Writing the History of Kerala: Seeking a Dalit Space

K.K.Kochu

History writing in Kerala emerged out of the Anthropological studies of the colonial
period. These early story historical studies were influenced by the hegemonic
categorisation of evidence-namely relics, inscriptions, archaeological surveys,
literary works, etc -and the subjectivity of the writers who engaged in them.
Summarising these words in a single phase one could say that they rendered the
dalits and women invisible or irrelevant. Yet owing to the presence of contemporary
tendencies in the historical endeavours, the identities of the dalits and women came
to be marked by various kinds of stereotypes. The myth of the golden dalit past or
the perception that sees Dalits as ' eternal slaves' are the most prominent among the
stereotypes.

The historians of Kerala have conducted extensive research into ascertaining the
lineage of the adi- chera. The contentions of various scholars KP Padmanabha
Menon claims that they were cheramar (pulayar), PT Sreenivasa Iyengar maintains
that they they were kuravar and Ilamkulam's view is that they were villuvar-have
greatly influenced the construction of the myth that Dalits had a golden past. The
subaltern historians of the later period who try to establish the place of the dalits in
Kerala history, went along the traditional path of history writing instead of
deconstructing myths of this kind through which the subalterns were represented.
For instance, an important subaltern historian like NK Jose did not attempt to
problematize the construction of the adi-chera lineage. Similarly T.H.P
Chentharassery, who believed that there was no difference between the kings who
ruled the land and kuravar, vedar, idayar and vellalar, and Kaviyoor Murali who wrote
the book, Puranooru -A Study have all uncritically followed established historians. In
fact the dalit leader Kallara Sukamaran claimed that still in the 10th century CE there
is no evidence to show that even a single village in Kerala was ruled by someone
who was not a dalit. Such evaluations make the claim that not just kingly dynasties
and landlords but also the poets of the Sangam period the lawmakers and
grammarians were all pulayar, parayar or kuravar. This has firmly established the
myth of the golden past among the dalits in Kerala.

In direct contrast to the above (and equally meaningless) is the notion that Dalits
were slaves from time immemorial. Academic- Marxist historians who find their way
forward through the text of D.D Koshambi and non academic historians like P.K
Balakrishnan have worked towards the reconstruction of this myth. One can
summarise their perspective in the following way : many scattered, food-
gathering,primitive tribal communities inhabited the region from the fourth to the 8th
century C E and the period when agrarian village communities were emerging in
India. In this static society until around 10th or 15 century CE there was no practice
of clearing forest or even using the plough for agriculture. The only organised
agricultural activity, taken up in a much later period, was centred on the production of
rice. It was the pulayar, a slave class who engaged in this.

This perception about the dalits, adopted by historians like P.K Balakrishnan
(drawing on Bartholomew, 1970) is nothing but a repetition of the colonial savarna
perspective . Only by opposing such stereotypes can dalits counter the hegemonic
structure of history writing in Kerala.

Rejecting the above myths, one may work towards the following assumptions about
social formation: All social structures were tribal in nature before the advent of the
caste system however these tribal groups did not lead a peaceful and harmonious
life; they did not practise a primitive kind of communism as described in the popular
folk song, maveli nadu vaneedum kaalam. Instead these groups survived by fighting
and looting one another. On the one hand such conflicts helped to protect assets or
resources and on the other it was used to safeguard belief systems. Such conflicts
also resulted in the evolution of some tribal communities into clans (kulam), even as
some others disintegrated or were completely annihilated. The power structure that
existed in this context was not one capable of extensive governance. This is why it is
impossible to understand the narratives about adi-cheras and their small (local)
rulers within models of extensive royal dynasties. In other words, one cannot agree
with the observations of the traditional historians that are based on the allusions in
the literature of the Sangam period. Moreover, socio-political and economic changes
hugely transformed the clans and tribal communities in the subsequent periods.
Locating the contemporary dalit in the tribal structures of a much earlier era shows a
rigid and unchanging imagining of the dalit.

Dr Ambedkar has pointed out that it was during the 4th to the 8th century CE- the
very same period when, according to the traditional Marxists, the agrarian village
community evolved- that chaturvarna disintegrated to create the caste system.
Beyond the division of labour which codified the precepts of the chaturvarna not only
sought to divide those who laboured but also worked to establish in concrete forms,
a structure of patriarchy.s Simplifying such matters and unjustifiably assigning
agency to the Brahmins, D.D Kosambi observed that the Brahmin was the leader of
agrarian village society with knowledge of the almanac, as well as seeds and
harvesting. Kosambi had well- internalised the Marxist dogma about social formation.
Therefore anxieties about India's caste system, the millions of people who lay
outside any kind of class formation, and the problems of women who were
subordinated through gender discrimination were not important for him. Instead he
held on to the mechanical Marxist belief about the changes in relations of
production.P.K Balakrishnan, who sounds as though he is paraphrasing Koshambi
with regard to community for community formation writes that Kerala's tribal people
learnt how to use instruments like the plough, the spade, the sickle and the iron axe
from the brahmins. According to him, it was the namboothiris who made possible the
shift from a primitive tribal life to one of an agrarian village society; they were the
ones who gave light and leadership to such a process. It is indeed a paradox that
such views about community formation let by Marxist secular historians actually
reproduce ideas of Brahmin hegemony.

Caste System and Community Formation

Brahmins had already become a priestly class by the initial centuries of the Christian
era. It was in the fourth century CE, from the Gupta period onwards, that vedic
brahminism began transforming itself into a puranic one. The numerous economic
changes that were taking place all over India laid the foundations for such a change.
The foreign trade that existed from the final years of BCE to the fourth century CE
had ceased with the decline of the Roman Empire, adversely affecting production
and domestic commerce. As a consequence, there was now a huge pull towards the
formation of an economy which was centred on land ownership. In such a situation,
technical knowledge about agriculture, activities like clearing forests with iron
instruments and knowledge about irrigation became important. It was in this context
that works like Krishi Parashara, which contained knowledge of agricultural
practices. were written. In the Puranas too, references to the agricultural activities
mentioned above are numerous. In order to make land ownership the central issue,
political action towards reorganizing individual initiatives became important. The
struggles for political domination amongst tribal communities (both indigenous and
foreign) resulted in the weakening of the chaturvarna system and the emergence of
the caste system. However, tribal ruling systems, scattered in nature, could not
reorganize based on a landowning system. Therefore, a unified sovereign rule
became inevitable, and the Gupta Empire started functioning as a social design
formulated towards stabilizing the caste structure.
It was the rise of an agrarian economy dependent on the caste system which made
activities like land grants extensive. This was carried out by small and large ruling
clans as well as rich merchants and landlords. According to the rules laid out in the
Utharamimamsa, land ownership was the privilege of that group which conducted
sacrifices or yajnas and thus brahmins came to be landowners. It was this same
logic that was used to deny land ownership to the sudras and women. At the same
time, the brahmins, by designating the king as the owner of all land and by making
rules about land ownership. monopolized the right to receive land grants. It was in
such a context that the Puranas were written. Dr Ambedkar has shown that almost
all Puranas were written between the second and twelfth century CE. Not only did
the Puranas assert brahmin hegemony, through stories and narratives that reflected
the ideologies of chaturvarna, they also sought to change tribal customs and rituals.
Such a transformation was also made inevitable by the religious conflicts of that
period. Though many religious strands existed during the beginning of the first
millennium, it was the Buddhist-Jainist tradition that influenced the uncivilized and
undeveloped people. In their attack on these religions, the brahmins, with the help of
the Puranas, created an ideological discourse that included the above mentioned
religious strands; in this way they were able to defeat the knowledge-based
Buddhist-Jainist tradition. Dalits in Kerala were also not free from such a process of
change. Though added much later, the influence of the Puranas in the songs and
ritual performances of the dalits proves this fact.
The agrarian village economy and temple constructions begin around seventh
century CE in Kerala. The inscriptions from the eighth century CE onwards tell us
that when the brahmins became landowners through temples, they had more control
over dependent castes from tribal communities receiving a share in the resources
and subservient to the brahmins. However, dalits and other lower castes remained
the social groups that had to forego their self/identity in this social transformation.
Although separated from one another through rules of untouchability, these people
engaged in different professions and belief systems that were interdependent and
subject to the division of labour. The arrangements of the living space in the agrarian
village included the blacksmith, the carpenter, the astrologer and the dhobi, while
their social interactions were regulated through caste rules. Along with such a social
interaction model, dalits were also subject to further division of labour according to
their various occupations such as the making of bamboo baskets, sieves and mats,
and as shellfish harvesters and boatmen. Similarly, those who lived closer to water
bodies had specialized as boatmen and in mussel fishing. Such a hypothesis proves
wrong Balakrishnan's theory that dalits were slaves from time immemorial.
The idea that dalits were eternal slaves also denies them a cultural field of discourse.
Like other communities, dalits were also organized in terms of castes and sub-
castes. It was because of this that they could protect their own customs, rituals,
magic, songs and other performance arts. The 1820 survey by Ward and Connor
points out that there were 3,002 worshipping places that belonged to the dominant
communities and 15,862 that belonged to the subalterns. It is quite possible that a
considerable number of these were owned by dalits. These worshipping places
might have been a set of stones or the base of a tree; yet, priests, sacred objects
and festivals must have been integral to their existence. In a society where
untouchability was rampant, there would have been a group from among the dalits
themselves that acted as doctors/healers and midwives. One finds many allusions to
such health/healing practices in the indigenous knowledge of dalits. This cultural fact
tells us that Dalits were not a static social group, but were constantly changing and
developing through the history of production/reproduction.

Social Renaissance - Dalit Interventions

Dalits did enter the sphere of economic and social changes that were taking place
during colonial modernity. One needs to thoroughly deconstruct the official reading of
this process as social renaissance. According to the official reading, it was the
proclamation abolishing slavery which came to effect in September 1853 and the
activities of the Christian missionaries which worked towards the social
transformation of dalit communities. Such a perception is based on the idea that
dalits were slaves from time immemorial. However, it was only a small section
among the dalit population that were agrarian slaves. Moreover, the missionary
activities focused on this section were aimed at making good the deficit of labour in
places such as Travancore, Ceylon and Southeast Asia, which were under the
control of the East India Company. The second clause of the proclamation abolishing
slavery, which came to help such a process, clearly decrees that 'even if slavery is
banned, caste-related customs and practices of untouchability would remain
unchanged". This shows that dalits continued as caste groups even after the
abolition of slavery. The activities of the missionaries were not such that they could
subvert the caste system.
Given the above situation, dalits were getting ready to adapt to the social
transformations of colonial modernity, in their own terms. It was a social identity,
quite different from the stereotypes in traditional history, which helped in this
process. According to the 1875 census report, 3 percent of pulayar in Travancore
were landowners. Even though this number is very small, a background of such land
ownership, and the social mobility acquired by being a part of agricultural and non-
agricultural occupations, helped in the emergence of the subaltern renaissance that
took place in Travancore and Kochi. In such a movement, many smaller
organizations and individuals emerged along with more prominent organizations.
like the Sadhujana Paripalana Sangham under the leadership of Ayyankali, Poikayil
Appachan's Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha. Pambadi John Joseph's Akhila
Thiruvithamkoor Cheramar Sangham and K. P. Vallon's Kochi Pulaya Maha Sabha.
Though such movements helped the subaltern communities acquire a social
awareness about wealth, power and status, material conditions that consolidate such
experiences into an independent community-identity formation were not available. In
the absence of such a community-identity formation, the nationalist and communist
movements that came later could easily make invisible the various historical
experiences of the subaltern communities. Problematizing this invisibility,
contemporary subaltern texts make the issue of caste and community formation,
which dominant history writing had hugely marginalized, the central point of their
works.

The Background to Community Formation

One can classify the important transformations of colonial modernity as changes that
happened: a) in the economic system;b) in the sphere of social relations and with
regard to ethical and moral values. When these changes shook the foundations of
traditional society, the stage was set for various kinds of crises in and constructions
of identity to emerge. The consolidation of community identity played a major role in
the field of savarna/ avarna power dynamics.
In Kerala, community formation first happened in Muslim and Christian communities.
Even before the advent of colonialism. Christians had organizations like the sabha
and idavaka connected to their worshipping places. Christians became an organized
social group through alliances and struggles with the colonial imperial power. Logan
reports in the Malabar Manual that, as soon as the Portuguese came, the Christians
of Kerala met them and begged for their protection and support. However, the aim of
the Portuguese was to bring the Christian churches under their religion. As this was
unacceptable to the Christians, the Nasrani Aikya Sabha, which brought together
various idavakas and sabhas, was formed. This unification, based on reformations
around customs and rituals and land ownership (rather than around belief systems),
gradually made them a powerful community.

The situation of the Muslims was different. It was the struggles that the Muslim
community had to undergo in the interest of their religion and business, from the time
of the Portuguese through the lengthy British rule, which laid the foundation for their
community formation. Moreover, community formation was also necessary to
organize subaltern castes like cherumar and pulayar (who had converted to Islam
and were included within Islam without discrimination) against colonial rule. This
process which happened through religious reforms made Muslims a casteless group,
even when there were different strains of belief among them.

In the changed world view of colonial modernity, Hindu caste groups also had to
adjust to the new economic structure. As a result, reformations took place in these
groups as a precursor to community formation. In fact, the Subrahmanya Temple in
Perunna was opened to the nairs and Sree Narayana Guru consecrated the ezhava
Shiva in 1888, because the rejection of the chaturvarna values was central to the
new economic developments. After that, community reformations that subverted the
chaturvarna-based caste system gained in strength. In 1910 (22 Idavam 1085) the
Kerala Nair Samajam's fourth convention decided to replace the caste same,
sudra/Malayali sudra, which was a legacy of the chaturvarna system, with the term
'nair'. The above meeting passed the following resolution on 23 Idavam:
1. This organization emphatically puts forward the opinion that the community has to
give up this (the former caste name) in all ways, except in the conjugal system of
kettu kalyanam.
2. This organization thinks that in all articles and documents, in conversations and
public speech, we should use the early traditional caste name, nair to mark caste.
3. This organization feels that internal caste differences among nairs are
meaningless and retaining them is not good for the
community's progress.
In a voice not very different from the above, a meeting held at Aruvippuram, in order
to establish the SNDP on 7 January 1903 (23 Dhanu 1078), put forward the following
agenda. To bring together the different thiyar known by different names in different
parts, and the Travancore ezhavar to meet those in Kochi or Malabar, and to to give
rise to a feeling that thiyar are one community, and to help e an all-Kerala form to
this organization.' Such a perspective was further strengthened by Sree Narayana
Guru's proclamation that 'ezhavar are not a caste'.

It was when such a community formation later transformed itself into demands for
equality that on 23 December 1946 (8 Dhanu 1121) the ezhavar claimed a share of
political power under the rule of His Highness, the King, along with a share in
representative bodies, the civil services and the army. Such economic and political
demands from various communities came together and led to the Nivarthana
Prakshobham (Abstention Movement) in 1930 and the political struggles that took
place later in Kerala.
National historiography was born when caste groups, having evolved by eliminating
sub-castes and transforming themselves into communities, started claiming political
rights. This history defined the nation in terms of the origin and development of
communities and justified their political demands. This was often upheld by rejecting
the claims of subaltern groups and by denying the coexistence of various
communities. Along with this, it gave dominance to the acceptance/rejection
techniques of nation-state formation within the field of history writing itself. We can
see such a methodology developing in the words of M. G. S. Narayanan: 'Though
the Indian nation had not emerged, an imagination about it was quite alive. Though
Kerala had not yet been born, Kerala was taking shape in the hearts of people.
British Malabar, which was a district of the old Madras Presidency, was separated
from the Kochi and Travancore kingdoms, in terms of governance. However, what
they shared in terms of language, society and culture, was getting stronger and
stronger. Thus, Kerala history also became an issue of debate and discussion. The
problematization of the community which was integral to such discussions freed
Kerala history from the legends of the texts such as Keralolpathi (The Origin of
Kerala) and the dynastic eulogies in the writings of court historians such as
Vaikam Pachu Moothathu and P. Shankunni Menon."
Yet, this same historiography granted subjectivity to the nair and middle castes in
relation to sudra-based community formation. Trying to assess the place of nairs in
Kerala, K. P. Padmabnabha Menon writes: 'Now we will talk about the situation of
the inhabitants of Kochi. Here, there was not much difference between Kochi and
north and south Malayalam lands. In ancient times, Tamils and Malayalis who were
dravidians cannot be considered different. When nairs began occupying Malayalam
land, the original inhabitants like cheramar, kadar, malayar, etc., withdrew into the
forests, and the land in the valleys and coastal regions came to be under the
domination and control of nairs.' Revealing the other side of this ahistorical
conception, he describes the real situation of nairs and their land ownership. There is
no doubt that the nairs mentioned above were subjugated to the namboothiris and
that they enjoyed the land as tenants under various tenures such as kanam, adim
and anubhavam. However, throughout the history of Kerala, different communities
had existed along with the nairs, maintaining various kinds of discourses. This tells
us that nairs were not dominant or even the majority community in terms of owning
land or territory. They also did not have free production and exchange rights on land.
It was because of this that under the caste system, not only with regard to land
ownership but also in social relations, they were subject to brahmin and colonial
hegemony. Forgetting all this, Sardar K. M. Panikker creates a political map that
strongly posits the nairs as a ruling class from ancient times.
However, what is obvious is the fact that in the period when nairs had land
ownership and political rights, tribal conditions - and later the chaturvarna-based
caste system-enveloped the whole society History writing, which does not take into
consideration the systemic changes, institutionalizes hegemonic groups and
marginalizes other communities. Modern Marxist historiography does not
deconstruct the hegemony of communities in the nationalist historiography. So by
reading Sangam literature M. G. S. Narayanan claims that when agrarian village
communities emerged, it was the warrior classes who gained land ownership and
fought under various leaders. Such readings work to institutionalize the hegemonic
claims of certain communities. Therefore, it goes unnoticed that the Sangam texts
actually point to panar, vedar, kuravar, arayar and several tribal communities who
owned land, were engaged in the production of various grains, and also fought under
various leaders.
When Rajan Gurukkal and Raghava Varier, using Marxist methods. write Kerala
history, they assess community formation as the unification of temple-dependent
communities through the sharing of resources under brahmin domination. The
different discourses of various castes and the social situation of women who make
up half of the population fall out of the purview of such a history. We can put an end
to the invisibility/ absence of subalterns in history only by deconstructing the national,
modern, Marxist historiographies that dynamically institutionalize savarna power.