Abstract
The monograph deals with one of the most momentous events of the history of Kerala in the twentieth century. The reference in this case is the Vaikom Satyagraha, which was a non-violent struggle waged by upper caste Hindus and also several members of other religious communities to create a favourable situation, whereby the untouchables could gain access to the roads encircling the outer walls of the Brahmin temple in the temple town. The movement was undoubtedly born out of the social and civic inequalities to which the ‘untouchables’ had been exposed in the princely state of Travancore. The movement was definitely inspired by the Gandhian logic of peaceful transformation and his much publicised slogan of change of heart. What essentially adds to the complexities in interpreting this event is the plethora of sources, written in English and the vernacular, which in most cases take very different trajectories. Interestingly, there are two different sets of interpretations, one portraying the enthusiasm of the Brahmins in removing the disabilities of the untouchables influenced by a tone of atonement of the sins committed by them in the past, and the other is that of a long struggle which ultimately led to the victory of the followers of Gandhi. The author is forthright in her observations that there cannot be any single conclusive version of the satyagraha; rather, one needs to look into the narratives provided by Gandhi’s lieutenants and professional practitioners of history. Her assertion of the erasure of T.K. Ravindran’s research works on Vaikom Satyagraha needs to be appreciated by any serious student of history, who is less interested in the caste affiliation of the researcher. The other issue which needs to be raised in this context is the Akali perception of the Vaikom Satyagraha, which undoubtedly would expose the contradiction prevailing in the metal landscape of Mahatma Gandhi.
The story of the satyagraha is set in the context of the social and cultural facets which influenced the Travancore society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Travancore in this period was ruled by a royal family, which tried to integrate its own feudal and ruthless system of governance in the name of the supreme deity Padmanabha Swamy with some of the concepts of Western bureaucratic structures of administration, which were coming to the state at the insistence of Fort St. George, the administrative headquarters of the Madras presidency. In that sense, the administration of Travancore was a somewhat half-way house torn between the custodians of orthodoxy and modernity, symbolised in the two offices of the Dewan and the British Resident. Vaikom was a bustling town intersected by a network of water bodies, feeding into the sea. Mahatma Gandhi had once referred to Travancore as a ‘golden garden’, interspersed between expansive fields and the houses of the residence. However, despite the initiatives of the British Resident to bring the princely state in line with the administrative structure of British India, Travancore continued to remain embedded within the structure of social discrimination, the privileges being enjoyed by the upper castes and the ‘lower castes’ being relegated to the depths of exploitation and servitude. In fact, Travancore was very much a home for an indigenous elite, who had been trained in English and had received the benefits of Western education. The princely state also boasted a literacy rate which was the highest in terms of the provinces and states in India. At the same time, the social milieu of the state also underwent a change since the last decade of the nineteenth century, when as a result of a number of social movements, the traditional social hierarchical structure seemed to have lost some bit of its earlier rigour. However, all this did not lead to a situation where every individual irrespective of their caste status could enjoy equal entitlements in respect of their social and economic life.
The author has correctly traced the beginnings of the Vaikom Satyagraha in the anti-untouchability campaigns, which gained prominence following the Kakinada session of the Indian National Congress in 1923. The reasons to confront the twin evils of untouchability and inapproachability in the small town of Vaikom located in the northern part of the princely state of Travancore were somewhat easy to comprehend, since all the public thoroughfares leading to the temple denied access to the Ezhavas, Pulayas and other non-caste Hindus. All these led to a very important issue of social injustice, because the ‘untouchables’ had to take longer routes to reach their places of residence. Vaikom Satyagraha in a short period of time attracted nationwide attention and also led to a great deal of controversies. Gandhi’s insistence in keeping George Joseph, a prominent leader, away from this movement, for the fact that it was essentially a Hindu affair, is much well known, though there were similar controversies involving Gandhi and the Akalis over their decision to organise temple entry jathas. Mary Elizabeth King essentially bases her story on the basis of information that was publicised through the vernacular press, such as Malayala Manorama and Mathrubhumi. In this respect, it can be opined without much malice that the confidential political records preserved at the Tamil Nadu State Archives could have thrown much light on the intricacies of the Vaikom Satyagraha. However, this in no way reduces the seriousness of the narrative. King has to be specially complemented for bringing the Gandhi–Madan Mohan Malaviya dialogue before the readership. Malaviya’s involvement with temple entry movements is seldom talked about by secularist practitioners of history, who essentially looked upon him as a staunch Hindu ideologue.
Though, interestingly, the Vaikom Satyagraha failed to yield immediate dividends, it made a great deal of impression on several young Congressmen, who later became very critical of the very principles of the Gandhian politics. In fact, this was well revealed in the ideas of E.V. Ramaswami Naicker, who as the founder of the self-respect movement gave a call to uproot religion and replace it by rationalism. However, though this might have been the one side of the story, the other side was revealed in the popularity of the doctrine of non-violence among a large number of Congressmen, who would unequivocally accept the process of fasting unto death. King also brings out the voice of the upper caste Hindus in her stories. Many of us are familiar with the arguments publicised by the Yogakshema Sabha, the main organisation of the Nambudiris but somewhat ill-informed about the resistance of a section of the Nairs. The orthodox opposition also gave rise to a new stream in the politics of Travancore. The Ezhavas might have receded somewhat, but this was by no means a permanent feature because they came back with renewed vengeance based on their communitarian solidarity in the later years. The most interesting part of the story is to be found in the description of Gandhi’s visit to Travancore. Gandhi was able to present his ideas on untouchability both to the non-caste Hindus as well as Nambudris. However, it is extremely doubtful whether Gandhi actually wanted to disrupt the status quo that had been imposed by the ruling classes of Travancore. Yet, a settlement was reached and Gandhi continually vouched that the Satyagrahis would never reach beyond the barricades deployed by the police. What emerged in the end was a half-way compromise that was similar to the fate of so many social movements in this period, indirectly or directly influenced by Gandhi’s ideology of the Hindu social order.
The author’s contribution becomes all the more important, because there has been an attempt to interpret Gandhi’s role in the Vaikom Satyagraha and the broader implications it had in the later day politics. Some historians have tried to comprehend the involvement of Gandhi from a sense of social justice; there have been others who have argued that Gandhi throughout tried to popularise his message of social reform by staying within the orbit of conservative Hinduism. The debate is very difficult to resolve and what it essentially led to was the merger of some of the ideals of Indian nationalism with some of the tenets of communitarian identity, which to King represented an emerging sense of citizenship and democratic inclination. It is with such ideas that the author embarked on a rather ambitious research question, that of the impact of the Vaikom on international theory. The obvious attempt is to explore how Gandhi’s idea of Satyagraha was understood in the later decades by advocates of anarchism, idealism or those of spiritualism. It is believed that Gandhi was able to vindicate in course of his satyagraha that passive resistance did not have a rival and it was the best method to oppose violence. The idea of self-suffering was one which was idealised through the activities of Martin Luther King in the 1950s and 1960s. King’s historic visit to India brought Gandhi’s Satyagraha to the international level and it was interpreted as the best form of non-violence resistance. The Vaikom struggle was frequently referred to by pacifists who felt that as an episode it transcended the boundaries and place and was the most humanitarian of all movements. What essentially was juxtaposed to the Vaikom struggle was the idea of political mobilisation in the face of all forms of violence. The author perhaps remains very consistent throughout the monograph that it is Gandhi’s notion of suffering that had the answer to political, social and cultural problems of Travancore and that of the world.