Geno,
This is what Rajeev Srinivasan has to say about 'great' periyar and vaikom. Read it and weep.
=================================
'Dravidian' mythology
November 24
Whenever I hear of 'Dravidians' I am reminded of their sainted leader EV Ramaswamy Naicker. He is known, among his other epithets, as 'Vaikom Veerar', meaning the 'hero of Vaikom'. This refers to the Vaikom Satyagraha in 1924 in Kerala. This was to demand the right for 'lower caste' people to use the public paths around the Vaikom Mahadeva temple. This was the seminal struggle that led to the 1936 Temple Entry Proclamation that opened all temples in Travancore to all Hindus.
The implication is that Naicker was one of the heros of the Vaikom Satyagraha, if not the main man.
However, in point of fact, he came, he saw, and he was ignored. Nobody paid the slightest attention to Naicker. He was a complete nobody as far as the Vaikom Satyagraha is concerned.
Yet, according to Tamil mythmakers, he was a hero.
And how do I know this? It's because family members of mine were among the leaders of the agitation. They were the ones who were arrested, beaten up, whose bones were broken.
Naicker could be renamed 'Vaikom Visitor' or 'Vaikom Tourist' and it would be more correct.