Three men, a great orator, Gandhi—all that led to the birth of Vaikom Satyagraha 99 years ago

The movement left indelible marks on Kerala society, made leaders and heroes, and gave hope to a dispirited Congress just after Malabar rebellion was suppressed.

Vaikom Mahadeva Temple in Kerala | Wikimedia Commons

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Ninety-nine years ago today, three men walked down a road and were arrested for their temerity. Newspapers cheered on — it was day one of a “truly glorious fight” against untouchability that would shake a kingdom and captivate a nation. Where would it all end? “Bolshevism and bloodshed,” one caste Hindu was sure.

Avarnas — those without caste or ‘untouchables’ — had no right to set foot in the premises of Vaikom Mahadeva Temple or any other Brahmanical house of worship in Kerala, the country Parashurama claimed from the sea for the delight of the Brahmanas. But three men’s rebellion wasn’t about that, not officially, not just yet. It was ostensibly a campaign for the right to walk on the roads near the temple, a privilege guarded no less jealously by the orthodox establishment.

The idea for Vaikom Satyagraha was born in the ferment of an anti-caste movement that had its roots in early 19th-century Kerala and was now at its height under the guidance of spiritual leader Narayana Guru. It drew in the who’s who of social and political leaders from across the princely states of Travancore and Cochin and British Malabar as well as national figures from MK Gandhi and C Rajagopalachari to EV Ramasamy (Periyar).

Did the Vaikom Satyagraha end with a whimper? After 20 months, it won concessions so paltry they could barely be called a compromise. Great disillusionment and further struggle were its first fruits. But the movement left indelible marks on Kerala society and politics, made leaders and heroes, set a precedent for similar mass agitations, and gave hope to a dispirited Congress just three years after the Malabar rebellion was suppressed. And, 11 years after the movement ended, the Maharaja of Travancore would throw open his kingdom’s temples to the avarnas.

Part one of a two-part series on the Vaikom Satyagraha, this is the story of how it all began.

Roots of the movement

This perhaps wasn’t the first time the Shiva temple at Vaikom had become contested ground. There’s a tale you hear in Kerala, of unknown veracity, about how a large group of young men from the Ezhava caste had marched toward the temple in the early 19th century, planning to enter it. But it’s said that Velu Thampi Dalawa, the ‘prime minister’ and commander-in-chief of Travancore — later killed during a rebellion against the British — rushed to the spot with his cavalry and slaughtered them.

Anti-caste struggles picked up over the course of the 19th century, with revolts such as those led by the Ezhava warrior Arattupuzha Velayudha Panicker, who himself built temples open to avarnas. Following in his footsteps — but more famously — Narayana Guru would do the same.

On the eve of the Vaikom Satyagraha, these movements had come a long way, and it wasn’t just about religion. Jobs, literacy, a burgeoning middle class, a highly educated elite, organisation, and political representation — Ezhavas, at least, were advancing in the world.

But this was also a time of internal conflict and confusion. There were class divisions among the Ezhavas, debates over the treatment of other communities who were ‘lower’ in the hierarchy, and arguments about religion. Some wanted to stick to Hinduism, others advocated atheism or conversion. There was a sudden rebirth of Buddhism, only for it to disappear just as abruptly. Narayana Guru distanced himself from the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, the organisation founded in his name, which was dominated by the Ezhava elite. The SNDP Yogam also lost a key leader with the death of the great poet Kumaran Asan in January 1924.

‘Mahavagmi’

Enter the great orator. TK Madhavan was a prime representative of the Ezhava elite, born into a paradox of privilege and oppression. Both his parents were from old, landed families in Central Travancore, his father’s, in particular, was one of the richest in the kingdom. But none of that could shield him from the realities of caste.

In a 1976 paper (Temple-Entry Movement in Travancore, 1860-1940), scholar Robin Jeffrey quotes Madhavan recollecting his school days: “My companion on my daily trip to and from the school was a Nair boy… whose poor mother was a dependent of ours. He could go straight along all the roads, whereas I, in spite of being economically better off, had to leave the road every now and then [to avoid polluting caste-Hindus]. This used to cut me to the quick.”

There’s a similar story told about Alummoottil Channar, Madhavan’s uncle or great-uncle on his father’s side, who was one of the first people in Travancore to own a car. Whenever he was about to go past a temple in this car, he would have to get out, walk through back alleyways, and get back in the car on the other side. His driver, meanwhile, could go straight past as he was an ‘upper-caste’ Nair.

The 1885-born Madhavan entered public affairs before he was 20, “organising and speaking to Ezhavas in Central Travancore, and acting as an English translator for Ezhava notables attending the representative assembly in Trivandrum,” writes Jeffrey. He became a member of this assembly, the Sree Moolam Praja Sabha, himself, standing in for his great-uncle.

Madhavan earned a reputation as a public speaker and was dubbed mahavagmi or ‘great orator’. He was also the founder-editor of the newspaper Desabhimani, not to be confused with the later Communist party paper of the same name.

Madhavan was all for staying within the Hindu fold and allying with dominant-caste Hindus to secure the rights of avarnas  — not necessarily the most popular positions among the Ezhava leadership at the time. His son, Babu Vijayanath, recalls in his book Desabhimani T.K. Madhavan: Ente Achan how close Madhavan was to the pre-eminent Nair leader, Mannathu Padmanabhan.

Road to Satyagraha

According to Jeffrey, Madhavan first raised the issue of temple entry in a Desabhimani editorial in December 1917, and the matter was discussed at meetings of the SNDP Yogam and the Praja Sabha over the next three years.

He introduced resolutions calling for temple entry and for Ezhavas to be recognised as caste Hindus — and, influenced by the Non-Cooperation Movement, threatened more direct action if this didn’t happen.

Jeffrey gives an example of Madhavan taking action himself. In November 1920, he went past the restrictive notice boards on a road near the Vaikom temple and announced the following to the district magistrate: “I am an Ezhava by caste. I came to Vaikom today and went to the temple here, past the notice board posted on the road.”

The issue grew hotter over the next few years as Madhavan and his supporters organised and spoke about it in the villages of Travancore, prompting counter-demonstrations from the orthodox. Faced with stiff resistance and a conservative, elderly monarch, Madhavan knew he needed to do more.

In 1921, he met Gandhi at Tirunelveli and sought his blessings for a temple-entry agitation. Gandhi, it appears, had a mistaken impression of the Ezhavas’ condition. At first, he counselled Madhavan: “Drop temple entry now and begin with public wells. Then you may go to public schools.” But after Madhavan corrected him, he said, “You are ripe for temple entry then.” He recommended a civil disobedience campaign and said the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) should take it up.

Then, in 1923, the Kakinada session of the Indian National Congress, with Madhavan in attendance, passed a resolution to set up a committee on untouchability. Next year, the KPCC, still smarting from being blamed for the Malabar rebellion, chose Nair leader K Kelappan — later known as ‘Kerala Gandhi’ — as convener of an anti-untouchability cell.

Everything was coming together for an organised agitation, the likes of which Travancore had never seen — and all roads led to Vaikom.

Read the second article in the Vaikom Satyagraha series here.

(Edited by Humra Laeeq)