Periyar's reading of social injustice was rooted in a set of conceptual insights on how power shapes economic relations in caste society. A proponent of socialism (samadharmam), he was however critical of the political priorities of mainstream left parties. To him, they failed to recognize the scope of caste-based power in shaping the economy. His insights on the nature of this power continue to unsettle and challenge more popular narratives of justice. Through a close reading of his own work and secondary sources, this chapter maps how Periyar's original conceptualization of power in India fed into his interpretation of the economic domain. Periyar held that status-based stratification and ideological hegemony exercised by caste elites fundamentally shape economic outcomes. The ritually sanctified division between mental and manual labour and their hierarchizing were particularly important to him. Periyar believed that economic justice can therefore be secured only through waging a counter-hegemonic struggle against caste-sanctioned hierarchies and the ideological apparatus that upholds such status-based stratification. The primary contention that the chapter makes is that in Periyar's political imaginary, the ‘economic’ was a sub-set of the ‘social’. Redistribution of economic power could not be sustained without addressing the social institutions that help reproduce economic hierarchies and concentrate economic power.

In 1928 a ‘friendship testimonial’ in the form of an obelisk was erected in the Japanese town of Onjuku in Chiba (see Figure P.1). The obelisk stands at the presumed site where the Spanish colonial official Don Rodrigo de Vivero (1564–1636) stepped ashore after being rescued from a shipwrecked journey from the Philippines to Mexico in 1609. This Prefectural Historic Monument, known as the Mexico Commemorative Tower, manifests historical ties with Chiba’s sister city Acapulco across the Pacific. A year after the construction of the obelisk, historian Murakami Naojirō (村上直次郎, 1868–1966) published a Japanese translation of Vivero’s memories of Japan.

This chapter presents Murakami Naojirō’s multifaceted life in chronological order. Providing details about Murakami’s educational background, career stages, and publication history, this chapter traces his imperial agendas and epistemological impact in East and Southeast Asia. It emphasizes the entangled nature of his life and work as a translator historian and scholar diplomat who held influential academic positions during the Japanese Empire, as well as his rehabilitation in Jesuit-led Christian history circles toward the end of his life. A variety of genres have been consulted to develop a comprehensive understanding of Murakami’s professional life across archives, universities, and government offices and how his various posts shaped the global circulation of knowledge.

This chapter focuses on Periyar and Tamil cinema, particularly early Tamil cinema of the 1930s and the cinema of the Dravidian ideologues whom he mentored. The purpose is to engage with what has generally remained a contested terrain because of the common perception of Periyar's aversion to mainstream cinema vis-á-vis the penchant of his chief lieutenants like C. N. Annadurai (Anna) and M. Karunanidhi for it. One of the main reasons for the split of his protegees from the party he founded, the Dravidar Kazhagam (Federation of Dravidians; DK), to form the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Federation for the Progress of Dravidians; DMK) was their investment in electoral politics. Periyar, being a social reformer, who was preoccupied with the upliftment of the people on the fringes, oppressed by the systemic entrenchment of caste, religion, and gender, had his priority on questioning the status quo and challenging reactionary and regressive forces. Therefore, electoral ambitions predicated on consensual or concessional politics and opportunistic coalitions were anathema to him (Venkatachalapathy, 2021). Conversely, the Dravidian ideologues of the split faction veered towards electoral politics and believed in the potential of popular cinema for disseminating Dravidian ideology as filtered through the lens of mass appeal to mobilize people with the resultant electoral gains in terms of votes. Thus, the fascination of commercial cinema was, one could argue, at the root of the contention between the leader and his close and trusted disciples.

Periyar, to many in Tamil Nadu, was an atheist and iconoclast who called out belief in gods, superstitions, and rituals. He, of course, was all of that. But despite his rejection, he had a close engagement with religion and his critique was rooted in a close reading of religious texts, practices, and the values they espoused. He also creatively drew upon extant critiques of religion, Vedic and Abrahamic, and scholarly debates of his times to propound an alternative humanist ethic rooted in justice and fraternity. This chapter maps the multiple sources of his critique of religion and outlines the contours of his call for an ethical life.

There was much overlap between Periyar's thoughts and the critiques of scripturally sanctioned hierarchies of caste by spiritual and secular thinkers, both those who preceded him and those who lived in his times. Even though he was influenced by modernist critiques of religion emerging from the West, it is important to note that his views were in line with a long lineage of materialist philosophical traditions in the subcontinent.

Periyar became a militant atheist only in his forties. It was his vehement criticism of Brahminical Hinduism that led to his position of atheism. Periyar, on several occasions, observed that he was least interested in talking about God and religion.

Introduction

In 1935, at a conference of Senguntha Mudaliars in Tiruppur, C. N. Annadurai (Anna, 1909–1969), then a twenty-six-year-old graduate, met E. V. Ramasamy (Periyar, 1879–1973). Impressed by the non-Brahmin youth who wanted to enter public life rather than seek a government job, Periyar was quick to take him under his wing. In less than three years, Anna was playing a major role in the Self-Respect Movement (SRM), becoming one of Periyar's chief lieutenants in the 1938–1939 anti-Hindi agitation which made the Dravidian movement a mass organization and effectively put Tamil assertion at the centre stage of politics. It was in the course of this mass-based agitation that the Justice Party was absorbed by the SRM and, in 1944, rechristened the Dravidar Kazhagam (DK). In 1949, Periyar's most brilliant protégé became his rival, breaking away to form the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). In 1967, the DMK dethroned the Indian National Congress (Congress). The intervening decades were marked by bitter hostility and rivalry between the DK and the DMK.

Immediately after the DMK's 1967 victory, there was a rapprochement. Since then, it has been customary to collapse the two into a unified Dravidian movement. The rivalry between the DK and the DMK has been completely elided by party ideologues, chroniclers, and historians.

Periyar's writings on women were at the heart of his commitment to a radical concept of freedom. Periyar is known most not only for his atheism and radical critique of religion (Manoharan, 2022a) but also for his commitment and contribution to anti-caste thought and politics (Manoharan, 2020; 2022b). However, crucial, perhaps even central, to Periyar's politics of Self-Respect was his approach to the women's question. In this chapter, we discuss how Periyar's approach to the women's question was grounded not only in a rights-based discourse, but also in a freedom-based discourse; not just freedom from patriarchy, but also sexual freedom in a radically libertarian sense. More importantly, Periyar argued that freedom for women took priority over freedom from colonialism, and challenged patriarchal tendencies within Indian nationalism.

Scholars engaged with feminist politics have looked at the critical importance given to the women's question and gender in the Self-Respect Movement (SRM). In their readings on gender politics in India, Anandhi and Velayuthan (2010) highlight the ‘limitations in theory itself in dealing with diversities and subalternity’ and argue that in a scenario where gender intersects with caste and class, the theory and methods used ‘should generate knowledge from the margins’. While feminist scholars such as Uma Chakravarti (2018) and Sharmila Rege (2013) have discussed the intersections of caste and patriarchy, others who have studied the Periyarist politics of gender—Anandhi (1991), Geetha (1998), and Hodges (2005)—have meticulously captured what we very broadly call Self-Respect perspectives and made important contributions to the study of women’s politics of and from the margins of Tamil Nadu.

In the Korean drama My Liberation Notes (Netflix, 2022), written by Park Hay-Young, three office workers sit in the human resources (HR) manager's room. They have been asked to meet with the HR manager to address a specific issue related to the company's HR policy. As part of a neoliberal workplace well-being initiative, the company encourages employees to join a club to explore their hobbies and other interests. According to its institutional logic, if employees are allowed to pursue their personal interests at the workplace, it will make them ‘happy’ and creative, eventually leading to greater productivity. The HR manager regularly emails employees about various clubs, such as photography, hiking, and pottery to encourage them to choose a club.

Three colleagues from different departments receive regular club invitations via email, but none of them find the clubs interesting enough to join. To them, the exercise seems absurd, especially given their challenges, such as the high cost of living, normalized overwork, and dignity violations in the workplace. The HR manager's attempts to persuade them to join a club seem meaningless and futile in the face of their existential crisis. They are tired of the monotony of their lives, which limits their hope and possibilities. Consequently, they frequently reject club suggestions. Eventually, the HR manager asks them to meet her in the office and they provide vague answers, but as they leave, they realize they can create their own club to avoid the pressure of joining one. They name it the ‘Liberation Club’, whose objective is to journal their existential struggles to overcome personal and social reifications.

The Poona Pact, 1932, was a watershed moment in the history of Dalit politics. Nearly a century later, it remains the subject of debate and discussion. A definite setback to the independent mobilization of the Depressed Classes, the Poona Pact deprived them of the historic right to a separate electorate with a double vote granted by the British government. This chapter seeks to describe and analyse the stance taken by Periyar and his Self-Respect Movement (SRM) towards what B. R. Ambedkar described as ‘a mean deal’ (Ambedkar, 2014 [1994], p. 40).1

The pact was signed at a time when the Indian National Congress was in the ascendant and had demonstrated its all-India character and strength through a series of mass agitations. In response to its rise, in south India, the non-Brahmin castes had mobilized under the Justice Party and Periyar's SRM. At the all-India level, the Depressed Classes had become a force to be reckoned with under the leadership of Ambedkar. Both Periyar and Ambedkar viewed the Congress primarily as a formation that represented the Brahmins and Hindu upper castes.

To understand the position taken by Periyar on the Depressed Classes’ question, we need to trace the emergence of Depressed Class consciousness and the formation of political organizations representing the interests of Depressed Classes in south India—a group that Eleanor Zelliot describes as ‘the other [apart from that of western India] politically vocal group of Untouchables’, the largest in terms of numbers in any region of India then (2013, p. 115). Even though the political demands of the Depressed Classes coalesced only at the time of the Simon Commission (1928), their roots can be traced back much further.

One of the most honoured figures in the state of Tamil Nadu, arguably home to the highest number of temples in India, is an atheist who profaned the gods. E. V. Ramasamy (1879–1973), popularly called ‘Periyar’ (the Great One), was a rationalist and radical social reformer. A household name in the region and the central figure of the Dravidian movement, he is best known for his polemics against religion, fervent propagation of atheism, support for proportional representation for backward and scheduled castes, and demand for political autonomy for south Indian states. His opposition to the caste system and the oppression of women are exemplified in his writings and speeches spanning over five decades. One of the first things that Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader M. K. Stalin did on assuming office as chief minister of Tamil Nadu in 2021 was to declare Periyar's birth anniversary (17 September) as ‘Social Justice Day’—underscoring his reputation as a crusader for social justice.

In 2018, statues of Periyar were vandalized across Tamil Nadu, reportedly by Hindu right-wing activists. His statues outside temples, bearing the inscription ‘There is no god, there is no god, there is no god at all. He who invented god is a fool. He who propagates god is a scoundrel. He who worships god is a barbarian’ have been an eyesore for the Hindu right, and its leaders have been promising to have them removed.

Starting with a genealogical survey, the chapter charts how semantics shape epistemologies and explores how positionality, imagery, and the politics of referencing determine the meanings associated with certain concepts. Based on a deep reading of Murakami’s source compilations and translations, the chapter demonstrates how he forged an image of early modern gaikō by emphasizing specific events and actors and by singling out diplomatic documents. It traces how Murakami Naojirō, as the protagonist of the book, played an essential role in shaping the notion of narratives about Japan’s engagement with the outside world during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Through concrete terminological examples it also engages with the misconceptions and silences created through translational processes.

This chapter explains the rationale of the book and discusses Murakami Naojirō’s significance for Japanese historical scholarship. It sets the stage for exploring the practices institutionalized academic historians employed in constructing narratives of early modern Japan’s progressive foreign relations. Translation and hegemonic knowledge claims were major factors in this process, which had lasting consequences for global intellectual trajectories and perpetuated unequal power relations. The imperialist agenda of Murakami and his colleagues was at the forefront of hegemonic thinking about how history ought to be studied: which sources were relevant, whose actions and achievements were important, which groups had histories worth implementing into meta narratives, and whose voices were to be heard and included. The introduction also elaborates on key methodological frameworks such as entangled biography, empirical imperialism, and implicit comparison, and finally discusses important concepts as well as spatial and temporal dimensions of the study.