Bharathi’s Social Liberation

பாரதியின் சமூக விடுதலை

Abstract

The paper looks at the meaning of social liberation as conceived by one of the legendary Tamil poets, Subramania Bharathiyar, who is regarded as a revolutionary poet in the twentieth century. Under the firm belief of oneness among humankind, Bharathiyar spoke out through poetry to bring the people of the society together, who were fragmented along caste, religious, language, and ethnic lines. The article examines four key dimensions of social liberation in the poems of Bharathiyar; social liberation, economic liberation, religious liberation and women liberation. In society liberation arena, Bharathiyar was a vehement critic of caste discrimination and advocated equality in a stratified society opining that caste boundaries have to be eliminated entirely in order to advance the nation. On economic emancipation, he emphasized the two sins of impoverishment and inequality of wealth in the Indian society, glorified in the pride of labour and he encouraged people to own collectively rather than individually. Bharathiyar was also beyond the sectarian boundaries in the topic of religion, and he defended monotheism, believing that God was a universal spirit that exists in all religions. On the issue of women liberation, he made an audacious statement that without freedom of women, life is nothing, fought to enable women to obtain education, independence and even imagined women as courageous and independent beings. The article concludes by concluding that Bharathiyar was not just a poet but a visionary social reformist whose aspirations of a casteless, equal, and liberated society still comes true in the current age.