Chennai: Iyothee Thass Pandithar The man who gave Tamils a new identity Santha Panchama children in the centre of Madras. Col. H.S. Olcott also became acquainted with Rev. John Rathinam who started a school for the oppressed in Madras. Rev. John Rathinam formed Dravidar Kazhagam in 1882 and started the journal ‘Dravida Pandian’ in 1885. Iyothee Thass' friendship with the two persons mentioned above, introduced changes in his thinking. Iyothee Thass moved a resolution containing some demands. The opposition to his demands opened his eyes. Did he make revolutionary demands? No, he requested that Pariahs may be allowed entry into Siva and Vishnu Temples. He also sought facilities for educating Pariah children. These were ordinary demands but 100 years ago they met with stiff opposition. Entrenched casteism opposed his very ordinary demands. “You may call yourself a Hindu. But Siva and Vishnu are not your deities. Karuppasamy and Sudalamadan are your deities. Be satisfied with worshipping them” said caste Hindus. It was a defining moment in his life. Political activity of Iyothee Thass: As a young man of twenty-five, he had organized the Depressed Classes into ‘Advaidananda Sabha', whose objective appears to have been two-fold: one, opposition to the proselytizing activities of the Christian missionaries; two, to explore the emancipatory potentials of the Advaitic tradition in undermining varna/caste discriminations.’ His flirtation with Hinduism (or its advanced tenets) seems to have ended with his youth. His involvement with the problems and the situation of the Depressed Classes led him to validate their original identity and refute the imposed identity of Hinduism. The importance, he accorded to this can be understood in the light of the following incidents: “In 1881, he sought to intervene in the census process and demanded that the aboriginal and ‘Outcaste’ communities be recorded as ‘Original Tamils’ and this was followed by a declaration in 1886 that the original inhabitants of this area were not Hindus.” Ravikumar aptly identifies that Iyothee Thass’ urging ‘the so-called untouchables to register themselves as casteless Dravidians’ in the very first census ‘makes Tamil Dalits the true descendants of the anti-Brahmin legacy’. The Dravidar Kazhagam was founded by Rev. John Ratnam of the Wesleyan mission as early as 1886. Iyothee Thass was associated with him in bringing out a News-Magazine called the Dravida Pandian. The Dravida Mahajana Sabha was formed in 1891 under the leadership of Iyothee Thass in Ooty in the Madras Presidency. On the conclusion of the first state level Conference on 1 December 1891, he sent a copy of the resolutions to the Congress Party. Here merely received an acknowledgement, but no subsequent action was taken. Piqued by this, he remarked that the Indian National Congress was only a Bengali Brahmin Congress. His hostility towards the Congress made him anticipate and predict the self-fulfilling prophecy that “just like the caste system split to form the 1008 graded castes, the Congress would also split.” Apart from maintaining a highly activist lifestyle by leading the Dalit people, he also started the Tamilan magazine in June 1907 and ran the weekly continuously till his death in 1914. Dravida Mahajana Sabha - 1891: The Dravida Mahajana Sabha was formed in 1891 under the leadership of Iyothee Thass at Ooty on 1st December 1891. Ten resolutions were passed demanding civic rights, educational concessions, removable of certain objectionable rules in jail manual, economic advancement of the Depressed Classes, due share in appointment in government services including that of village offices. On the conclusion of the first state A TO Z INDIA ● OCTOBER 2021 ● PAGE 16