From Acharam to Knowledge: Claims of Caste Dominance in Twentieth-century Malabar

Introduction

The claims of superiority by nations, races and castes always accompany a constructed past where these claims find justifications. It is a common sense in scholarship that often these histories as constructed pasts change according to the needs of the historical present and new histories are constructed to match these requirements. In India, the claim that Brahmins were the authority of traditional knowledge and it is this authority that resulted in their dominance is such a claim. It is accompanied by descriptions of Vedas and other Sanskrit texts explained not only as the source of traditional knowledge but as texts which contained all important modern scientific knowledge. This article positions the changing claims of dominance by Brahmins in the historical context by explaining the social processes that necessitated the changes in the claims of domination.

Anthropologists and historians have explained the Brahminical domination in India in relation to their economic, political and ritualistic power. The European scholars of the colonial period generally explained the Brahminical domination citing the ‘spiritual nature’ of Hindu society and the importance of Brahmins in the ritual practices based on Vedic knowledge. ²

Dumont made a distinction between power and status in which the former is dominance in the realm of political and the latter in the domain of spiritual. He further noted that

For Dumont spiritual aspects were important but he categorised that domain separated from the realm of political. In a different context, in the analysis of the emergence of Indian nationalism in Bengal, Partha Chatterjee also brought an analytical division between the realm of material and spiritual, where the national elites (mostly the upper castes) of India made different kinds of claims regarding power and autonomy. ⁵

M.S.S. Pandian in his work on the non-Brahmin movement in Tamil Nadu pointed out that the domain of spiritual always extended to the domain of politics and hence both of these should be considered as hybrid spaces. ⁶

In the nineteenth century, before an order of knowledge was established it was in the name of acharam that Namboothiris of Kerala claimed their higher status over other communities. Acharam, on the one hand, can be understood as the performance of ritual actions and, on the other hand, it was also the customary law that ordered the action of all caste communities. All actions of Namboothiris in their daily practices were ordered in reference to acharam. At this period Namboothiri actions cannot be categorised either as material one or as spiritual and in consequence the actions were not hybrids (in the sense that of a mixture or overlapping space of two different aspects or domains) as well. The Namboothiri community's entry into the colonial order of knowledge in the 1920s transformed not only the concept of ritual, tradition, wealth and politics (in short acharam as it was practised in the nineteenth century) but also the daily life practices of the community or caste practices in general.

Dirks argued that it was in the process of colonial knowledge production that ‘caste has been constituted the principal modality of Indian society’. ⁷

From our analysis of the practices of Namboothiris in Kerala, it becomes clear that until the context of the reform activities in the 1920s, their economic activities were part of the wider ritualistic practice, and conversely, their daily rituals were political as well as economic. I use the category acharam in order to overcome the separation of the activities in the domains of public and private and to explain both the claims of superiority and modes of domination. The anthropological studies in the 1960s and after, which explored the practices of Namboothiri community of Kerala, have noted the uniqueness of the practices compared to the Brahminical communities in other parts of India. At the same time most of these studies consider Vedas or other Sanskrit texts as the source and reference point for the practices. ⁸

Frits Staal, whose study focused on the actual practices of Brahmanical rites, has convincingly argued that neither these rites were purely religious nor the practitioners intended any specific meaning to the Mantras recited in these rituals. ¹¹

While Staal's analysis helps us to understand ritual as a practice and action, his focus is limited to rites and hence the idea of ritual is explored only in that context. In my analysis I use the category acharam which could be roughly translated as ‘ritual’, but is a more overarching term that includes all kinds of daily activities of Namboothiri life. The discussion of sixty-four anacharams (unique acharam, supposedly prescribed in Sankara Smruti specifically for Kerala Brahmins) in the Namboothiri reform literature points towards the importance given to acharam as a guiding principle. Here acharam included a set of action and normative principles which determined individual actions in the spheres of economic, religious, social and political life. Acharam should be understood in the context of similar terms which were used to mention rules of practices in the daily life. For example, terms like mamool, or keezhkkade referred to precedence and rules formed from the earlier practices. Hence in the following analysis, acharam should be understood as an umbrella term which refers to both the prescriptions and the practices of Namboothiri life-world. In short, acharam determined the daily life of Namboothiris in the nineteenth century and enabled them to maintain their claims of superiority over other caste groups. I call this situation of domination attained through the forces of acharam as ‘order of acharam’.

Acharam and the Daily Life of Namboothiris

In the period of nineteenth century in a Namboothiri household, each and every activity in the daily life was a ritual or acharam. According to Nagam Ayya, a non-Malayalee Brahmin officer in Thiruvithamkoor who wrote the first manual of the princely state, the Namboothiri community gravitated towards acharam through strictly-followed daily rituals. Every action was a ritual and it was the proper performance of these ritualistic actions that constituted the jati (caste). The moment one broke a rule, it affected not only the person but the whole Namboothiri community and the order of things in the jati world. ¹³

In his three volume memoirs, Kanippayyoor Sankaran Nampoothirippad has recorded detailed descriptions of daily life in a Namboothiri household. A Namboothiri man wakes up from the bed looking eastwards. After a short prayer he directly goes to take a bath which is a long ritual. There are very specific rules regarding how to dip inside the water, how to dry oneself and what to wear after the bath. He will then proceed either to a temple or to worship the gods inside the house. This will take at least two to three hours, after which he will take his first meal. Eating, like other activities, is also a ritual guided by the principles of pollution and purity. After the meals he might engage in conversation with the fellow Namboothiri men in the house or with the Karyastan (manager of farming activities) or with the guests. There are strict guidelines regarding the varied use of language in conversations depending on the caste, age and gender status of the individuals engaged in the conversation. In the evening one has to take bath with a different set of rituals and after an early meal one would go to sleep after short prayers. ¹⁴

For a Nampoothiri girl or woman the day would start before sunrise. She will take a bath before the sunrise, which itself was an elaborate ritual, and do prayers and pujas for netumangalyam (long married life) which would take more than two hours. After that, she will cook food with other women in the house which should be ready by ten in the morning. She can eat only after the men and the children have finished their meals. Between this meal and the preparation for the evening puja, they read Bhagavatham or some other puranic texts or prepared materials for the evening puja. By around five, she would begin the evening prayers and immediately after that the preparation of evening food. Men usually ate about eight in the evening followed by the women. After the meal she will clean the kitchen, and the place where the deity was placed, where the Nair servants were not allowed to enter. Before sleeping she must recite some prayers for keeping evils and bad dreams away. In short, every action, waking up, taking bath, prayers, cooking, eating, washing vessels, taking rest, wearing, washing clothes or engaging in conversation would be conducted in a predetermined and ritualistic manner controlled by the rules of pollution and purity. ¹⁵

J. Devika, in her analysis of reform narratives of the upper-caste communities in Kerala in the early twentieth century, noted that ‘within the illam (the Nampoothiri household) the relations between men and women and their everyday routines were carefully delineated’. She further added that ‘they (Nampoothiri women) were subjected to a strict and Spartan sartorial code, and as with almost everything else, even bedecking the body was subjugated to ritual purposes’. ¹⁶

Even in the early twentieth century, acharam informed or directed not only the practices of Namboothiris inside the household but all their outside activities as well. It is in the name of acharam they claimed obligations from other castes and exploited the knowledge and labour of other castes in their benefit. The men and women from other castes conducted a number of physical jobs for Namboothiri illam in satisfying all the material needs of the household. Veluthedathu Nairs provided the pure cloths and Vilakathila Nair did the job of the hair dresser. Asaris (carpenters) did the maintenance work of the houses. People from the Cheruma/ Pulaya and Nair caste did all the agriculture work in the field and karyasthans from the Nair caste supervised the agriculture production. The people from the lower castes brought all agriculture products to the house of the Namboothiri landlord. Paddy was de-husked and made into rice by Nair women. The men and women from the Ampalavasi castes (temple servant castes) prepared materials for ritual worship. ¹⁸

It is important at this point to emphasise the disconnect between acharam and knowledge. Scholars who made a connection between Vedic texts and Namboothiri practices, knowingly or unknowingly made this connection as a relation of Namboothiris with Vedic knowledge. The scholarship on caste and Brahminical ideology in India, understood acharam as a practice based on the prescriptions of Vedas and other Sanskrit texts. This interpretation was clearly a continuation of colonial understanding of written text as the only valid form of knowledge. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Sanskritic textual tradition attained a new status through colonial orientalist scholarship. This scholarship considered Vedas and other texts as the authentic texts which guided the Brahminical practices in India. ¹⁹

Mapping the debate around the oral and written tradition, Fuller in agreement with Parry's observations on the defective learning of Vedas in the oral tradition, confirmed that the ‘situation is undoubtedly widespread in India, so that for every Brahmin who knows his texts accurately, there are many others who are just winging it’. ²⁰

In the period we are discussing, Namboothiris' relation with language in general and with Vedas in particular did not match the above assumptions. Most Namboothiri boys and girls were initiated into language learning at the age of four or five through another ritual. Many of them learned how to write and read Malayalam and to do basic arithmetic. Teachers used puranic texts and prayers during this process. By this time, several publishers had started publishing printed texts of puranas and ithihasas and they sold these books through salesmen who travelled from house to house. ²²

The learning of Veda recital was an important part of the life of Namboothiri men whereas women were not allowed to learn Vedas. In the pre-colonial period there were two major centres of Veda learning in Kerala; the one in Thrissur which was sponsored by the Raja of Kochi and the one in Thirunavaya sponsored by the Samoothiri Raja of Kozhikkode. After the British takeover of the administration of Malabar, the Thirunavaya centre declined because of lack of sponsorship. The Thrissur centre which was known as Brahmaswam Matam, continued to prosper under the Kochi Rajas and at the time of our interest it provided residential learning facilities for all Namboothiris who came to learn the Veda. It is also important to note that, unlike the Agama learning centres in Tamil Nadu, Brahmaswam Matam was not an institution for training priests or for that matter for any particular vocation. ²⁴

Namboothiri boys began Veda learning after the sacred thread ceremony, which was a ritual that would start the process of transformation of a boy into a Namboothiri. This was usually conducted between the ages of ten and twelve. The one who taught the Veda recital was called othikkan. In the early twentieth century, to learn Vedic recital, Namboothiri boys from Malabar, either joined the Brahmaswam Matham at Thrissur or they stayed at othikkans' house for the whole period of learning. In most of the cases, the othikkans who taught the Vedas were illiterate and they themselves had no knowledge of the meaning of these verses. The most important part of learning was to memorise hundreds of verses and the corresponding body gestures which accompanied the recitation of these verses. The boys learned how to perform the recital not the textual knowledge that Vedas supposedly carried. For example, the prescriptions of Vedas on Brahminical duties were never a subject matter of study in the above process of learning. Even though recital of some of these verses were part of the daily rituals in later life, the boys soon forgot a major part of what they learned during the study as it was never used in their daily life.

Here the use of language was a performance, an embodied action similar to many other actions such as prostrating before the deity or offering flowers to the deities. Language was not a medium that represented the outside world and hence it was not a signifier of a signified or not even a sign embedded in signifying process. It was one of the objects used in the performance of acharam. There was no meaning that was supposed to be emanating from these words and the correct pronunciation was not a major concern, though this would become a contentious subject later in the debate within the reform movement when meaning became an important issue. At this period, however, the function of reading texts or reciting verses from Vedas was purely ritualistic. In short, even within the colonial definitions of knowledge, the discursive practices of Namboothiris in the early twentieth century were not practices of knowledge: traditional or otherwise. It was the practice of acharam, not knowledge in Vedic texts that constituted the Namboothiri understanding of the world. Namboothiris themselves did not consider their discursive activity a practice of knowledge.

The interaction of the different caste communities during the last decades of the nineteenth century, with the colonial institutions of knowledge production challenged basic aspects of the Namboothiri daily life in the order of acharam as described previously. The new occupational opportunities emerged in this period were directly connected to the education in the colonial institutions and in the vocations such as trade and industry, familiarity with different forms of colonial knowledge was necessary for successful conducts in these fields. The following section explores the various aspects of the Namboothiri negotiations and their attempt to maintain dominance in this new situation.

The New Challenges to the Order of Acharam

By the end of the nineteenth century, the British colonial government in India had established a wide network of educational institutions which included schools, colleges, universities and professional training institutions. ²⁵

The last decades of nineteenth century witnessed dramatic changes in the caste practices of jatis, like Nair, Ezhava, and Pulaya in the Malayalam-speaking region Kerala, which comprised the princely states of Thiruvithamkoor and Kochi and the British-ruled district of Malabar. In Malabar, it was Nairs who began challenging the order of acharam based on their newly acquired status within the colonial administrative apparatuses. By the end of the nineteenth century, a number of individuals from Nair caste, who were trained in various colonial educational institutions, attained positions of power such as revenue administrators, magistrates village officers and police officers. Their participation in the colonial practices produced new ideas of individuality and new concept of norms and values regarding social life. ²⁶

In the period of interest, in a Namboothiri household only the elder son married from within the caste. The younger brothers practiced a particular kind of conjugal relation—which was known as sambandham—with women from the upper castes, including Nairs. Children born in these relations did not belong to the Namboothiri caste but to that of their mothers. ²⁷

The colonisers and missionaries considered this matrilineal system unhealthy, uncivilised and immoral. English-educated Nair men in the late nineteenth century attempted to reform this lineage system through various channels including legal enactment. They demanded that Nair women should ‘properly’ marry from within the caste and follow patrilineal monogamous conjugal relations. They influenced the British administration successfully to pass an act in the Madras legislative assembly, which was named as the Malabar Marriage Act of 1896. ²⁸

The second challenge to the order of acharam originated from the British government's attempts to reform the land revenue system in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. From its inception in Malabar in the late eighteenth century, British rule granted full ownership of the land to janmis (landlords). Their objective was to create manageable and defined land authorities from which they can collect tax, which was the major portion of their revenue. This destroyed the age-old arrangement between the janmis and the kutiyans (tenants). ²⁹

The debate around the above mentioned bills in the Madras assembly and the propaganda for and against the bills outside created anxiety and tension among the Namboothiri janmis. They reasoned that English education, and the reforms that accompanied it, were the root of the problem. A few Nampoothiris who were closely following the debate of various reforms in the first decade of the twentieth century occasionally wrote articles in contemporary Malayalam journals and newspapers. In an article in 1903, Narayanan Namboothiri reminded the Nairs and the British government that ‘there are certain things that are more valuable than knowledge and parishkaram (reform) for a society’. ³⁰

Even though the Madras government did not enact any bills which would have curtailed the rights of janmis, it was clear from the overall debate that the educated Nairs were closer to the government and more influential than Namboothiris. It is important to note here that the Nair reform process was not just a reaction and acceptance of the colonial discourse. In the Nair reform discourse there was not only the questioning of existing acharam but also the re-imagining of acharam and attempts to invent new acharams which will be appropriate in the new order of knowledge. There were similar moments in the reform movements in other communities such as Syrian Christians and Ezhavas as well; in each case there was a claim of golden past and a demand for the revival of certain acharams in new forms according to the needs of the new order of knowledge.

The situation gave a clear message to Namboothiris that occasional articles in journals or a few meetings of interested parties were not enough to overcome the challenges they were facing at the period. It was in this context that Namboothiris formed a community organisation, the Yoga Kshema Sabha (YKS) in 1908. At its formative period the major objective of the organisation was the protection of the order of acharam and the maintenance of dominance in the emerging new order of knowledge.

The YKS and the Protection of Acharam

In its initial years, conservative janmis in the community controlled the YKS. In this period the objective of the YKS was not to widen the base or to mobilise each community member. Rather, the Sabha was a body of a few elites who imagined their interests as the interest of the community. ³³

Several of the Namboothiri authors echoed Nagam Ayya's opinion, mentioned earlier, and defined acharam as a force that extended beyond the Namboothiri world. For example, Krishnan Nampoothiri claimed that different jatis have different kinds of responsibilities towards society. The responsibility of the Namboothiri jati was ‘the performance of rituals and the maintenance of acharam that are necessary to keep the whole human world happy and peaceful’. ³⁶

In its initial years, the leaders of YKS argued that colonial education and reforms accompanying it were totally antithetical to the rules of acharam. The first and foremost point of their objection was regarding the rule of untouchability. The conservative leaders defined acharam based on the notions of purity and pollution. According to this concept each object, human beings and actions were either pure or polluted. Namboothiris could not touch anyone outside the caste without being polluted. The degree of impurity depended on the caste of the individual: the lower the position of the caste, the higher was the impurity. Hence it was impossible for Namboothiris to attend a school without violating the rules of acharam, where all the objects (like pen, paper, etc.) and other human beings (other lower-caste people) were polluted. The conservative section of Namboothiris argued at this period that threat of being polluted was one of their reasons for not participating in colonial educational institutions.

By the second decade of the twentieth century, a new group of individuals from within the community began questioning the conservative leaders of the community. These individual did not challenge the order of acharam as such. Their attempt was to incorporate education within the order of acharam. They argued that Namboothiris could and should redesign the daily life of a Namboothiri boy so that he could attend school and keep himself pure. V. Keshavan Bhattathirippad suggested that ‘not eating at school and taking a bathe after school before entering into illam’ were sufficient to keep a Namboothiri boy unpolluted. ³⁸

Intervention of Knowledge and Redefinition of Acharam

By the 1920s the Namboothiri world of acharam faced serious challenges from both the inside and the outside. The order based on acharam became incapable of incorporating new and emerging social relations and concepts based on colonial forms of knowledge. This resulted in organised attempts in the leadership of the YKS to reform and to reconstitute the community-based on new principles.

The usual interpretation of the reform based on writers such as V.T. Bhattathirippad and Lalithambika Antharjanam posited acharam in opposition to knowledge. In the writings of Bhattathirippad and Antharjanam, education and modern knowledge is the force that challenges the existing acharam. ³⁹

It is true that knowledge attained such an importance in the Namboothiri life that even the conservatives in the community began justifying the importance of acharam based on its relation to knowledge. The earlier attempts of incorporating new practices emerged within the order of acharam were no longer successful and the objective slowly changed to incorporate acharam into the folds of the new order of knowledge by reinterpreting the ritualistic practices of Namboothiris. Contemporary debates within the reform writers actively produced what they considered a scientific interpretation of acharam. This interpretation made some of the old practices appear superstitious or inhuman. The acharams in the daily life of Namboothiris did not transform radically in this period, but acharam was no longer the reference point for these actions.

The activities of the reformists made knowledge a debatable category within the community. Acharam still dominated the organisation of Namboothiri daily life, but at least one section of the community established communication and connection with the order of knowledge. The reformist criticism shook the unquestionable status of acharam and created a possibility that certain acharams could be changed or even excluded from daily life.

In 1920, in a meeting conducted at Thripoonithara, the young members of the community formed an association, the Nampoothiri Yuvajana Sangham (The Nampoothiri Youth Wing, NYS). The stated objective of the NYS was to propagate the ideals of the YKS and create awareness among members regarding the importance of education. The clear reason for forming such an organisation was to challenge the conservative leaders of the YKS partially from within and by using an independent platform as well. ⁴⁰

By the third decade of the century, the discourse of knowledge/ignorance significantly influenced the process of imagining the community. The NYS gradually moved into a more radical position regarding the question of education and acharam. They now strongly urged community members to join public schools even though that may be a violation of acharam. The reform leaders urged the members of the community to be equipped for new occupations, new family practices and in general for a new way of life. They emphasised that education was the first and foremost step for the beginning of this new life. This was the second stage where the order of acharam began losing its tight control over members and the order of knowledge appeared in the horizon of the self-imagination of the community. The immediate signs of this transformation were the use of universal categories such a Hindu religion, history, nation, etc., in the debate around reformation.

The writings on or by Namboothiris in the first two decades of the twentieth century, in various Malayalam magazines, newspapers and journals hardly mentioned the category Hindu or even religion. The articles that appeared in the context of Malabar rebellion in 1921 where some of Namboothiri janmis were killed in the hands of Muslim rebels, discussed the event either as an altercation between Muslims and Namboothiris or as struggle between janmis and kutiyans. It was rarely mentioned as a Hindu–Muslim issue even though Islam was already considered a religion with essential characteristics. ⁴¹

Hindu religion and samudayam (community) were imagined communities where individual members shared a common imagination through reading and writing. In other words unlike in the earlier jati order, where Brahmins dominated other jatis through localised daily practice, in the new situation, knowledge became an essential factor for the imagination and reproduction of community identities. Scholars recognised the importance of education and knowledge in the reform process and community formation but most of them imagined an already existing community that was the target of reform. ⁴⁵

This will be clearer when we look closely into the ways in which Namboothiris attempted to position themselves in the emerging Hindu religion. It was already evident that jati-based acharam was incommensurable with the emerging notion of the Hindu religion where different jatis share a common past. The lower-caste reform movement had already challenged the concepts of untouchability and caste-based labour exploitation. Only by making these caste practices an exception in the notion of Hindu religion, the reformers could justify a shared common past. The demand for dismantling the hierarchical relations of jatis by establishing horizontal relationships was already prominent in the political arena. Hence, the imagination of communities as a part of a religion required reorganisation of the existing jati hierarchy. This resulted in two simultaneous processes: first was the emergence of an idea of savarna (the literary meaning of which is ‘with colour’, but in this context it means that ‘within the varna order’) jatis, which comprised the jatis from Namboothiris to Nair in the jati hierarchy, as a group distinct from the avarna (‘without colour’ and outside the four varnas) jatis, which relegated Ezhava to further lower castes. The second process was the transformation of jatis based on separate internal principles into samudayams based on a common principle of knowledge.

The concept of savarna and avarna emerged in the context of textual interpretation of history and religion. Educated individuals from the upper caste started writing the history of jatis based on a notion of a Hindu religion and chathurvarnya (four colours) principles as laid out in the Vedas. These histories introduced the distinction between savarna and avarna jatis based on scientific explanations of practices of different jatis. ⁴⁶

Academic historians of caste, while keeping their differences regarding the basic principle of the caste system, agree that varna principles were not followed in the actual practice of caste anywhere in India. ⁴⁸

The grouping of upper-caste jatis as savarna reduced the degree of hierarchy in the relations within these caste communities, though the differences between them were not totally obliterated. The claim of association of communities with knowledge—either in the past as in the case of Namboothiris or in the present as in the case of Nairs—helped savarna communities to claim superiority over the avarna communities which were portrayed as ignorant groups. In other words, the order of knowledge challenged the hierarchical order of jatis but did not produce horizontal relations or equality between all samudayams. The dominance of savarna jatis over avarna jatis continued in this order but with the justification based not on acharams but on knowledge.

It is important to note that upper-caste reform leaders did not consider education as a project to transcend the difference between jatis; rather they imagined education as a process through which the internal elements of jati could be reconstituted so that jati will be transformed into samudayam. The reform movement of Namboothiris attempted to put the community in the top of the hierarchical series of knowledge through a claim of their assumed relation with knowledge in the past.

Concluding Remarks

The order based on knowledge that emerged in the colonial period continued its dominance in the postcolonial period in India. The upper-caste elites who became the rulers of the nation incorporated several elements of colonial governing practices into the practices of the newly-formed nation-state. Among these practices, the production of knowledge was the most important activity that was adopted from the colonialists with least changes in method, form and content. This continuity was vivid in the practices of the institutions of knowledge production such as colleges and universities which continued with minor organisational restructuring. The major difference in the postcolonial period was that the nationalists baptised the same colonial knowledge as modern knowledge.

In the 1950s and 1960s in Kerala, the associations which were formed as part of the reform movements of various caste communities in the early decades of the century, became part of the governmental political process in the state. These associations diverted their focus from internal life in the private, which was the major domain of reform activity, to the public where a proper share in education and government jobs were the central agendas. Compared to the other community organisations like the SNDP Sangham (Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Sangham) of Ezhavas, or the Nair Service Society of Nairs, the YKS was not very active or effective in the post-Independence Kerala. This does not mean either that the post-Independence governments marginalised Namboothiris or that their domination as savarnas became less influential. With a new authenticity and power, savarna ideology became an integral part of the nationalist identity and culture.