This year is celebrated as the 100th year of the Self-Respect Movement. Self-respect is an important and essential component of Periyar’s radical critique of caste society. Periyar’s influence on the politics and society of his time cannot be underestimated. His formulation of self-respect ( suyamariadhai ) was a conceptual tool to produce social equality, for both for the non-Brahmins as well as women. After a hundred years, what has happened to this idea of self-respect in contemporary Tamil society? As well as terms like non-Brahmin and Dravidian?

The idea of self in Periyar is most often related to the opposition between Brahmins and non-Brahmins. The category of non-Brahmins produces a self in opposition to the self of Brahmins. But this raises one fundamental question about this

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