Mahatma Ayyankali’s Relevance Today

About a year before he left for Chicago (1893), Swami Vivekananda visited Kerala and described the state (then Travancore-Cochin-Malabar princely states) as a “lunatic asylum.” The spiritual philosopher was shocked by the brutality of the caste system that was in practice in the region.

The peasant caste of Pulayas, for example, had to keep a distance of 90 feet from Brahmins and 64 feet from Nairs. The low caste people were denied most human rights. They could not access education, enter temple premises, or buy essentials from markets. They were not even considered as humans.

Ayyankali (1863-1941) was a Pulaya leader who emerged to confront the situation. I just finished reading a biography of his in Malayalam and was highly impressed by the contributions of the great man who came to be known in Kerala as the Mahatma of the Dalits.

What prompted me to order a copy of the biography was an article I read in a Malayalam periodical last week. The article described how Ayyankali used violence in order to bring education to the Pulaya children. Ayyankali was illiterate himself.

In 1907, the Travancore King’s government passed an Education Reform Order by which the Dalits were allowed to send their children to primary schools. But none of the schools were willing to admit any Dalit children because of caste Untouchability. Ayyankali took a few Pulaya children to a school and made a girl sit on a bench in a classroom. All the upper caste children ran out of the school for fear of caste pollution.

Ayyankali was not one to give up. He started a school of his own for the Pulaya children. A teacher from the Kshatriya caste with progressive ideas was found too. But the upper caste people did not allow the teacher to teach. Worse, they set the school on fire that night. However, Ayyankali erected another building the very next day and the classes took place under the security given by the Ayyankali Army.

This led to widespread protests and violence in Travancore. The upper castes fought the Dalits merely to deny education to their children. Ignorance is the best way to keep people enslaved. Look at how Indians are being fed with superstitions and unscientific balderdash today under the sweet label of Indian Knowledge Systems.

Ayyankali took a pledge. The peasants would not work the fields of the upper caste people until their children were allowed to study in schools. Weeds grew on agricultural lands. Hunger burnt in bellies. Those were hard days for everyone. But hunger brings people down to their knees soon enough. Ayyankali won.

When I read about all this, I wished to know more about Ayyankali and that’s how I read his biography.

Ayyankali not only brought education to the Dalit children. He got the Dalits access to public roads and markets. Most of the oppressive customs came to an end eventually. Ayyankali met the violence of the higher castes with violence. He had his own ‘army.’ He empowered a whole large population with his selfless efforts. He brought them dignity.

Mahatma Gandhi visited Ayyankali once when the former was in Travancore in connection with the Vaikom Temple entry. Travancore was described by one of its own Kings as “India’s most priest-ridden country.” And the priests were men who regarded caste equality as nothing short of sacrilege. “If we yield today to the blasphemous nonsense in Vaikom, tomorrow the clamour would inevitably reach the gates of the Padmanabhaswamy Temple.”

They had to yield, however. Mahatma Gandhi himself came to support the Dalits in this regard. Ayyankali, who became the Mahatma of the Dalits in Kerala, never visited any temple. But he rightly fought for the right of his people to worship the gods they wanted to.

A century after all this, the caste system is still in practice in most states of India. It has disappeared by and large from Kerala which calls itself an Enlightened State. I personally don’t think the epithet is apt because there’s much in the state that is still as uncivilised as in most Northern states. But on caste system, we have to give the state a thumbs up.

Ayyankali’s view was that the caste system degrades human dignity and must be eradicated through education and organised struggle. He didn’t shy away from the use of violence if that was the only option left. Caste is a manmade violence. No society can progress while a part of its people is treated worse than animals.

As I completed reading the biography of this great soul, I wondered how he would respond to the new caste system that is rising in India, one which has given half of the country’s wealth to just one percent of the population. Present India’s Gini coefficient is 61-62, ranking the country the most unequal in wealth distribution. The wealthiest 0.001% control three times the wealth of the bottom half of the population. Do we stand in need of an Ayyankali Army?