Developmental Modernity in Kerala

Title: Developmental Modernity in Kerala – Narayana Guru, SNDP Yogam and Social Reform
Author: P. Chandramohan
Publisher: Tulika Books, 2019 (First published 2016)
ISBN: 9788193926987
Pages: 260

The state of social reforms and standard of living varied much among the British Indian provinces and native states neighbouring them in the colonial period. Even among the princely states, matters differed very much. Travancore was a model state among them having high literacy, emancipation of the backward castes and better healthcare systems as compared to other states. Social reforms implemented in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries in the little southwestern kingdom were the fountainhead for the onset of modernity in Travancore. The reforms in society and transformation of the economy went hand-in-hand to usher in development in all spheres of life. This book explains the development of modernity in Travancore and the social work of Sri Narayana Guru and SNDP Yogam which acted complementary to open up a modern state along the lines of a constitutional monarchy. It nicely describes how the reforms sought to create a social climate for modernization. P. Chandramohan retired as curator of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi after having served in various positions in that institution for over thirty years. He is a scholar politically oriented towards the Left and this book is an attempt to ‘prove’ that the reform movement in Kerala followed Marxist precepts on the origin and development of social classes and the struggle between them. The book is an academic product of JNU and is a revised version of the author’s M. Phil dissertation which was submitted at its Centre for Historical Studies in 1982. The narrative covers the time interval from around 1891 in which the Malayali Memorial was submitted and till 1936 when all government temples in Travancore were thrown open to all Hindus irrespective of caste differences.

The subject matter of the book primarily deals with the Ezhava community, Sri Narayana Guru who rose up spiritually from its ranks and the community’s social organisation called Sri Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (hereafter referred as SNDP Yogam). The Ezhavas constituted nearly a fifth of Travancore’s population and hierarchically enjoyed a good position among the untouchable castes. Their main occupations were cultivation, manufacture of coir, fiber and jiggery and the extraction of palm-tree products like toddy. Even though they nominally belonged to Hinduism, the Hindu community was stratified based on degrees of purity and pollution. Any kind of solidarity among Hindus in terms of religion was absent. In no other part of India was casteism more rigidly practiced than in Kerala that Swami Vivekananda likened it to a lunatic asylum. Narayana Guru and the SNDP Yogam found the most distressing social issue as the prevalence of the caste system which segregated people on a hierarchically ordained model on the basis of ritual status. The book explains the many situations like the consecration of a Siva temple at Aruvippuram when the Guru and the Yogam came to clash with entrenched dogma. Chandramohan claims that the reforms led to the formation of a new intelligentsia and a middle class whose objective was to determine the contours of a new inter-caste society. This tendency to map anything anywhere to comply with the Marxist principle of class struggle is a recurrent theme in the book.

The book lists out the land reforms introduced in the kingdom of Travancore which transformed the agrarian society in which the king was the sole owner of all land in the state into a modern system in which proprietorship was transferred to his subjects in return for a nominal tax on land they possessed. Important legislations that introduced the concept of private property came into being. In 1865, the government enunciated the Paattam Proclamation which is considered to be the magna carta of Travancore agriculturists. It granted full ownership rights of about 200,000 acres of government-owned land to the holders/tenants. These could then be treated as private, heritable, saleable and otherwise transferable property. This put an end to state landlordism and created peasant proprietorship. The landed ‘assets’ of the state became the landed ‘property’ of the people. Eventually, this would lead to the partition and liquidation of the joint family system. This accounted for 80 per cent of the land. The remaining 20 per cent of jenmam lands was addressed by reforms just two years later in 1867. It redefined the power of jenmis (zamindars) making the eviction of a tenant much more difficult although they were required to continue giving rent to the jenmis. In 1896, the Jenmi-Kudiyaan act came into being. It ensured permanent occupancy rights and fixed rents for kaanam kudiyaans. An amendment was introduced to this regulation in 1932. It converted all tenants into proprietors who were to remit rent to the jenmi. Rent payment had to be made only in cash. Thus the kudiyaans acquired full ownership of the land including tis output. The author also narrates the development of cash economy in the nineteenth century with spread of plantation crops, growth of industries like coir, cashew nut and cotton spinning effected rapid economic change in that century’s last quarter. A middle class cutting across caste lines grew up as a result.

The chapter on Narayana Guru neatly summarizes his contributions to social reform. He melded tradition and modernity and at the same time produced a result greater than the sum of its parts. Guru’s genius lay in completely eliminating some meaningless rituals like mock marriage of pre-pubescent girls (thalikettukalyanam) and those associated with attaining puberty (thirandukuli) while only modifying the practices in some other fields. Superstitious procedures and obscure social customs were summarily reformed. He deconsecrated Ezhavas’ till-then-favoured gods like Chathan, Marutha or Madan and introduced the mainstream Hindu deities minus the Brahmin priesthood. Chandramohan bestows the full credit in spreading universal education on the Christian missionaries. He even praises them for enabling the upward social mobility of the Ezhavas (p.40) because ‘the community used to have interactions with the missionaries’! This does not take into account the potential or limitations of missionaries in an objective way as done in the book, ‘Missionaries and a Hindu State: Travancore 1858-1936’ by Koji Kawashima reviewed earlier here. There is some confusion on the numerical strength of the schools run by them. On p.86-87, the missionaries were said to be running 416 out of 1901 schools (22 per cent), but on the next page, the ratio enlarges to 46 per cent. The mindset of the Travancore government and the people in making it the most literate state on Indian independence is glimpsed in the book. In 1897, 24 per cent of the students were the offspring of labourers/coolies who had recognized the utility of sending their children to schools rather than following the livelihood of their parents. The kingdom provided free education and encouraged new schools. In 1903, it spent 9.56 per cent of its total revenue on education.

The author analyses the socio-economic background which helped caste organizations like the SNDP Yogam to grow up. Contrary to popular perception that the entire Ezhava community engaged in toddy tapping, distilling and distribution, by the end of the nineteenth century, only 3.8 per cent of them were employed in this profession. Others were occupied in lucrative employment and prosperous trade. The government stopped the practice of unpaid compulsory manual labour for public works and instead employed labourers with wages to construct roads. Coir export to the US increased and the price of toddy and arrack doubled. A middle class arose from these developments who found the time to be ripe for collective action for social mobility. In 1896, Dr. Palpu formed the Ezhava Mahasabha but found it difficult to make it popular. Swami Vivekananda advised Palpu to find a spiritual leader around whom a social organization could be built up. That’s how Guru and Palpu met and the SNDP Yogam was born.

The nature and character of the Yogam is analysed in detail and Chandramohan claims that it was an elitist group at least for the first quarter century of its existence. According to the articles of association of the Yogam, it was largely commercial in nature. Membership fee was prohibitively high. Not more than a fourth collected in a year was to be used for that year’s expenses. The remaining was to be loaned out on interest in order to accumulate capital. Stringent restrictions were in place for members defaulting in payment of the fees. In 1916, the Yogam took court action against members who failed to pay subscription, sealed their houses and held up their property. The organization was said to be led by the educated middle class and the laboring class had no say in its functioning. The presidential address and most of the speeches at its annual meetings were in English. T K Madhavan was the leader who brought Yogam to the ground and made it accessible to all. He considerably reduced the fees in 1927 that helped ordinary men to afford membership. The number of members rose from 3818 to 63674 as a result in just two years. The book also includes a brief exposition on the lower castes gaining the right of temple entry and the agitation that went into it. Curiously, the lower castes were not very enthusiastic in entering government-owned temples. It was C. Raman Thampi and Janardhana Menon, two Nair leaders, who advocated for temple entry before any avarna voiced it. The author claims that Vaikom Satyagraha which demanded only the opening up of public roads around that temple to lower castes, was organized by the Congress, upper castes and T K Madhavan, while the Yogam kept aloof from it. The decade that followed it was a crucial one. Ezhavas allied with Christians and Muslims in the Abstention Movement and obtained reservation for the community in government jobs. An argument gained strength among Ezhavas to convert en masse to Christianity in order to break the shackles of caste oppression. The government was then quick to introduce the Temple Entry Proclamation which ensured the right of every Hindu to enter temples.

Even though the book is in original a part of the academic repertoire – being the author’s M. Phil dissertation – it’s very much readable. The argument regarding the social indices of various communities is backed by many tables culled from census data. The book is very reverent to Narayana Guru and adulatory to his work but is against the SNDP Yogam because of its roots among the middle class and its nonchalant approach to class struggle. As noted before, this book is an attempt to evaluate how modernity developed in Kerala in accordance with Marxist theory. The abolition of meaningless rituals like talikettukalyanam, thirandukuli and pulikudi is said to be ‘a phase in the evolution of bourgeois capitalism’ (p.124). The actions of the Guru are claimed to be similar to the liberal tendencies of the modern bourgeoisie (p.134). In the first few chapters of the book, the author maintains self-control in using leftist jargon. So we read about ‘how the ideas of the Guru suited the aspirations of the Ezhava middle class’ and the Guru’s religious reforms in rituals having a ‘democratic element’ in them. The term ‘bourgeois’ appears for the first time on page 128 and is a constant presence thereafter. The funniest part is that the book contains references to EMS Namboodiripad’s works who was nothing more than a jack of all trades but a master of political sectarianism. His arguments and opinions prove nothing but this seems to be a feeble attempt on the part of the author to a logical fallacy called ‘appeal to authority’. To cap it tightly with political rhetoric, it includes a Foreword by the well-known Marxist historian K N Panikkar.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star