Skip to main content

Religion with Education


I accompanied a group of my students to a pilgrimage centre today as part of my school’s usual ritual before the annual exams. Perhaps that’s a very pertinent destination for such a trip which is meant to seek the blessings of a divine personality on students before their exams. The patron saint of the place is a monk who revolutionised a whole system in Kerala. He is Chavara Kuriakose Elias, one of the officially recognised saints of the Catholic church.

Born in 1805, Kuriakose Elias witnessed a lot of injustice. The poor were deprived of every possible delight of life in those days. Those were days when the caste system of Hinduism ruled the roost. The low caste people and the untouchables had no rights whatever. They were not even allowed to eat sufficient food. Keeping people hungry is one of the easiest ways of subjugating them. Their young girls would be carried away by the upper caste men for their transient delights. There were even traditions like a newly married bride of a peasant had to be deflowered by the landlord before she could sleep with her husband. Kuriakose Elias lived in a time when the low caste women had to walk in public places with their breasts uncovered so that the higher caste people could ogle. And do a lot more, of course, since there was no untouchability at night. And it was also the time when education was denied to everybody except the higher castes.

It was then Kuriakose Elias opened the first Sanskrit school in India that invited everyone irrespective of caste and creed to learn and grow out of the oppressive socio-political system. Remember how Manusmriti, the holy book of Hindutva, had stipulated that any low caste person who happens to hear the Vedic shlokas recited must have molten lead poured in his ears? It was when that rule and many other such heartless rules were in practice that Kuriakose Elias put up a small roof over a patch of land and invited the untouchable people of the place to send their children to come and learn Sanskrit. In the year 1831. The teacher was one Mr Warrier, a high caste Hindu.

It will be highly interesting to study why a high caste Hindu would do something that was to undermine his own religious system. Warriers were quite an exploited lot in those days. Too many people were exploited in those days, in fact. Anyone who did not belong to the privileged group was a victim. Is the situation any different today? Look at our economic inequality now. A tiny group of people own most of the country’s wealth and the whole political system is giving them still more. And more.

We are still practising the ancient caste system. In a new way. With a new rhetoric. With a new Manu on top.

We need another Kuriakose Elias, I thought as I was returning from Mannanam (near Kottayam in Kerala), the place where his tomb is today. We need a revolutionary visionary who can shatter the myths which are being imposed on us today as historical truths. We need a visionary who can dispel the darkness of rhetoric and histrionics with the radiant light of wisdom.

Kuriakose Elias dared to bring Sanskrit to the low castes and the untouchables in a time when that was thought to be impossible. He was the first individual to open a printing press in India at that time. He started a newspaper, Deepika. He was aware of the power of the press better than any politician. He changed Kerala’s outlooks and attitudes and made it a far better place than any in India.

We need someone like him today, I thought as I returned home from Mannanam. He was a religious person but his religon had a heart. And, more importantly, a brain. 

A replica of the house where Kuriakose Elias was born (in the museum)

A view of the pilgrimage centre


Inside the church

My students


Comments

  1. We need such noble people in every religion. Glad to know about the great soul. By the way, I am writing this comment as rolling my train into Trivandrum.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a highly educative post. You are correct. Divide and Rule has always been the foundational stone of political and social supremacy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Today's post of mine is about this identity politics which divides and rules easily.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Country where humour died

Humour died a thousand deaths in India after May 2014. The reason – let me put it as someone put it on X.  The stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra called a politician some names like ‘traitor’ which made his audience laugh because they misunderstood it as a joke. Kunal Kamra has to explain the joke now in a court of justice. I hope his judge won’t be caught with crores of rupees of black money in his store room . India itself is the biggest joke now. Our courts of justice are huge jokes. Our universities are. Our temples, our textbooks, even our markets. Let alone our Parliament. I’m studying the Ramayana these days in detail because I’ve joined an A-to-Z blog challenge and my theme is Ramayana, as I wrote already in an earlier post . In order to understand the culture behind Ramayana, I even took the trouble to brush up my little knowledge of Sanskrit by attending a brief course. For proof, here’s part of a lesson in my handwriting.  The last day taught me some subhashit...

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...

Violence and Leaders

The latest issue of India Today magazine studies what it calls India’s Gross Domestic Behaviour (GDB). India is all poised to be an economic superpower. But what about its civic sense? Very poor, that’s what the study has found. Can GDP numbers and infrastructure projects alone determine a country’s development? Obviously, no. Will India be a really ‘developed’ country by 2030 although it may be $7-trillion economy by then? Again, no is the answer. India’s civic behaviour leaves a lot, lot to be desired. Ironically, the brand ambassador state of the country, Uttar Pradesh, is the worst on most parameters: civic behaviour, public safety, gender attitudes, and discrimination of various types. And UP is governed by a monk!  India Today Is there any correlation between the behaviour of a people and the values and principles displayed by their leaders? This is the question that arose in my mind as I read the India Today story. I put the question to ChatGPT. “Yes,” pat came the ...

The Ramayana Chronicles: 26 Stories, Endless Wisdom

I’m participating in the A2Z challenge of Blogchatter this year too. I have been regular with this every April for the last few years. It’s been sheer fun for me as well as a tremendous learning experience. I wrote mostly on books and literature in the past. This year, I wish to dwell on India’s great epic Ramayana for various reasons the prominent of which is the new palatial residence in Ayodhya that our Prime Minister has benignly constructed for a supposedly homeless god. “Our Ram Lalla will no longer reside in a tent,” intoned Modi with his characteristic histrionics. This new residence for Lord Rama has become the largest pilgrimage centre in India, drawing about 100,000 devotees every day. Not even the Taj Mahal, a world wonder, gets so many footfalls. Ayodhya is not what it ever was. Earlier it was a humble temple town that belonged to all. Several temples belonging to different castes made all devotees feel at home. There was a sense of belonging, and a sense of simplici...