"“For more than 40 years, I have been describing Tamil as a barbarous language (Kattumirandi Mozhi) used only by barbarians. When Brahmins and the Brahmin-dominated government wanted to make Hindi a State language, I started, to a very limited extent, advocating the promotion of Tamil language only to oppose the imposition of Hindi language."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Periyar_E._V._Ramasamy