirlwind spearheaded by an iconoclast who questioned the Vedas and the gods as well. He took apparently extremist positions on some issues, but the fundamental nature of the social revolution he wrought was clear even to its victims. The political perspectives of Tamil Nadu and with it much of India, were altered with as seeming finality by Ramaswamy Naicker.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Quoted from "Makers of Millennium India" in Express Publications in Fuzzy and Neutrosophic Analysis of Periyar's Views on Untouchability by W. B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Florentin Smarandache, K. Kandasamy http://books.google.co.in/books?id=hgb-MKcsSR0C&pg=PA380, p. 103. About Periyar

“If you ask a Christian or a Moslem about their God, they say their God is good and benevolent. They say their God has no physical form. Why don’t you people have such a God?”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Source: Viduthalai – 25-12-1958)(also https://myvoice.opindia.com/2021/09/why-ev-ramasamy-doesnt-deserve-to-be-celebrated/

“What is not there in English which can be found in Tamil Language?””

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

Source: quoted in Book written by M. Venkatesan entitled “EV Ramasamy Naickarin Marupakkam” also https://myvoice.opindia.com/2019/02/rise-of-ev-ramasamy-naicker-and-the-fall-of-tamil-nadu/

“The only language that ought to replace Tamil is English.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy