E.V. Ramasamy Naicker is renowned as one the leading figures in the anti-caste struggle in Tamil Nadu in particular and India in general. He is popularly known as “Periyar.” His era of anti-caste struggle is considered as an epoch-shattering moment in the Indian history. Periyar was born at Erode, Tamil Nadu, in the year 1879. Being a middle-class family member, he left his formal education and became part of the family business. His rational approach made him to leave mendicancy ([2], p. 27). Periyar was skeptical about the practices within Hinduism. His critical approach toward religion leads to his affinity toward the issues surrounding polity. He joined Congress in a period that was marked by anti-caste/non-Brahmin struggles. Periyar’s entry into Congress can be seen as a departure in the case of social composition of Congress in which majority were Brahmins. As a non-Brahmin leader, Periyar became powerful with the party. His critique to Congress was that it is Brahmanical in nature. Periyar abhorred the discrimination on the basis of caste as detrimental to the Congress party. As part of his dissent to the Brahmanical Congress party, Periyar founded the “Self-Respect Movement” in the year 1925 ([2], p. 27). One of his much celebrated mottos was “No God, no Gandhi, no Brahmin, no Religion.” In fact, Periyar is one of the foremost, organic intellectuals in Tamil Nadu who subverted the whims and fancies of caste-based polity in Tamil Nadu. He was instrumental in the formation of the political group Dravida Kazhagam in the year 1944. Atheism was central to Periyar’s ideology and political practices. Periyar passed away in the year 1973. He was highly influenced by the thoughts of American freethinkers such as R.G. Ingersoll. Unlike the conventional leaders who politicize religion, Periyar believed that rationalism is an essential ideology for the growth of matured polity. Periyar considered rationalist as essential for the mental and political emancipation of the people in Tamil Nadu. One of the salient features of Periyar’s ideology is that he believed in the interlinkages between science, rationality, and politics. He imagined the idea of nationhood as linked to self-respect. Rationality, for Periyar, thus contributes to the Tamil nationhood and quintessential self-respect ([7], pp. 2282–87). While discussing on the inevitable ideal like “rationality,” Periyar emphasized on the significance of evidence. Periyar denounced the religion as the root cause of the evils that plague the Indian society. It is analyzed that Periyar provided materialistic interpretation to history through creating radical critique to religion. He argued that one of the primary mistakes that human beings did is that “the elites” strengthened the societal ideology by rationalizing “religion with the notion of god” ([2], p. 27). In other words, elites had vested interests in structuring the ideology of religion and the construction of god as an inevitable figure in that process. Such perspective thus proliferated the spaces for obscurantism and related social evils. Thus, it led to the subversion of knowledge. Periyar theorized science as a discourse that replaced the god and foregrounded the grand notion of causality ([2], p. 27). He focused on necessity of the scientific knowledge and argued that scientific approach to life will be gradually turned into the progress of the nation. It is observed that elites therefore maintained their hierarchy over the majority of people through becoming high priests of religion and ardent critics of rationality. Such blind faith in religion challenges the equality in Indian society. Dependency on such forms of orthodox cultures, according to Periyar, resulted in the dehumanization. As mentioned earlier, Periyar generated historical revisionism as essential to defend his idea of Tamil nationhood. He deployed his “Aryan Invasion theory” as a caustic challenge to the hegemony of Brahmanical polity. It led to the oppression of Shudras. Periyar thus explained how the ideology of oppression was circulated in the form of religion. Brahmins and Saivites were compared and analyzed as two hegemonic groups that legitimized the subordination of the certain castes. Thus, they were pushed into the margins of the hierarchical, caste-based social stratification. It is analyzed that Tamil nationalism attempts to recover the dignity of the oppressed sections from the oppressive, caste-based past. Periyar therefore was critical to the “oppressive” and “Brahmanical” past ([2], p. 29). It is further analyzed and was rationalized and historical approach thus was used by Periyar to provide agency to the oppressed sections. Periyar also studied on the contribution of diverse languages to human civilization. Periyar was also conscious of the ways in which the elites from the dominant castes manipulate education to defend their hegemony in the society. While critiquing the Brahmin dominance, Periyar also raised penchant criticism to the role of non-Brahmins in perpetuating the caste system. For instance, Periyar shared his distrust toward the caste-based atrocities that were unleashed on the most marginalized sections such as Dalits ([4], pp. 129–136) Periyar believed in circulating his rationalist ideas through the democratic circulation of his writings [6]. It is analyzed that Periyar questioned Gandhi’s political and religious appropriation of the nationalism. It is further argued that Periyar’s idea of nationalism is antithetical to “pious nationalism” ([3], p. 163). Ideology of Periyar also influenced the women because his ideology addressed the ways in which religion, caste, and gender determine the oppressed status of women in highly caste-based patriarchal society ([5], pp. 9–15). Broadly, it is analyzed that Periyar foregrounded the idea of modernity via the point of view of the subordinated people ([1], pp. 1–72).