Centenary of Vaikom Satyagraha
K N Ganesh
THE observance of the centenary of Vaikom Satyagraha, one of the landmark social protest movements in Kerala, began on March 30. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin kick-started the centenary observance on April 1. Several other organisations also marked the occasion. They included the Indian National Congress, SNDP and some Hindu organisations. Almost all the Malayalam dailies carried articles and comments by eminent intellectuals and activists on the Satyagraha. V D Satheesan, Congress MLA and leader of opposition in the Kerala Assembly, observed that the satyagraha witnessed what he termed “Gandhian experiment” in social reform. Hindu organisations interpreted the satyagraha as the “corrective activity” of the Hindus against the heinous ban on freedom of mobility and untouchability. Several intellectuals regarded the satyagraha as a landmark protest of “avarna” against caste Hindus. Some postmodernist intellectuals went to the extent of calling the satyagraha a deliberate ploy by the caste Hindus to suppress and obliterate the growing militancy of avarnas and dalits against the brahmanical caste oppression. Given the differences of opinion expressed by various political parties and intellectuals on the satyagraha, it is necessary to recount briefly the nature of the movement and assess the social political outcome.
GROWING SOCIAL PROTEST
Vaikom Temple is one of the premier brahmanical temples in central Kerala that had its origin sometime during the beginning of second millennium AD. Although not counted among the legendary brahmana settlements in Kerala, it acquired importance as an important brahmanical centre where a number of mendicants came to make their offerings and conduct ‘bhajans’. The region also contained a very large non-brahmanical population, and they began to acquire economic power and upward social mobility with the growth of cash crop farming. There is a story regarding the clash of avarnas and savarnas in the region, when during 1806, a group of 200 avarnas tried to storm the Vaikom temple and they were butchered by the savarnas under the leadership of Vaikathu Padmanabha Pillai, one of the close associates of Veluthampi, the then prime minister or dalava of Travancore. There is no record or tradition regarding any further incident related to the temple. However, there is evidence that the ban by the temple regarding the movement of avarnas in the vicinity of the temple created consternation among them and there were a number of demands for opening the temple roads for thoroughfare, although there was no specific demand for temple entry.
During the early decades of the twentieth century, the social protest movement in Travancore and other parts of Kerala was gathering strength. The movement against heinous caste practices, including untouchability, demand for freedom of mobility, use of public amenities including watercourses and tanks, temple entry, access to education and employment, including government jobs, for collective dining and inter-caste marriages gathered strength and organisations began to be formed among all the avarna caste groups, including dalits as well as savarnas such as Nairs and Namboodiris. Common platforms began to emerge among these organisations for articulating similar demands such as freedom of mobility, temple entry, access to education and jobs, and eradication of untouchability. These became the common focus of the activity of all avarna groups, as all of them were subject to victimisation and oppression on the basis of untouchability, although in varying degrees. The growth of these platforms provided the rationale for T K Madhavan, an SNDP activist who had joined the Indian National Congress, to move a resolution for the eradication of untouchability in the Kakinada AICC session in 1923, which was passed in the session. The Congress also appointed a committee to explore the implementation of the resolution in Kerala and took the leadership in organising the satyagraha at Vaikom.
CLAIMS AND COUNTERCLAIMS
The adoption of the slogan of eradication of untouchability by the INC indicated a shift in the Congress activism after the withdrawal of the Non-Cooperation Movement in the wake of the Chauri Chaura incident. The Congress under Mahatma Gandhi decided to concentrate on the so-called “constructive activities” including khadi, charka, campaign against liquor and the propagation of Hindi, and eradication of untouchability became another such slogan. It is possible that Gandhiji viewed the Vaikom Satyagraha as another such experiment, where people’s activism can be effectively channelised, but for the people of Vaikom and the organisers of the movement the situation was totally different. The enthusiasm shown by all sections of population of Vaikom and the surrounding regions, along with the response that the satyagraha received from all over the state and outside, demonstrated that the people were viewing the satyagraha as a continuation and enhancement of the social protest against caste oppression. The satyagraha also demonstrated that given the opportunity, more sections were willing to join the movement, as shown by the responses of Christians, Muslims, E V Ramaswami Naicker and his movement, and the Akalis of Punjab. Gandhiji, in fact, had tried to restrict the spread of the movement by discouraging Christians, Muslims and the Akalis from participating in it, by pointing out that the demand was freedom of movement along temple roads, and hence, not a demand of other groups.
The claim that the satyagraha signified a corrective process of the Hindus is nothing but plain distortion of history. Indanthuruththi Nambyathiri, the Hindu brahman overlord of the temple, was vehemently opposed to opening the temple roads for the avarnas, and refused to receive Mahatma Gandhi in the verandah of his house, when he tried to negotiate on behalf of the protesters. While it is true that numerous savarnas, mostly Congress volunteers, participated in the satyagraha, and two savarna jathas led by Mannatha Padmanabhan, an NSS leader, and M E Naidu from Kanyakumari marched to Vaikom to express solidarity with the protesters, there is nothing to show that there was any serious Hindu intervention, although Hindu organisations existed in Kerala. In the later satyagraha movements, as in Tiruvarppu and Guruvayur, the savarnas came out very strongly against the satyagrahis. Hindu organisations expanded in the middle decades of the 20th century and came out everywhere against avarna demand and agitations against caste oppression and temple entry, showing that no correction was made. In fact, Hindu religion and casteism was invoked as a major bulwark against the emerging democratic movement for equality and social justice, in which sections of the upper castes and other religions were also prepared to join.
The arguments by the postmodern intellectuals should be assessed from the same perspective. One intellectual, T T Sreekumar, has depicted Congress leaders K P Kesava Menon and K Kelappan and Communist leaders EMS Namboodiripad, A K Gopalan and P Krishna Pillai as savarna Hindus who sought to contain the emerging avarna militancy through Gandhian methods. This, according to him was the result of the “post-colonial fear” of the savarnas that the avarnas due to their “demographical majority” would be able to displace the savarnas from power. Thus, the avarna consolidation was prevented by infiltering into their ranks a few savarnas also. The Vaikom Satyagraha became the testing ground for such an infiltration. This argument is a typical example of a counterfactual assertion for which no evidence needs to be produced, because the entire argument depends on the “biopolitical” mental dispositions that one acquires by being born into a savarna household, which will always be disposed against the militancy of the oppressed caste and will seek to oppress it further, given the opportunity, and the historical and socio-political processes that gave rise to these new organisations and movements do not play any major role in this politics of power. Thus, the calumny against the Communists is sought to be sustained as they have a savarna origin and that itself is considered as sufficient to explain their politics. Thus, postmodern intellectuals share the same platform as Hindutva forces, by attempting to undermine the democratic content of Vaikom Satyagraha and denigrating the entire democratic struggles in Kerala.
MEANING OF VAIKOM SATYAGRAHA
From the perspective of Left and democratic politics, Vaikom Satyagraha can have only one meaning, that it is the harbinger of democratic-popular politics in Kerala. It raised the slogan of mobility that had already become the slogan of all the oppressed castes, developed an organisational form that allowed for the widest possible participation and support, and brought in sections of the savarnas who transgressed their own caste regulations in participating in this struggle. It paved the way for further popular struggles against caste oppression, which was taken up by a number of groups all over the country. There were also inherent limitations to this struggle. The Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee, which led the struggle, did not have the resources to sustain the struggle or to counter the resistance of the temple authorities, supported by the Travancore State. The position taken by Gandhi to limit the scope of the struggle and finally to withdraw it also hampered its efficacy. Despite these limitations, the satyagraha proved that fight against caste oppression is a struggle that can be taken up by the entire progressive and democratic forces and can be a sustained struggle that yields results if persisted with initiative, tenacity and organisation.
