PVK’s essay titled ‘Fenced by the Thread’ on the historic ‘Vaikom Satyagraha’, part of an epic struggle the then princely State of Travancore witnessed against caste and religious discrimination was carried by ‘Outlook’, the New Delhi based magazine on 7/Feb/2024, both in print and online editions.
This is the original essay, with minor modifications.
‘Fenced by the Thread: The Vaikom Satyagraha’ by P. Vijaya Kumar
Historically, geology and geography have shaped Kerala, but, in the last two centuries, politics, culture and technology have lent their powerful hands in sculpting this unusual land. Ideas and practices that had come from overseas found fertile soil in the land of pepper and coconut. Powerful winds from the mainland have also swirled in and effected profound changes. The Vaikom satyagraha is the story of how such winds combined to reshape enduring local edifices. The central issue was caste and the scene Vaikom, a temple town in the north of Travancore, a princely state, nominally independent but controlled largely by the British.
Based on old and unempirical ideas about souls, birth, incarnations and related ideas about entitlements, privilege and exclusion, caste worked as an elaborate and self-perpetuating set of institutionalised injustices. It determined everything about a person’s life — what she did, wore, ate, where she lived and how, who she saw or did not see, who she mixed with and married, how she died and was disposed of. Its dictates were accepted as natural law.
The operations of caste created a unique society in Travancore and Kerala. Some of its manifestations took on such bizarre forms that a horrified Swami Vivekananda called Kerala a “madhouse.” Untouchability was compounded by unseeability and unappproachability. A maddening circle of restrictions, backed by notions of purity and pollution that seeped out of scriptural writing and were enforced by priestly and royal power, permeated life in Kerala.
The winds of real change began to blow with the coming of the white coloniser. Ideas about equality and justice took root as the economy of Kerala began to be integrated with that of a larger world. Education transformed society, particularly when European missionaries began to open schools to avarnas.
Christians, Ezhavas, an avarnacaste, and Muslims were among the first to seize the opportunities offered by colonial modernity.
The royal family of Travancore, defenders of the status quo, had been forced to concede many of the demands of the avarnas,made with increasing frequency and vociferousness, from about the final decades of the 19th century. But many restrictions, incompatible with modern ideas of freedom and dignity, continued to exist. One such prohibition kept avarnasnot just out of the temples maintained by the state but also banned them from walking along the roads that ran near them. A good example of the absurdity of caste laws is this: Alummootil Chanar, a wealthy and educated Ezhava but a polluting avarna, only one of two men to own a car in Travancore then, had to dismount and walk along a circuitous route to avoid polluting a temple, while his driver, a Muslim, drove along the road in front of it.
Ezhavas, like other avarnas, chafed under such restrictions. Entrepreneurial,
ambitious and hard-working, they were in the forefront of avarnasand demanded greater freedom in education, employment, movement and worship. A generation of enlightened leaders, including Sree Narayana Guru, Mithavadi Krishnan, Dr Palpu, C V Kunjiraman, Kumaran Asan and others were urging the community on and wresting concessions from reluctant royal rulers, often with a little help from their British friends. Tensions rose, there were occasional clashes between avarnasand savarnasbut restraint rather than violence characterised the protests. Ayyankali, the maverick leader of Pulayas, a Dalit group, had forcibly used public roads forbidden to Dalits as early as 1893 and stood as a shining example of the assertive activism that
could win concessions from the orthodox.
T K Madhavan, editor of ‘Desabhimani’and an influential Ezhava leader, chose to enlist Gandhi and the Indian National Congress in the struggle against caste restrictions. Things began to move after Madhavan succeded in getting the Kakkinada session of the Congress in 1923 to work for the eradication of untouchability. Vaikom chose itself. It was a seat of orthdoxy and Ezhavas and Dalits had made previous attempts to breach some of the rules and the abrasive history of such clashes resonated with them. Gandhi agreed to support Madhavan on the understanding that the struggle would be totally non-violent. But he was willing to settle for much less than Madhavan envisaged. Considerations of practical politics, deep-rooted sympathy for
chaturvarna and the fact that the rulers of Travancore were Hindus must have
influenced him. For Gandhi the satyagraha was another experiment with truth.
The impetus may have come from an Ezhava leader, but the momentum for an epic struggle came almost entirely from upper caste Hindus. Driven by dreams of a fairer world and concern for people they had begun to see as fellow citizens, an array of educated reformists like K P Kesava Menon, K M Panikkar, K Kelappan, Karur Neelakantan Namboothiri and T R Krishna Swami Iyer led and participated in the movement. That they were battling people of their own castes did not deter them; such was their commitment to the cause of brotherhood. There were Christians and Muslims too among them; George Joseph the Congress leader was the most prominent. But Gandhi sidelined them with the argument that the struggle was among
Hindus to reform themselves. Outsiders should keep away. What could have been a political struggle for civil liberties was redefined as an in-house difference of opinion among a set of believers.
The locus of the struggle was the Mahadeva Temple at Vaikom, the roads around which were out of bounds to avarnas. In 1870 Travancore had thrown open all roads to all castes. But the Namboodiri brahmins of Vaikom were adamant that avarnascould not walk close to their temple. Theendal palakasor sign boards indicated the points beyond which avarnascould not walk. The satyagrahis wanted the roads to be opened and the sign boards removed. For the Namboothiri priesthood, tradition was sacred and unalterable.
On the first day of the satyagraha, 30 March 1924, three trained volunteers, dressed in khadi and sporting garlands, walked up to the sign boards behind which barricades had been erected by the police. A huge crowd had gathered to watch the proceedings. After the marchers were removed, little happened. This was repeated the next day. Soon a near ritualistic pattern emerged — march of a couple of volunteers in the morning; removal by police. Collection drives and meetings were held, speeches made, but neither side budged.
The satyagraha did attract plenty of attention. A 19-year-old Kesava Dev narrates in his autobiography how he was so enthused by the agitation that he risked the anger of relatives and travelled to Vaikom on borrowed money, just to witness it. Its tameness disappointed him, but Dev, an unemployed Nair youth with few prospects and with his career as novelist far in the future, was drawn to Vaikom by the hope that real change and progress were coming to his land. Thousands were similarly moved.
Gandhi kept a close watch on happenings and instructed the local leadership on what was to be done. Many of those who participated in the agitation were from outside Travancore. E V Ramaswami Naicker, aka Periyar, the firebrand rationalist who travelled to Vaikom, courted arrest and was jailed in Trivandrum, was the most prominent among them. Akalis, who had opened a free kitchen to feed the volunteers, had to leave. Ironically, most Ezhavas kept away as did major Dalit groups. Gandhi and his followers believed that soul force would persuade the orthodox of Vaikom to change their attitudes and to open the roads.
As days passed and the satyagraha lost its initial steam the attitudes of the orthodox hardened. Some violence was unleashed on the satyagrahis. But, true to their promise to Gandhi, the volunteers did not retaliate. The satyagrahis fasted; women participated. Nothing moved the hard-hearted priests of the temple.
As time went by, a stalemate emerged. A jatha of savarnas, led by Mannath
Padmanabhan, one of the founders of the Nair Service Society, marched from Vaikom to Trivandrum, the capital, to merge with a similar procession from Sucheendram in the south. Together the marchers presented a petition signed by 25,000 caste Hindus to the Regent Maharani. She was sympathetic, yet she hedged. Gandhi himself arrived, now designated a state guest. He travelled all over Travancore, meeting people, consulting some and exhorting others. He even met the leader of the high castes at Vaikom, Indanturuttil Nambiathiri, twice, while standing at the distance stipulated by caste rules. They were unyielding. At a second meeting Nambiathiri offered him
scriptural proof to show that the avarnasshould not approach the temple. That
Nambiathiri “purified” his home after Gandhi had departed was significant.
Gandhi left and a compromise he outlined was worked out. Three of the roads were opened to avarnasand a new road constructed so that parts of the eastern entrance could continue to be used by savarnasalone. It had the approval of the Maharani and the British and gave a sense of victory to both sides.
What had begun as a struggle for dignity and equal opportunity had widespread repercussions. Gandhism appeared to triumph. Did he understand that the struggle had to be not only against the British but also against home-grown forms of iniquity? Periyar, released from jail, had returned to Vaikom to preside over a large meeting called to end the satyagraha on 29 November 1925. He soon parted ways with Gandhi, releasing that Gandhi would never be a partner in the fight against caste and Hindu orthodoxy. Congressmen were happy because their movement had grown in Kerala.
The priesthood and their royal backers probably saw the writing on the wall. The enlightened liberal, the prime mover behind the agitation, who had hoped that theocracy would end and democracy rise, had to withdraw to fight another day.
The struggle for dignity continued. The Temple Entry Proclamation of 1936 opened not just roads but all temples to avarnas. Soul force did not melt the minds of the priesthood. The force of public opinion, particularly that of educated savarnas, influenced the Maharajah. But it was the pragmatism of the Dewan C P Ramaswamy Iyer and the fear of his king, Chithira Thirunal, that the Ezhavas would come good on their threat to convert en masse to Christianity or Islam or Buddhism that hastened the decision in favour of temple entry. Ezhava numbers were crucial. Demograhics and politics in Kerala took a decisive turn. Its effects are still visible.
In Kerala today, temples are once again building walls around them. New sign boards restrict entry. This time, though, the avarnasare in. Only the mlecchasof other religions are kept out. The festivals and temple arts in which locals of all religions once participated are now exclusively for Hindus. Experiments are still being conducted, but not with truth or by Gandhis. And the winds that reach Kerala blast in mostly from the mainland, the Persian Gulf or the ‘West’.
A footnote: It is a sad commentary on how the pace of change that gathered momentum during the early part of the 20th century in Travancore, has lost it sting and pace in the first quarter of the 21st. Electoral politics and the marriage market may keep these old ruins from crumbling totally, but I feel that the tide of progress in social matters will rise again. The 2026 elections fill a lot of us in Kerala, including me, with hope that a truly secular, modern State can be ushered in by that exceptional politician V D Satheesan and his team.
P. Vijaya Kumar / PVK
profpvk@gmail.com
Note: A couple of minor corrections have been made to the original article.
Thank you. Nandri. Namaskaram.
PVK 01/June/2026
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