Self-Respect Movement
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The Self-Respect Movement was founded in 1925 by E.V. Ramasami Naicker (also known as Periyar) in Tamil Nadu, India. The movement has the aim of achieving a society where backward castes have equal human rights,[1] and encouraging backward castes to have self-respect in the context of a caste based society that considered them to be a lower end of the hierarchy.[2]
A number of political parties in Tamil Nadu, such as DMK and AIADMK owe their origins to the Self-respect movement,[3] the latter a 1972 breakaway from the DMK. Both parties are populist with a generally social democratic orientation [4]
The movement has been in political power in Tamil Nadu since 1967, when the DMK under C. N. Annadurai defeated the ruling Congress Party. The incumbent (as of 2006) Chief Minister is M. Karunanidhi of the DMK.
[edit] Anti-Brahmanism
Tamil Brahmins (Iyers and Iyengars) were frequently held responsible by followers of Periyar for direct or indirect oppression of lower-caste people on the canard of "Brahmin oppression" and resulted in attacks on Brahmins and which among other reasons started a wave of mass-migration of the Brahmin population.[5]. Periyar in regards to a DK member's attempt to assassinate Rajagopalachari, "expressed his abhorrence of violence as a means of settling political differences".[6] Eventually, the anti-Brahmanism subsided with the replacement of the DMK party by the AIADMK[7].
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ N.D. Arora/S.S. Awasthy. Political Theory and Political Thought. ISBN 8124111642.
- ^ Thomas Pantham, Vrajendra Raj Mehta, Vrajendra Raj Mehta, (2006). Political Ideas in Modern India: thematic explorations. Sage Publications. ISBN 0761934200.
- ^ Shankar Raghuraman, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta (2004). A Time of Coalitions: Divided We Stand. Sage Publications. ISBN 0761932372.
- ^ Christopher John Fuller (2003). The Renewal of the Priesthood: Modernity and Traditionalism in a South Indian Temple. Princeton University Press, 118. ISBN 0691116571.
- ^ Lloyd I. Rudolph Urban Life and Populist Radicalism: Dravidian Politics in Madras The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 20, No. 3 (May, 1961), pp. 283-297
- ^ Lloyd I. Rudolph and Suzanne Hoeber Rudolph, The Modernity of Tradition: political development in India P78,University of Chicago Press 1969, ISBN:0226731375
- ^ C. J. Fuller,The Renewal of the Priesthood: Modernity and Traditionalism in a South Indian Temple P117, Princeton University Press 2003 ISBN:0691116571
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Categories: India stubs | Dravidian movement | Tamil politics | Anti-Brahmanism | Anti-Hinduism | National Mysticism | Ethnocentrism | Pseudohistory

