The Self Respect Movement and Women Questions
E.V. Ramasami Naicker Periyar,a Balija Naidu from Erode, began as a merchant,then Ybecame a Municipal council chairman of Erode, and later a local congress leader.ln 1924 he became the leader of Vaikom satyagrah and was twice arrested.ln 1924 after breaking with the congress,he began to articulate his views on such institution of Tamil society like religion,cast hierarchy and patriarchy.He called for a total break with the retrograde elements of the Tamil past.Addressing the South Indian Reform Conference in 1928,he said,'l have gradually lost faith in social reform.For one who believes in radical change,self respect, equality and progress, the alternative is not mere Reform,but radical reconstructive work which would destroy the traditional structure.'
Within the ambience of the Self Respect Movement he was not content with tacking up such conversational themes of women's emancipation but he raised question relating to basic pillars of patriarchy, like monogamous family and norms of chastity prescribed for and enforced upon women.The most important thing he had advanced was about marriage and family which he identified as the key institutions sustaining patriarchy.Since marriage enabled women to be enslaved as the property of men he insisted that marriage as an institution should be abolished .Even while advocating women's education,his attempt was to it against the structure of patriarchy .He stated that the quality of education imparted to women till now has been one of training women to be an efficient house-wife by designing the curriculum to include cooking, music,tailori ta etc.Thus women's should have the aim the providing employment for women and thus making them economically independent.
Speaking in a women's meeting at Victoria Hall,Madras,in 1948 he attached the concept of marriage and family.he said that the concept of husband-wife relationship has been one of master-slave relationship . The essential philosophy of marriage has been to insist on women's slavery. He opposed the all ritualistic practices associate with marriage,inclu incl the type of tali, around the neck of the bride by the bridegroom which he treated as a symbol of women's subjection to men. He also opposed arrange marriage and advocated that men and women should choose their partner and their own free will. The notion of women's chastity, which sustained the monogamous family,was another subject of his criticism. In one of his pamphlets entitled Penn yean Adimaiyanal (why did women become enslaved?),whi which was initially written as a series of articles in1928,he noted,'The imposition of pativrata qualities in women has destroyed their independence and free -thinking and made them unquestioning slave to men--ho are supposed to demonstrate undue faith over chastity.' He also attacked classical Tamil literary texts such as dil parikshan and thirulkural for preaching chastity as a necessary quality for women. Instead,he suggested polyandry and divorce as a solutions for women's oppression. In speeches delivered at various places in 1935 he argued that divorce is a protective instrument in the hands of many oppressed women.Along with divorce act there should be a provision for compulsory registration of all marriages.
According to Periyar,whi wh marriage and chastity were key patriarchal institutions,patriarchy as such was ubiquitous, pervading sphares like language, literature and gender based socialization. In his writings about women's oppression and in his speeches at self respect marriages he noted with contempt that the Tamil language didn't have words for the male counterpart of adultress and window. He invented the neologism for widower,vidvan and for male prostitute,vibacharan and suggested their use. He also noted that several words are used in Tamil literature and in daily life in derogation of women such as aanmai . The Tamil language, in his views,was barbaric,as it did not have respectable world for women. Delivering a speech at Tirupati in 1946, Periyar strongly criticized Tamil literature for describing women's bodily features at length and ignoring their intellectual faculties . He argued that unless women oppose such a projection of their image in the lituralite,neit nei literary traditions nor their own status would change.
While addressing an audience of women ,Periy Periyar reminded them that the vernasharma dharma and Hindu religion had treated them only as rasid of God's,who ,in turn,tested only women's chastity and not that of men. Apart from attaching the institutions of patriarchy and condemning it's ubiquitous nature ,he also underlined it's relationship with the control of property. In the context of Periyar's views that private property,with its need to have inheritors,gave rise to women's subjectionin order to produce heirs for property,his advocacy of birth control assumes significance. Arguing that women should have the right to decide to have children,he differentiated his position from the other advocates of birth control by focusing attention on women's choice.
Periyar's views on the women's question found practical expression in the activities of the Self Respect Movement. The Movement,interalia , practised self respect marriages, organized women's conferences to raise their consciousness and to highlight their problems and involved women in mass agitations. Self Respect marriages were conducted from 1928 onward among various non-Brahmin castes. These marriages which took place even in the remote villages and were regularly reported in the newspaper of the movement,Kudi Arasi,iincluded inter-cast marriages,widow -remarriges and marriages of consent.
The central aim of self respect marriages was to free the institution of marriage from Hindu rituals which emphasized monogamous familial norms and chastity for women and thus legitimized patriarchy. Accordingly,these marriages were conducted without Brahmin priests and recitation of religious texts. More significantly they did awsa with the tying of the tali. In keeping with the rationalistic content of the Self Respect Movement,ofte o they were arrenged in timed which were treated as inauspicious by the Hindu calendar (Rahu Kalam). Some of the marriages took place at midnight . All these challenged and adverted the religious aura that entrapped the institution of marriage . Interestingly,as a part of the wedding, the audience were allowed and encouraged to ask questions relating to the man-woman relation, marriage, women's emancipation,etc. Several marriages reported in the pages of Kudi Arasu give an idea of how the Self Respect Movement politicized marriages and used them as public events to propogate their views on the women's question. That was why marriages venues were decorated with the symbols and slogans of the movement. The walls of inside the marriage hall were adorned with huge posters explaninex the objectives and activities of the movement.
The movement organized several thousand such marriages in the Tamil areas during the its three decades of political career. For instance between 1929 and 1932 about 8,000 self respect marriages were conducted. While certain marriages viewed women's liberation as their aim there was still others which were against Brahmin domination as they dispensed with Brahmin priests and sanskritic scriptures. An exaperated Periyar, addressing a marriage party in 1931,objected to and said that with time,one of objectives of the movement should be to do away with marriage themselves. Then, freeing marriages from rituals themselves was no doubt a step ahead.
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