In Tamil literature there is a classical word called ‘Pathigam’ which denotes an agglomeration of 10 songs. They accomplish one pathigam and move to the next pathigam. Similarly, we too are crossing our first decad and moving into the next decad. Let’s continue to enjoin upon ourselves to sow the seeds of social justice and harvest humanism in our academic endeavors.

The Board of Editors of Dravida Pozhil had a review session over the journey of the journal for the past 2.5 years. Our esteemed Chancellor, Aasiriyar K. Veeramani chaired this session. We reviewed our accomplishments & shortfalls with adequate data and indices. To continuously improve upon our accomplishments, our Hon. Chancellor has defined the next set of goals that we need to meet. We are pleased to share with you as well, the journal analytics of the past 2+ years in this issue.

This year proudly sees a Dual Centenary - Centenary of the Vaikom Struggle & Kalaignar Centenary.

To usher in the spirit of Equality in worship, there arose many struggles in the Indian subcontinent, and Vaikom Struggle is the Mother Struggle of all those struggles. Starting as a struggle for street entry, and growing as a struggle for temple entry, Vaikom led to universal accessibility of Temples to all Human beings. Similarly, caste hegemony which was prevailing in the sanctum of temples, was stuck like a thorn in the reformist heart of Periyar. It was Kalaignar who smashed this hegemony via government order and ushered in universal accessibility of Sanctums to all Human beings. It’s a great coincidence that both these Centenaries of Equality, are occurring at the same time and it’s an epoch in the History of Social Justice.

This issue of Dravida Pozhil features 5 Papers.

• Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development
• Social Justice & VOC (VO Chidambaram) in the Tamil Context
• A Historical Perspective of the Chekkaar (Oil Press) community
• Avvai – A Rare Tamil Scholar
• The Copper Plates of the later Cholas and Grants to Brahmins.

In this continuous journey of Education & Dravidian Intelligentsia, we will continue our fine Academic Research. Please do enjoy these papers and share them with your peers. The very purpose of the wealth of education is sharing. Let’s share the Dravidian Wealth of Education & Research.