On Thursday (4th September), Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin unveiled the portrait of anti-Hindu activist Periyar at the campus of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

During the event, Stalin was heard saying, “Periyar’s thoughts should reach every part of the world. All existing forms of oppression should be removed. From collective rights to individuals rights, all rights must be protected.”

While Periyar is revered by the likes of Stalin’s Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK), the genocidal views of the anti-Hindu activist forced even a ‘liberal’ PM Jawaharlal Nehru to brand him a ‘lunatic’ and a ‘criminal with a perverted mind.’

#SelfRespectMovement – A revolution that redefined freedom! Chains fell, dignity rose!

Thanthai Periyar’s Self-Respect Movement shattered fundamentalisms, awakened dignity, nurtured scientific temper, and made us a guiding light of social transformation.

At #Oxford, I spoke… pic.twitter.com/ESFq8VLcJF

— M.K.Stalin (@mkstalin) September 5, 2025

In a letter [pdf] to Madras Chief Minister Kumaraswami Kamaraj on November 5, 1957, PM Nehru stated, “I am much distressed by the anti-Brahmin campaign continuously carried on by E.V. Ramaswami Naicker.’ I wrote to you I think about this some time ago, and I was told that this matter was under consideration.”

“I find that Ramaswami Naicker is going on saying the same thing again and calling upon people at the right time to start stabbing and killing. What he says can only be said by a criminal or a lunatic,” he pointed out.

PM Nehru told the Madras Chief Minister, “I do not know him adequately to be able to decide what he is, but one thing is clear to me that this kind of thing has a very demoralizing effect on the country. All the anti-social and criminal elements imagine that they can act in this way also.”

The first Prime Minister of India was of the view that anti-Brahmin ‘activists’ such as Periyar should be placed in a mental asylum, meant for treatment of ‘perveted minds.’

He had reiterated, “I suggest, therefore, to you that there should be no delay in dealing with this matter. Let him be put in a lunatic asylum and his perverted mind treated there. I do not understand anyone telling me that the law does not allow us to take action unless actual killing takes place.”

“The law is often very foolish but it is not quite so foolish as to permit a campaign of incitement to murder,” PM Nehru said in his letter dated November 5, 1957.

He had written the letter to the Madras CM after Periyar organised a convention in Tanjavur to demand removal of constitutional provisions that guranteed Right to Freedom of Religion.

The Dravida Kazagham, under Periyar’s leadership, had called for the killing of Brahmins and the destruction of their residential properties on November 3, 1957.

Periyar and his hate for Hindus

Periyar was a vehement advocate of anti-Hinduism, anti-Brahminism and a pro-British.  Many EVR apologists today indulge in the propaganda that EVR never advocated racial hatred against Brahmins. However, EVR was explicit in his agenda.

The magazine Periyar edited published articles praising the ascendancy of Adolf Hitler and warned Brahmins in Tamil Nadu that they should learn from the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany and opt for course correction.

Periyar’s dislike for Brahmins was so deep-rooted in him that he was almost blinded by his intense hatred and anger directed at Brahmins. He reportedly used to tell his followers that if they ever encountered a Brahmin and a snake on the road, they should kill the Brahmin first.

He has, in his lifetime, spread numerous canards about the Ramayana. All his lies were directed towards slandering the God who is considered Maryada Purshottam by Hindus. His lies ranged from accusing Shri Rama of being casteist to claiming that he killed and mutilated women.

Periyar not only claimed that no ‘North Indian Brahmin’ died in the war against Ravana but further propagated that Lord Rama had married women other than Sita for his sexual pleasure. He had also claimed that Lankan King Ravana was, in fact, a Dravidian King from South India.

Periyar had also burnt pictures of Lord Rama, who is one of the most revered Hindu gods. This is not all, Periyar is notorious for organizing a procession in Salem in Tamil Nadu with big cutouts of “Ram”, “Sita” and “Hanuman” garlanded with slippers.

Apart from his hatred for Lord Rama, Periyar also broke statues of Lord Ganesha. In fact, all his deeds reflected the virtual hatred that he harboured towards Hindus and Brahmins.

The event on ‘Periyar’ at Oxford University

While the DMK ecosystem has left no stone unturned to browbeat about the event held at Oxford University in ‘honour’ of Periyar, the reality is starkly different.

The event titled ‘The Self-Respect Movement and Its Legacies’ was not an official event of the esteemed varsity.

It was a small-time conference, organised within a department of one of the 39 autonomous colleges under the University of Oxford.

While the event was a ‘departmental seminar’ at best, it was propagated by the DMK ecosystem as Oxford University ‘honouring’ anti-Hindu activist Periyar.

The overarching objective of the event is to lend credence to the ideology of Periyar and grant legitimacy to the divisive, Dravidian politics of MK Stalin.

ब्राह्मणों और यहूदियों की तुलना कीड़े-पतंगे और मच्छरों से करने के साथ-साथ उनके नरसंहार की बात करने वाले पेरियार की फोटो का अनावरण तमिलनाडु के CM स्टालिन ने ऑक्सफ़ोर्ड में किया है। @pandeypuraan बता रहे हैं गाँधी विरोधियों के जमघट का पूरा मामला pic.twitter.com/yYUJSiUOGg

— OpIndia.tv (@OpIndia_tv) September 5, 2025

OpIndia found that the seminar on Periyar and the non-permanent unveiling of his portrait at the University of Oxford campus was organised by one Faisal Devji.

The so-called ‘historian’ has published derogatory material targeting MK Gandhi. In his book ‘The Impossible Indian’, Faisal Devji compared MK Gandhi to dictators Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong.

“For in many ways, Gandhi belongs in the same group as his contemporaries, Lenin, Hitler and Mao, and should not be seen as a moralist detached from the mainstream of twentieth-century politics,” he discredited the champion of non-violence movement.

Faisal, whose ideology is as vicious as that of Periyar, has written several articles (here, here and here), painting a doomsday picture about the state of democracy in India under the Narendra Modi government.

Besides MK Stalin, the so-called ‘historian’ also hosted another speaker for a departmental seminar titled ‘Dravidian Geography and the History of Respect.’ The speaker was a ‘anthropologist’ by the name of Arjun Appadurai.

In 2021, Arjun compared ‘nationalism’ in India under PM Modi to ‘genocidalism.’ In one paper, he tried to pass off abrogation of Article 370 in the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir as anti-Muslim policy-making.