To mark the centenary of the Self-Respect Movement, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin is set to address the Self-Respect Movement and its Legacies Conference 2025 at the University of Oxford during his visit to the United Kingdom (U.K.) on September 4. He will also unveil the portrait of social reformer Periyar E.V. Ramasamy on the university campus.

Speaking at the wedding of DMK Rajya Sabha member N.R. Elango’s daughter in Chennai, Mr. Stalin said he will begin his week-long visit to Germany and the U.K., on Saturday (August 30, 2025). “Since the ‘Dravidian Model’ government assumed office in Tamil Nadu, the State has attracted investments worth ₹10 lakh crore. During my overseas visits, I realised that many investors and industrialists were keen on investing in Tamil Nadu,” he said.

“It gives me immense pleasure to share that I will be unveiling the portrait of Periyar at the University of Oxford, a world-renowned institution that has produced some of the greatest scholars. Though Periyar was born and lived in Tamil Nadu, his ideas belong to the entire world. His principles of self-respect, women’s rights, rationalism, and equality transcend boundaries,” Mr. Stalin said.

DMK spokesperson Manuraj Shunmugasundaram told The Hindu the two-day conference on September 4 and 5, co-hosted by St. Antony’s College and Balliol College at the University of Oxford, aimed at globalising the Self-Respect Movement that reshaped Tamil Nadu’s socio-political landscape by directly confronting entrenched hierarchies of caste and gender.

The conference will bring together leading scholars and practitioners from across disciplines and will explore the continuing global relevance of self-respect as a political and ethical principle. It will place the Dravidian experience in dialogue with international movements, from civil rights and anti-apartheid struggles to contemporary mobilisations against systemic inequalities, that have sought to challenge and overturn structures of oppression, he said.

Mr. Stalin will launch two books that highlight the hundred-year journey of the Self-Respect Movement and its contemporary relevance in shaping society, on September 4. The Chief Minister will also interact with Indian students and graduates in London on September 5, he added.