Foreword to the book by
Dr.S.Ravindranthan
UGC-Emeritus Fellow in English
Tirunelveli-627012
I am happy that Dr.T.Marx has-this time-entered into a very meaningful venture. Transcending his official work as a teacher of English, he has attempted to translate some of the thought provoking essays of Thanthai Periyar into English.
Raising the question “what is poetry?, a cynic answered: “what is lost during translation.” Cynicism apart, the statement has some truth. Mechanical translation often kills the spirit of the original text. It is not that anybody who knows English and Tamil can venture translation. Definitely NOT-the thoughts of Periyar.
Marx has rightly chosen the essays of Periyar on Caste and Religion- the twin evils in India
Periyar has all along fought for the rights of the untouchables and his words do not spare any enemy of the suppressed people. The translated version has carefully brought out the unifying ideas of Periyar into English without damaging the idiom and the subtext. Similar are the essays on God. The English version is readable, clear and correctly exposes the anger of Periyar.
I am happy that in Marx’s translation the “poetry” has not been lost. Marx, a Periyarist by choice and commitment has understood Periyar’s ideas in the right perspective and his command of English has helped him to bring out Periyar’s ideas in English.
I am proud of Marx as his teacher and I am confident that the readers of this book will have a meaningful experience.
S.Ravindranathan
Tirunelveli
10-06-2010
A few pages for your reading…
1. Abolition of God
The foremost task of a patriotic or humanistic government, public service organisation or individuals with social consciousness is to make the people of this country intelligent and awaken their rational thinking.
Efforts must be made to improve the standard of living of the people who must be freed from worries and shortcomings and for the establishment of economic and social equality.
Only a state with such attributes would be termed a true state and a free state
Normally states and societies ruled by kings could lead their own way of life: for the King relies on religion and religious scriptures (doctrines) as the basis for governing. However a democratic state should have wisdom (intelligence) and freedom as its base.
Religion and scriptures are instruments solely created for the purpose of destroying intelligence and freedom and making people a set of fools and slaves. These came into vogue when people were living as savages, leading an animal existence. Just as the people were terrorised by tales of ghosts, ghouls and spirits, so were they instilled with fear by religion and scriptures.
Even though religions and their scriptures were created with God as the Lord and Prime Source, we must say that God and the scriptures were totally different concepts.
This is because the concept of God had originated from ignorance.
Religions and scriptures originated from dishonesty—i.e., created with the intention of fooling people and terrorising them to become slaves.
This idea had been supported by wise men of the world, particularly by renowned Western scholars.
That is, “You can forgive the person who created the concept of God: he was a fool, was forced to create such an idea due to his lack of intelligence”.
“But the person who created religions and scriptures, (soul, heaven, hell) is dishonest: he can never be forgiven. He has done this just to frighten the people.” (This is what they have said.)
The person who created God did insist, on the probability of the idea that there must have been an entity to have created the world and its order.
That is, he gives (benefit of doubt) to the existence of God.
But religion and scriptures are not like that. Conceiving a total falsehood, solely for the purpose of deceiving people, and to use or exploit them, and to discriminate them, he organised religion and scriptures.
The proof to this organization (to call it an organization) is that there are different religions and scriptures, contradicting and (confronting) opposed to each other, which is the truth.
Also, the idea that such ‘creators’ are above human nature and the fact that the scriptures of Hinduism are contradictory to natural laws is another proof of this.
As these destroy not only our intelligence but ruin our character, honesty, love, grace, unity and equality, stifle the growth, hide science and nurture ignorance; we are against them.
You do not have to go “very far” to realise this. It is enough if you analyse ‘our’ religion and its ‘scriptures’.
It is a different matter to consider whether we Tamils (Dravidians) have a God or not. But we have been considering Hindu religion as our religion. This itself is a ‘Himalayan blunder’. Why so? What is Hindu religion? What is the meaning of it?
For the word ‘religion’, as could be discerned from the features of Christianity or Islam, is there any ideal, authority or history? Is there any such thing as scriptures and authoritative works of Hinduism?
The Brahmins call Hindu religion as the Vedic religion.: the Brahmins call themselves as Aryans. Therefore, they call this religion also as Aryan religion. In English dictionaries, Hindu religion is defined as the religion of the Brahmins, ‘a non Christian, non Islamic faith’.
This will require much elaboration. But I will shorten the same.
The authorities for the Hindu religion are Vedas, Sastras (scriptures) and Puranas, Ithihasas (fables and semi-historical lores of the past). According to this religion we belong to the 4th or 5th castes! Therefore, we have been made as ineligible to even read the above different authorities!. Vedas, Sastras, Puranas, Ithihasa works all have degraded our people, branded us dishonest and humiliated us in many ways.
That is why, we say that faith in God, religion, scriptures, Puranas and Ithihas must be abolished.
[Viduthalai, Editorial – 17.12.1969]
For full text contact drtmarx@gmail.com
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