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The Print Uses Clickbaity Title Calling EVR As “South Indian Socrates”, Here’s Why He Is Not

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The Print shared an article, on their X handle, on 24 December 2023, to mark the death anniversary of Dravidian ideologue, EV Ramasamy Naicker also referred to as Periyar in the region. The caption of the X post read, “Periyar, the ‘South Indian Socrates’ who smashed Brahminical patriarchy On his death anniversary, read #ThePrintProfile by Aananth Daksnamurthy @aananth95“

The X post of The Print gave a link to a 2018 article with the title that hailed EVR as the ‘Socrates of South India’.

Does The Article Talk About Socrates And Periyar? Or Their Connection?

The article which claims to be a profile of EVR does neither. There is no mention of Socrates or any philosophy connecting the two. It just traverses the life history of EVR from birth to death. It touches upon a short anecdotal mention of who gave him that title. 

The Print’s title describing EVR as ‘south Indian Socrates’ stems from a lie that has long been peddled by DMK and Dravidian Stockists but has been busted.

Was EVR Really A South Indian Socrates As Claimed?

For long, a myth was peddled by the Dravidianists that EVR was conferred the title of “Socrates of South-East Asia” by UNESCO. This “fact” had secured a prominent spot in Tamil Nadu school textbooks and was even included as a question in annual examinations and Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission exams.

Nevertheless, this recognition was later debunked and exposed as a sham. An email response from the UNESCO office in Delhi verified that no such award or title was bestowed upon E.V. Ramasamy Naicker.

This so-called award itself contains a glaring error. The title of the award reads “Socrates of South-East Asia.” However, the fact remains that India is not part of the South-East Asia grouping. South-East Asian nations include Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. India falls under South Asia, not South-East Asia.

For over four decades, this lie has been peddled by the Dravidianists, influencing numerous articles and research papers on EVR that are based on this inaccuracy. Surprisingly, no one in the media or the so-called ‘intellectual’ circles, known for their commitment to factual accuracy, has ever addressed this blatant lie.

So, who presented the award to EVR? It was none other than the late former DMK leader M. Karunanidhi, in the presence of Dravida Kazhagam President K. Veeramani!

Brahminical Patriarchy

Now coming to the second part of the title – EVR smashed “brahminical patriarchy”. 

At some point in his life, EVR made a trip to Kashi. It is claimed that he was not allowed inside the temple or given food, mainly for the fact that he was not a Brahmin. It is also claimed that this disgrace he experienced coupled with being witness to “immoral behaviour”, floating dead bodies, and encountering beggars made him convinced that all this was Brahminical exploitation! 

What the article doesn’t cover is that the same EVR called for the genocide of Brahmins openly. He once said, “The first would be the destruction of the Congress party, the second the destruction of Hindu religion, and the third the destruction of the domination of Brahmins. The third would automatically happen when the first two tasks were completed. Gandhi’s response was not to our satisfaction.”

EVR had called for the ‘annihilation of Gandhi’ and ‘annihilation of Congress’ along with the ‘annihilation of Brahmins’. He even threatened to burn Mahatma Gandhi’s photos and raze down his statues.

EVR gave a genocidal call to kill 1000 Tamil Brahmins to ‘eradicate caste’.

He said “If to eradicate caste we need to burn the agraharams (Tamizh Brahmin house colonies) and murder at least 1000 Tamizh Brahmins then we will do exactly that” declaring the date of genocide as 26th November 1957, the Constitution Day. Reacting to this genocidal call, Nehru wrote a letter to then Chief Minister of Madras K. Kamaraj saying that EVR’s call might lead to strong communal feelings which could even lead to murders. “I do hope that you will take adequate notice of this”, Nehru wrote in his letter to Kamaraj.

Anguished by the virulent vitriol spewed by EVR, Nehru shot off another letter to Kamaraj on 5 November 1957 in which he asked EVR to “be put in a lunatic asylum” and let his “perverted mind be treated there”.

Nehru once again wrote to Kamaraj on 4 December 1957, stating that EVR’s activities were the most barbarous thing that he had come across in a civilised country.

Overall in what seems like an article that does not touch upon important facts, it only seems as if the title and the caption were written in a clickbaity fashion to grab eyeballs from all sections of the social media population. 

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