Category: Revolt

October 27, 2015

Congress Conservatism

The New Daniel It has seldom been our lot to come across an individual more perverse-minded and incorrigible than Mr. Vallabahai Patel. We had some hope at first that in spite of all the arrant nonsense he talked at Vedaranyam about the Non-Brahmin movement he would discover his mistake as he proceeded on his tour in the province and came into touch with the realities of the situation. But we now realize that we had built our hope on a wrong estimate of the mentality of the Sirdhar. Not only is he, wholly incapable of seeing things as they are,...

Revolt

October 27, 2015

Congressmen in Madras

Independencewalla Runs Amock Mr. S. Satyamurti, the Provincial Secretary of the Independence League, tabled a question at the Madras Legislative council which was answered on the 31st January: “Will the Hon. The Law Member be pleased to state whether it is a fact that while Mr. E. V. Ramaswami Nayakar and Mr. Surendranath Arya were allowed to hold a conference and preach against society and religion at Vellore early this month, the police and the magistracy prevented meetings being held under Congress auspices by serving orders under Section 144 of the criminal procedure code?” The spirit of the question betrays...

Revolt

October 26, 2015

THE PERILS OF NATIONALISM

The Calcutta Session of the Indian National Congress Unity Achieved The Congress has achieved unity at Calcutta. For quite some time now it has done nothing else but achieves unity. Since the days of the Surat session right up to Amristar, the Congress went on year after year, giving birth to varying degrees of unity between its moderates and extremist wings. Amristar saw the birth of the Gandhian school and that session brought about unity between the new born child and the Tilak party after a dispute over the Montford reforms “which were inadequate, unsatisfactory and disappointing”. Next year at...

Revolt

October 26, 2015

Nationalism and Anti-Caste Radicalism

The Self-respect movement was not merely a social reform movement. Rather, it considered itself espousing and representing an alternative politics and one in which social concerns were as central to its vision of an ideal polity as political ones. This politics was defined in two ways: as a critique of and in contrast to Congress nationalism; and as political Non-brahminism. Self-respecters prised apart Congress Nationalism and subjected its truth claims and patriotic rhetoric to relentless critical interrogation. Gandhi proved a frustrating object of critique for them: intrigued as well as irritated by his moral creed, they yet dared to disagree...

Revolt

October 26, 2015

From Revolt

This selection of articles from Revolt has been made, keeping in mind the historical conjuncture in which the magazine was published. For heuristic purposes, the selection has been arranged under different heads, and as readers will find out, most pieces can and ought to be read across chapters and sections. Each of the four parts comes with its own brief introduction. Each part is further subdivided into thematic sections – these relate to events, personalities, ideas or particular ideological concerns. Each section is further divided into sub-sections. In the latter, wherever they relate to the same idea or topic or...

Revolt

October 26, 2015

Revolt in Its Time

Revolt was active for over two momentous years: from 1928-1930. The mid-and late 1920s were marked by workers’ unrest in Bombay and Calcutta in key industries, the great railway strike and articulated rural discontent in the Andhra region of the Madras Presidency and the United Provinces. These years also saw the determined assertion of a radical anti-untouchability politics in the Bombay province under the leadership of Dr Ambedkar, which directly challenged the Gandhian approach to reform, and threatened to steal nationalism’s moral aura from it. Besides, Congress nationalists had to contend with youthful militancy in Bengal and Punjab. The Young...

Revolt

October 26, 2015

Revolt: A Brief Description

Amongst the Self-respect journals which adopted radical rationalism as their creed, Revolt stands out. For one, it was the first English language weekly to be published by the movement, and edited by Ramasami Periyar. Secondly, given its potentially wider readership, it constituted the Self-respect movement as uniquely internationalist – aligning it, both discursively and historically, with filial movements in the rest of India and with rationalists elsewhere in the world. The weekly was launched at Erode, the birthplace of Periyar E.V.Ramasami on November 7, 1928, which, in the words of the leader written for its first anniversary number, was “that...

Freethought, Atheism and Social Radicalism in Colonial Madras – V. Geetha and S. V. Rajadurai

Revolt

October 26, 2015

Freethought, Atheism and Social Radicalism in Colonial Madras – V. Geetha and S. V. Rajadurai

A secular, freethinkers’ union was active in Madras in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It affiliated itself with and was perhaps known to Freethought circles in England. The union called itself ‘the Chennai Suyaakina Sangam’, calling attention to its will to think through rather than accept truth as given and handed down. The sangam ran two journals, Tattuva Vivesini in Tamil and The Thinker in English. We do not know enough about the circumstances that halted their publication, but the forthright and freewheeling critique of scripture and priesthood which Tattuva Vivesini put forth did leave its mark in...

Revolt

October 25, 2015

Preface

Revolt was the Self-respect Movement’s first English weekly. In 1925 only 7% of the population in Tamil Nadu was literate. Yet, Periyar dared to start the Tamil weekly Kudi Arasu that year. In 1928, the year that saw Revolt being published, very few Tamilians knew to read or write English. It is surely a historical feat that Revolt continued to be published until 1930. Periyar’s deep and abiding interest and commitment to destroying caste, women’s rights, his opposition to obscurantist faith and belief, to Brahmins, and his endorsement of proportional representation led him to risk such ventures such as these....