The social origins of a caste association, 1875-1905: The founding of the S.N.D.P. YOGAM

South Asia: Journal of South Asia Studies

Volumn 4, Issue 1, 1974, Pages 39-59

  Jeffrey, Robin ^a  

^a AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

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EID: 67749144463     PISSN: 00856401     EISSN: 14790270     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00856407408730687     Document Type: Article

References (134)

1. C. Kesavan jivitasamaram (Kottayam, National Book Stall, 1968; first published, 1953), pp. 407-11. Kesavan was born in 1891 and died in 1969. He was chief minister of Travancore-Cochin in 1951-2.
2. Although there has been no detailed study of the S.N.D.P. Yogam, it is often mentioned in discussions of caste associations in India
3. See for example Lloyd I. and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, The Modernity of Tradition (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1967), pp. 73n. and 153n
4. Selig S. Harrison, India: the Most Dangerous Decades (Madras, OUP, 1965), p. 197
5. André Bcteille, Castes: Old and New (Bombay, Asia Publishing House, 1969), p. 81.
6. M. N. Srinivas, Caste in Modern India (Bombay, Asia, 1962), pp. 42-62, discusses his concept of “sanskritization”.
7. David Washbrook’s very critical review of Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr., The Nadars of Tamilnad (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1969), in Modern Asian Studies, 5, No. 3 (1971), pp. 278-83. Wash-brook argues that most caste associations were largely unconnected with any kind of social reality and were “perhaps, merely another way of building up a constituency in order to raise their [the organizers'] bargaining power both with other politicians and with the government” (p. 282).
8. Travancore Census Report, 1875, p. 231.
9. The appropriate distances vary slightly in different accounts: see A. Hfawksworth, Day Dawn in Travancore (Kottayam, CMS Press, 1860), pp. 9-10.
10. J. H. Hutton, Caste in India (Bombay, OUP, 1969), pp. 79-81, gives a digest of the various accounts.
11. Eric J. Miller, “Caste and Territory in Malabar”, American Anthropologist, 1. 6 (1954), pp. 415-16, makes this point clearly.
12. Francis Day, The Land of the Peru-ma Is (Madras, Gantz Brothers, 1863), p. 321.
13. G. A. Ballard, Resident, to the Chief Secretary to the Madras Government [hereafter Ch. Sec], 9 March 1870: National Archives of India, Madras Residency Records [hereafter MRR], Madras Political Proceedings [hereafter MPP], 13 April 1870, G.O. No. 143.
14. Iravas were kept off roads near temples or public buildings which might be polluted by their proximity. Their presence in government schools would have driven away high-caste pupils.
15. Duarte Barbosa, The Book of Duarte Barbosa, trans. M. L. Dames, (London, Hak-luyt Society, 1921), 2. p. 49.
16. Census, 1875, pp. 188-9.
17. T. C. Varghese, Agrarian Change and Economic Consequences (Bombay, Allied Publishers, 1970), p. 217.
18. The princely states of Travancore and Cochin plus the British Indian district of Malabar made up the Malayalam-speaking region called Kerala, Census, 1875, p. 255.
19. Rev. Jacob Chandy, Sr., “Journal, ” 25 Nov 1856: Church Missionary Society [here- after CMS] Archives, London, uncatalogued.
20. Census, 1875, pp. 188-9.
21. The Travancore Administration Reports [hereafter TAR] for the 1860s, corroborated by Residents' reports, make clear the extent of Madhava Rao's activities and reforms.
22. Madras Mail, 23 July 1890, p. 5
23. a lakh is 100, 000.The haphazard censuses of 1836 and 1854 put the population of Travancore at 1.28 million and 1.26 million respectively, thus recording a drop in population.
24. See W. H. Horsley, Memoir of Travancore (Tri-vandrum, Sirkar Press, 1863), pp. 54-5 and 60-1. The well-organized census of 1875 put the population at 2.31 millions.
25. Rev. Samuel Mateer, Native Life in Travancore (London, W. H. Allen, 1883), p. 218.
26. Cochin Census Report, 1891, 1, 144
27. TAILs. 1870-1 to 1891-2.
28. Madras Mail, 8 May 1901, p. 6, and 23 May 1904, p. 3. “The Dewan's Tour: Inspection Notes”, by V. P. Madhava Rao, 16 May to 18 June 1904: Kerala Secretariat, Trivandrum, Travancore Government English Re- cords [hereafter TGER], Political Department, No. 97 of 1904.
29. Mateer, Native Life, p. 281.
30. Travancore Times, 1 July 1885, reported that the wealthy Thavasimuttu Nadar bought the abkari rights for three-quarters of the taluks in Travancore. For the range of his interests, see his obituary in the Hindu, 7 March 1888, p. 4. See also TGER, Cover No. 10271.
31. J. C. Hannyngton, Resident, to V. Ramiengar, Dewan, 16 Dec. 1886: TGER, Cover No. 10312.
32. London Missionary Society, Travancore District Committee [hereafter.I.MS. TDC], Report, 1874, pp. 16-17.
33. Petition of Kumaraswamy Nadar, 11 July 1889: TGER, Cover No. 10312
34. See the Madras Standard, 3 Feb. 1886, p. 2, for the arrest of two Iravas who were smuggling toddy from the British enclave of Anjengo into Travancore. The position of Iravas seems similar to that of the distiller castes of Bisipara. “But the biggest gains [from the new economic opportunities available after 1855] went to the DISTILLER caste-groups, who profited from a monopoly arising out of caste-beliefs and Government support.” F. G. Bailey, Caste and the Economic Frontier (Manchester, University Press, 1957), p. 173.
35. Petition of Kurikkacheril Mathavan, Kunku Raman and others of Shertallai to the Madras Government, 6 April 1884: MRR, MPP, 9 May 1889, G.O. No. 321.
36. A member of the Madras Council noted: “A curious paper. We can do nothing, but such documents should be kept with care”. Why the petition took five years to come before the Council is unexplained. It was postmarked Allepey, 6 April 1884.
37. “A Travancore Tiya” [P. Palpu], letter to the editor, Madras Mail, 19 Feb. 1891, p. 6. Of the thirty-six successful candidates in the examination, twenty-three were non-Malayali Brahmins, seven Nayars, four Vella-las, one Chetti and one Eurasian. Travancore Government Gazette [hereafter TGG], III, No. 8, 9 May 1865.
38. Velayudhan Panikkassery, da, palpu (Trichur, Current Books, 1970), p. 14
39. Regional Records Survey Committee, The History of the Freedom Movement in Kerala, vol. 2 (Trivandmm, Government Press, 1972), p. 457.
40. Ballard to the Ch. Sec, 9 March 1870: loc. cit
41. Panikkassery, palpu, pp. 18-19.
42. Malabar Herald, 13 Jan. 1906
43. Madras Mail, 14 April 1909, p. 4, for Velayudhan's obituary. Palpu, born in 1863, survived until 1950.
44. p. Palpu to T. Madhava Rao, 2 Oct. 1886: TGER, Cover No. 841.
45. LMS, I DC. Report, 1872, p. 18.
46. Minute Book, LMS, TDC, meetings of 10 to 13 Aug. 1886: Bangalore, United Theological College Archives, No. 79.
47. Evangelists' reports for 1891-2: CMS Archives, No. 11 of 1893. See also the Rev. Oomen Mammen, “Journal, ” 15 Aug. 1857: CMS Archives, uncatalogued, writing of an Irava who had met the missionaries: “[He] is a true missionary. He speaks to all whom he meets with. His brothers and neighbours are now desirous to be taught; he himself, though poor and a servant of a Syrian family, has learned to read since he began to care for his soul. He has now built a prayer room in his master's compound in which he and his party meet together every morning and evening for social prayer.”
48. Census, 1931, I, 382-9, reported the caste of 77 per cent of Travancore's Christian converts. The figures showed 168, 000 Shanar converts, 157, 000 Pulaya converts and only 2, 311 Irava converts. Undoubtedly many Irava converts refused to give their old caste, but the figures are still striking.
49. “A Travancorean”, letter to the editor, Madras Mail, 16 Nov. 1896, p. 3. The writer was probably P. Palpu.
50. LMS, TDC, Report, 1890, p. 18.
51. See also Rev. W. J. Richards to the Secretary, CMS, 18 Sept. 1885: CMS Archives, No. 87 of 1885, for the problems of Irava converts at Alleppey.
52. Travancore Law Reports, vol. 4, Special Appeal Suit No. 221 of 1060, pp. 12-17. Special Committee to the Dewan, 13 March 1889: TGER, Cover No. 6154.
53. Rev. Jacob Chandy, Sr., “Journal” 21 June 1852 and 4 Jan. 1856: CMS Archives, uncatalogued
54. See also Chandy A, “Journal, ” 29 April 1957. for a long discussion with an elderly Irava convert about the aspirations of converts and the disadvantages of converting Pulayas.
55. Diary of the Rev. A. F. Painter, 8 Sept. 1882: CMS Archives, No. 49 of 1882.
56. V. Nagam Aiya, The Travancore State Manual (Trivandrum, Government Press, 1906), 2, 397, writes that cremation among Iravas was rare. L. A. Krishna Iyer, Social History of Kerala (Madras, Book Centre Publications, 1970), II, 100, discusses the prestige value of cremation for Iravas.
57. Edgar Thurston, Castes and Tribes of South India (Madras, Government Press, 1909), 2, 396-7.
58. LMS, TDC, Report, 1865, p. 9.
59. Thurston A, Castes, 2, 393
60. A. Sreedhara Menon, Kerala District Gazetteers: Quilon (Trivandrum, Government Press, 1964), p. 170
61. A. Aiyappan, “Iravas and Culture Change”, Madras Government Museum Bulletin, 5, No. 1 (1943), 18: TGER, Cover No. 9047. A modern Irava account of the origin of caste in Kerala claims that Nayars collaborated with a race of new conquerors and Iravas resisted
62. Census, 1875, pp. 245-6; 1891, I, 498.
63. See the Memorial in the Madras Times, 8 July 1891, pp. 5-6.
64. P. Palpu to S. Shungarasoobyer, Dewan, 13 May 1895: TGER, Cover No. 3234. Shun-garasoobyer's reply, if there was a written one, has not been preserved here.
65. Panikkassery, Palpu, pp. 76-7. For the letters of the Irava applicants, see pp. 114-16. One of the latter was M. Govindan who became the first Irava munsiff in 1908.
66. See also the letter from “A Travancorean”, Madras Mail, 15 Oct. 1896. p. 5
67. also Madras Mail, 13 Dec. 1895, p. 4.
68. Panikkassery, palpu, pp. 77-8.
69. Madras Mail, 6 Oct. 1896, p. 3, printed the Memorial in full. The copy in TGER, Cover No. 1231, is in Malayalam. Regarding Tiyyans, see n. 2 above and n. 90 below
70. Endorsement, 3 Oct. 1896: TGER, Cover No. 1231
71. Madras Mail, 5 Nov. 1896, p. 5.
72. Madras Mail, 15 Oct. 1896, p. 5.
73. Madras Mail, 4 Dec. 1896, p. 5.
74. LMS, TDC, Report, 1897, pp. 8-9, quoting Rev. W. D. Osbourne.
75. Panikkassery, Palpu, p. 93.
76. The precise date of Narayana’s birth is unclear, but 1855 is within a year or two. See Nataraja Guru, The Word of the Guru (Ernakulam, Paico Publishing House, 1968; first published, 1952), p. 254. Narayana died in 1928.
77. Narayana's obscure early life has been further blurred by hagiography. I have generally accepted the account which Ku-maran Asan gave to a meeting of the S.N.D.P. Yogam in 1903 and which was published in the S.N.D.P. magazine, Vivekodayam, I, No. 1 (1904), 2-3. I am indebted to K. Prab-hakaran, Kumaran Asan's son, for making the magazine available and translating the article for me. See also, Daniel Thomas, Sree Narayana Guru (Bangalore, Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society, 1965), pp. 7-10, and C. O. Kesavan kumaran asan mahakavi (Trivandrum, Chandra Mohan Press, 1958), pp. 52-3.
78. LMS, I DC, Report, 1896, p. 7, quoting K. P. Thomas.
79. This paragraph is based chiefly on, and quotations are from, Kumaran Asan's handwritten “Biographical Note”, prepared in 1922 when he was decorated by the Prince of Wales. It is in the Kumaran Asan museum at Tonnaykkal, a few miles north of Trivandrum. See also Kesavan asan, pp. 43, 61-5, 73. Kumaran Asan was drowned when a boat sank in central Travancore in 1924
80. Vivekodayam, 1. No. 1 (1904), 2-3.
81. P. Parameswaran to K. Krishnaswami Rao, Dewan, 8 Jan. 1903: TGER, Cover No. 8338. The by-laws are in the same file.
82. Pre-pubescent Nayar and Irava girls underwent the costly talikettukalyanam (literally, io/i'-tying marriage) ceremony. The tali or pendant was tied round the girl's neck by a man with whom she would probably not cohabit. Both Nayar and Irava reformers sought to abolish the talikettukalyanam. The tali is now tied at the same time as the presentation of the cloth (sam-bandham) in Nayar marriages. In Irava marriages for the toH-tying ceremony the bride wears the sari presented earlier by the groom's party.
83. Vivekodayam, 1, No. 1 (1904), 3.
84. Miller, “Caste and Territory”, p. 416.
85. Kesavan jivitasamaram, p. 38.
86. Mannath Padmanabhan [Pillai], ente jivitasmaranakal (Trivandrum, Nayar Service Press, n.d. [about 1957]), p. 37.
87. David F. Pocock, Kanbi and Patidar (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 67.
88. LMS, TDC, Report, 1892, p. 8, quoting a catechist, V. Charles Victor.
89. TAR, 1895-6, p. 143.
90. Madras Mail, 24 April 1900, p. 3.
91. LMS, TDC, Report, 1900, p. 16, quoting Rev. W. D. Osbourne.
92. Rev. John Caley to the Secretary, CMS 29 May 1900: CMS Archives, No. 69 of 1900.
93. Iravas threatened mass conversion to Christianity in the early 1930s before the Temple Entry Proclamation of 1936 in Travancore ended the issue for good.
94. Madras Mail, 4 June 1904, p. 5.
95. Vivekodayam, 2 (1905)
96. see Nos 1, 2, 4 and 6 for Vivekananda's speeches and writings translated into Malayalam. The slogan “One caste, one religion, one God”, now generally associated with Sri Narayana and the Yogam, did not come into prominence until fifteen or twenty years later. It would probably not have been appreciated by caste Hindus in the orthodox Travancore of 1900
97. Madras Mail, 21 Nov. 1904, p. 5.
98. In northern Kerala those who tended the coconut palm were called Tiyyans. Ti-yyans generally claimed to be of higher status than Iravas. See Thurston, Castes, III, 38-40. In traditional times it seems likely that they rarely met.
99. Madras Times, 11 Jan. 1905, p. 3;
100. Madras Mail, 11 and 13 Jan. 1905, both p. 5.
101. Malayala Manorama, 21 Jan. 1905.
102. “Submission”, 26 May 1905: TGER, Travancore Judicial Department, File No. 115 of 1905 [hereafter TJD 115]. Madras Mail, 7 Feb. 1905, p. 3.
103. Madras Mail, 4 June 1904, p. 5. “Submission”, 26 May 1905: loc. cit. Rev. W. A. Stephens in Travancore and Cochin Diocesan Record, XV, No. 6 (Nov. 1905), 90: CMS Archives, No. 139 of 1905. N. Rajaram Rao, Acting District Magistrate, Quilon, to the Dewan, 29 Jan. 1905: TGER, TJD 115.
104. Madras Mail, 8 Feb. 1905, p. 3, reported that the schoolboys had been bloodily beaten. The police in Trivandrum received similar reports from Iravas, but the superintendent who saw the boys wrote that their injuries had been grossly exaggerated. R. II. Bensley, Superintendent of Police, to the Ch. Sec, Travancore Government, 28 Jan. 1905: TGER, TJD 115. Government received the first protest from Iravas in a petition from Komatha Kunju Panikkan, the secretary of the Kartigapalli Irava association, received 25 Jan. 1905 in Trivandrum. A telegram, complaining of the assault on the boys, was received the same day.
105. Nagam Aiya to Keshava Pillai, 9 Feb. 1905: TGER, TJD 115.
106. Madhava Rao to Keshava Pillai, 23 Feb. 1905 and Keshava Pillai to Madhava Rao, 20 Feb. 1905: TGER, TJD 115.
107. Madras Mail, 21 Feb. 1905, p. 3
108. Madras Times, 28 Feb. 1905, p. 3.
109. Malabar Herald, 11 March 1905, wrote that Iravas had acted “very injudiciously”. This newspaper was owned by Romo-Syrians and published from Cochin.
110. Madras Times, 17 March 1905, p. 3.
111. Kumaran Asan to Madhava Rao, 9 March 1905: TGER, TJD 115.
112. Satyavadi, 22 March 1905, in Reports on Native Newspapers, Madras, Malayalam, fortnight ending 31 March 1905.
113. Quoted in Madras Mail, 9 March 1905, p. 3.
114. Editor, Sujanandhini, to Madhava Rao, II March 1905, telegram: TGER, TJD 115. “Sujanandhini office was burnt by Nairs previous night beg protection.”
115. V. P. Madhava Rao, “The Dewan's Tour. Inspection Notes”, 15 and 16 March 1905: TGER, Political Department, File No. 71 of 1905.
116. Madras Mail, 21 March 1905, p. 5. The other resolutions proclaimed that “reports of inter-racial animosity are quite unfounded”, that the two communities could improve themselves without harming each other, and that pending cases should be settled out of court. See also the Malabar Herald, 25 March 1905.
117. Bensley to Madhava Rao, 3 April 1905: TGER, TJD 115.
118. Madras Times, 21 March 1905, p. 3. The cry of anti-Brahmin arson had gone up, along with a number of Brahmin houses, in most, hot weathers since the Malayali Memorial of 1891.
119. See for example the Madras Mail, 19 March 1892, p. 5 and 23 April 1897, p. 5. The houses were thatched and cooking was done over open fires.
120. Madras Mail, 20 March 1905, p. 5.
121. HO Petition, received 29 April 1905: TGER, Travancore Educational Department, File No. 255 of 1907; Malabar Herald, 22 July 1905. In August Iravas were admitted to the school in Changancherry: G.O., 21 Aug. 1905: TGER, Educational Department, File No. 255 of 1907.
122. Madras Mail, 8 April 1905, p. 5.
123. Kesavan asan, p. 331
124. Regional Records, Freedom Movement, 2, 462
125. Madras Mail, 14 March 1908, p. 5.
126. See e.g. Malabar Herald, 24 March 1906, 16 March 1907 and 27 March 1909.
127. Vivekodayam, 6, Nos. 1 2 (1909), 19.
128. K. M. George, Trivandrum, “Asan”, unpublished manuscript, quoting a statement of Sri Narayana in 1917.
129. “The SNDP Yogam”, the Travancore police's Weekly Secret Bulletin, 2, No. 43 (26 Oct. 1935), recorded, “appears to be a strong anti-Government organization”. Orders were given “to carefully watch the activities of the various Branches”. Trivandrum, Kerala State Archives. lis Kesavan jivitasamaram, pp. 406-7.
130. Robert L. Hardgrave Jr., “Caste and the Kerala Elections”, Economic Weekly, 17 April 1965, p. 672.
131. Kathleen Cough, “Political Party Conflict in a Kerala Village”, Anthropology and Archaeology, ed. M. C. Pradhan, et al. (Bombay, OUP, 1969), pp. 134-5
132. V. K. S. Nayar, “Communal Interest Groups in Kerala”, South Asian Politics and Religion, ed. Donald E. Smith (Princeton, Princeton UP, 1966), pp. 182-4.
133. Hindu (Kerala edition), 1 Oct. 1971, which carried a report that the Yogam had at last elected office bearers after five years “in the doldrums”.
134. T. K. Madhavan (1885-1930) was the leading figure in the Yogam at the time of the Vaikam satyagraha in 1924: see Regional Records, Freedom Movement, 2, 462-3n.