a. Erode Venkat Ramaswami Naikar, born 1879, was also popularly called as Periyar.

b. Periyar means an elderly person

c. He was the father of the Dravidian movement in south India.

d. Periyar was a staunch opposer of Brahmanism ideology because he felt that they were the most dominant and oppressive section in society.

e. He advocated rationalism among masses who believed in superstitions.

f. This also made him an opponent of congress leaders and even Gandhi. He had left congress for this reason in 1925 and started questioning the marginalization of lower caste Dravidian people.

g. His movement eventually gave birth to DMK, AIDMK and MDMK which are popular regional political parties in south India

h. He wanted to bring social reform. For this, he helped lower castes and untouchables by freeing them from all shackles of caste inequality. For this purpose he started self-respect movement.

i. He also fought for women rights and total eradication of caste system. His struggle also helped to bring to light several evils in the society like manual scavenging, etc He also propounded for a separate Dravid Nadu land during his movement.