Sree Narayana Guuru

Unmaking of Kerala’s Renaissance

This is a sequel to “The Pioneers of Kerala’s Renaissance,” posted here on September 2.

Efforts to undo the work of Sree Narayana Guru and Mahatma Ayyankali began in their lifetime itself.

In keeping with the Guru’s all-embracing approach, membership of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam was open to all. But its functionaries by and large enrolled only members of the Ezhava community, in which the Guru was born. It thus soon took the form of a caste organization and limited its activities to promoting the interests of that community.

The Guru disapproved of this approach and stayed away from it. Subsequently he made a public announcement that he was removing the Ypgam from his mind.

He said that because he was born in a particular caste and religion, some people think he belongs to that caste and religion. He had left caste and religion behind, and did not now belong to any caste or religion.

The concept of transcending caste and religion of birth was something small minds nurtured on sectarianism  could not even comprehend.

Eminent Malayalam poet, N. Kumaran Asan, who was the first General Secretary of the Yogam. wrote a poem deifying the Guru. In many Ezhava homes his picture found a place in the prayer room.

After he dissociated himself from the Yogam, the Guru devoted attention mainly to Sree Narayana Dharma Sangham, an order of sanyasis, which he set up to continue his mission. He enrolled in the Sangham members of all castes. They included several members of the  Nair community, a Sudra group on which the Brahmins had conferred upper caste status in recognition of its collaborative role in enforcing the caste system in Kerala society, which bore the imprint of Buddhist and Jain traditions, , probably around the 10^th or 12^th century. One of them, Swami Sathyavrathan, was the Guru’s choice as his successor.

Sathyavrathan’s story is similar to that of St. Paul who was a persecutor of Christians before he accepted Jesus as the saviour. Sathyavrathan had led Nair brigades against Ezhavas seeking to assert their rights, but had a change of heart and became a disciple of the Guru.

Dalit boys from around his Ashram in Varkala were among those whom he admitted to the order.

Casteism raised its ugly head in the Sangham too. Disillusioned with it, he went away to Tamil Nadu but was persuaded by his followers to return to Varkala.   

Most of his life the Guru wore white dhoti and white upper cloth. He switched to ochre robes in his last days.

Dr. P. Natarajan, who was a lay disciple in the Guru’s lifetime, wanted to join the Sangham but was not accepted. He then formed a new order, styled as Sree Narayana Gurukulam. It was from Nataraja Guru, as he came to be known, that I learnt why he switch from white to ochre.

The Guru had a lot of property in his name, all gifts made by devotees and admirers. He wanted the property to go to the Sangham. He was told that only if he was recognized as a sanyasi would the property go the Sangham. There were court judgements laying down criteria for determining if one is a sanyasi. One of them says a sanyasi is a habitual bearer of ochre robes.

Early stalwarts of the Yogam like T.K. Madhavan and C. Kesavan became leaders of the Congress as it emrged as the spearhead of the freedom movement.  After the Guru’s passing, the Dewan, C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar, weaned the Yogam’s leaders as well as those of the Nair community’s Nair Service Society away from the Congress to bolster the position of the Maharaja’s regime. When freedom came, realizing they are on the wrong side of history, the NSS and the Yogam withdrew from the political arena, leaving it to the Congress to look after their interests.

C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar damaged the Dalit movement too. Ayyankali’s Sadhu Jana Paripalana Sangham was not a caste organization, but, as its name suggests, a platform of all poor. His son-i-law, T.T. Kesava Sasthri, whom the Dewan nominated to the State Assembly, floated a caste organization, Pulaya Mahasabha. When Maharaja’s rule ended, it too switched allegiance to the Congress.

When the Communist Party of India, recognizing the influence of the caste organizations, deputed its members to capture them for the party. E.M.S. Namboodiripad, who was tasked to woo the Yogakshema Sabha of the Malayali Brahmin community, became its president. P. Gangadharan who was sent to capture the SNDI Yogam failed in the mission.

While first the Dewan and then the Congress won the loyalty of the leaders of the caste parties by offering loaves, the Ezhava and Dalit masses, who were radicalized by the Sree Narayana and Ayyankali movements, did not follow them. They lined up behind the Communist movement, which they presumed were more likely to usher in the ideal society envisaged by the renaissance leaders.

The CPI’s coming to power in 1957 in Kerala represents the high point of the renaissance movement at the political level. The land and education reform measures of the government appeared to fulfil the expectations of the marginalized sections.

But that was not to be. Even before the two measures could be implemented the government was brought down by an agitation in which the leadership of caste organizations joined hands with the Congress.

In 1958, Namboodiripad, as Chief Minister, made a daring frontal attack on reservation in the services, which was a major gain of the renaissance movement. (Note that reservation was introduced in the princely states before India became free, before the Constitution was gramed, and of course before the Mandal Commission was even thought of.)  An administrative reform committee with Namboodirpad himself as the chairman came out with a report against reservation, saying it destroys efficiency. (Note that this was after the Constitution provided for reservation for socially and educationally backward classes of people.)

The rank and file of the CPI was unable to raise its voice against Namboodiripad’s championing of caste supremacists’merit theory. But he could not go ahead with the mischievous idea after K. Sukumaran, Editor of Kerala Kaumudi, the only newspaper which  was friendly to the Communist government, blasted it in Namboodiripad’s presence at a public meeting.

Sukumaran pointed out that the Namoodirpad committee, which made the recommendation against reservation, did not have any one from the main OBC groups (Ezhavas and Muslims)  or the Dalit community.

After the Communist Party split, as leader of the CPM, Nambiidiripad came up with the idea of economic reservation to vitiate the system of reservation which was aimed at addressing social and educational backwardness.  The CPM accepted his line at the all-India level, and it is now in force in Kerala. 

The eligibility criteria laid down for economic reservation lay bare the mischievous intent of the government. If one’s family earns up to Rs 4 lakhs in a year and owns up to 2.5 acres (in a village) or 50 cents (in a city) one is still an upper caste poor! For all other purposes, one is reckoned as poor if the family’s monthly income is below Rs, 1,059 (in rural area) or Rs.1,286 (in urban area).