Periyar E. V. Ramasamy and The Indian National Congress - Gurukulam Incident

Gurukulam Incident

Even before he resigned from membership of the Congress, Periyar was convinced that communalism was deep-rooted in Tamil Nadu and that the forward community members of the Congress showed only lip service for backward classes. When Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi started the Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920, he suggested that Congressmen should avoid sending their children to schools which were under the supervision of the British rulers. There were also new schools started by individuals and charitable institutions, for the benefit of the children who were not going to Government schools.

In a place called Cheranmadevi in Tirunelveli district, a residential school, also known as Gurukulam, was started with help from the Tamil Nadu Congress. It was manned by V.V.S. Iyer who was believed to be an ardent Congressman. The Tamil Nadu Congress was given an annual grant of ten thousand rupees to the school. For the year 1925, half of he grant for the school had already been given by the time Periyar became the secretary. On receipt of complaint, Periyar found that Brahmin children and Non-Brahmin children were given food in separate places. He advised Iyer to treat children alike and not instill communalism into them by putting them into separate groups. Iyer refused to listen to Periyar's advice, upon which the latter refused to release the other half of the grant. Iyer then managed to get the amount from the joint secretary of the Congress, without the knowledge of Periyar. When this came to the attention of Periyar, he addressed public meetings about it and created public awareness of what was happening in Gurukulam. Prominent congressmen like Dr. Varadarajulu Naidu, Thiru V.Ka, S. Ramanathan and others condemned the sectarian attitude of Iyer in running a public institution. When Gandhi's attention was drawn to what was happening in the school, he too did not succeed in the matter. Iyer was reluctant to change his attitude and therefore the school was closed.