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. Outlining the reasons for starting an English weekly, Periyar noted that he desired the ideals of the Self-respect movement to be known to people outside Tamil Nadu; he also wanted an English forum to counter the views expressed by Brahmins and the politically selfish class against the Selfrespect movement, which found an easy berth in existing English publications.
During the short period of its existence Revolt responded to national and international issues and concerns: the religious reforms undertaken by Amir Amanullah of Afghanistan; the Congress’ problematic stance on untouchability; that party’s double facedness in its dealings with the British (invoking in this context, Hegel’s dialectic!); the controversy created by the publication of Katherine Mayo’s Mother India; the temple entry struggles organized by the Self-respecters; Dr Muthulakshmi’s devadasi abolition bill, the Child Marriage Restraint Bill, and especially the orthodox Hindus’ opposition to both… In each of these instances Revolt argued its case intelligently sharply, and its editor Kuthoosi Guruswami’s wit and satire rattled many an orthodox person’s composure. Guruswami’ critical essays on the Ramayana were in fact sent to Gandhi and he was forced to distinguish ‘his Rama’ from the Rama that Guruswami’s essays revealed.
Revolt and its editors were in touch with international rationalist and atheistic groups and published several essays on science, atheism. And so on. The weekly carried news of anti-caste groups elsewhere in India as well.
Revolt holds a veritable mirror to the times, and allows us to see the Self-respect movement in its context, and appreciate its – and Periyar’s – perspective on various matters. Yet these views and ideas, especially Periyar’s principled opinions on a range of subjects are as valid for our times as they were for his – and so, to make available these ideas to today’s young people in India and elsewhere, Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam decided to extract important and seminal articles from Revolt and publish them in a single volume.
Of the 55 published issues of Revolt, a few were entirely unreadable. We then requested V. Geetha and S. V. Rajadurai, whose contribution to Periyar Studies is well known, to sift through all the readable issues and make a selection for the proposed volume. They agreed to this, and have completed this task, for which we are truly grateful to them.
This volume is part of Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam’s larger efforts to anthologise Periyar’s speeches and writings, as they appear in Kudiarasu and we are indeed proud to be bringing out this English volume.
In solidarity Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam
