Periyar in pilgrimage to kaasi

He went on a pilgrimage to Varanasi to worship in the famous Sivan temple. But discrimination against non-brahmins made him think rationally. He was prevented from eating in places of free-lunch because he did not appear to be a brahmin. When he was starving food was thrown to dogs on the street. The unbearable burning hunger forced Ramasamy to compete with the street - dogs in eating the remnants of food in the leaves.
While eating that food, the eyes of Ramasamy looked at the letters carved on the front wall of the building. They revealed the truth that the choultry exclusively occupied by the highest caste viz., Brahmins, had been built only by a wealthy merchant of Dravidian Race from Tamil Nadu.
Suddenly in the mind of this young man, some questions could have sparked such as: "Why and how the Brahmins can obstruct the Dravidians from taking meals in the choultry although the choultry was built with the money of a Dravidian Philanthropist? Why the Brahmins behaved so mercilessly and fanatically as to push the communities of the Dravidian race even to starvation - death by adamantly enforcing their evil casteism?"
No justifiable answers came to convince the judicious thinking of Periyar on the above questions.
Though Kasi (Varanasi) has been acclaimed as the most "sacred town" by the Brahmins, the worst ugly scenes of immoral activities, prostitution, cheating, looting, begging crowds for alms, floating dead bodies on the River Ganges turned Periyar to abhor that so-called holy-town.
On returning to Erode - his father delegated all his trade rights to this second son and renamed his major commercial concern under the title: "E.V. Ramasamy Naicker Mandi"

Self - respect Movement : 1925- 39

Periyar's philosophy is that different sections of a society should have equal rights to enjoy the fruits of the resources and the development of the country; they should all be represented, in proportion to their numerical strength, in the governance and the administration of the state. This principle had been enunicated earlier by those who stood for social justice, particularly by the South Indian Liberal Federation, popularly known as Justice Party. Periyar's unique contribution was his insistence on rational outlook to bring about intellectual emancipation and a healthy world-view. He also stressed the need to abolish the hierarchal, graded, birth-based caste structure as a prelude to build a new egalitarian social order. In other words, he wanted to lay a sound socio-cultural base, before raising a strong structure of free polity and prosperous economy.
It was in this context, the Self-Respect Movement, founded in 1925, carried on a vigorous and ceaseless propaganda against ridiculous and harmful superstitions, traditions, customs and habits. He wanted to dispel the ignorance of the people and make them enlightened. He exhorted them to take steps to change the institutions and values that led to meaningless divisions and unjust discrimination. He advised them to change according to the requirements of the changing times and keep pace with the modern conditions.
Self-respecters performed marriages without Brahmin priests (prohits) and without religious rites. They insisted on equality between men and women in all walks of life. They encouraged inter-caste and widow marriages. Periyar propagated the need for birth-control even from late 1920s. He gathered support for lawful abolition of Devadasi (temple prostitute) system and the practice of child marriage. It was mainly due to his consistent and energetic propaganda, the policy of reservations in job opportunities in government administration was put into practice in the then Madras Province (which included Tamilnadu) in 1928.
Since the British rulers in India had no vested interest in perpetuating the inequitable Varna-Jaathi social structure based on Vedic Sanathana Dharma, Periyar and his followers found that they could influence or pressurise the alien government to take measures to remove social inequality. So they adopted a moderate policy in the struggle for political independence.