Tolerance: Sree Narayana Guru

We live in a world where large majorities feel threatened by small minorities and hence loud certainties and quick judgments are rewarded. Tolerance is mistaken for weakness. To tolerate is seen as to yield, to compromise, or worse, to remain indifferent.

The relevance of teachers like Sree Narayana Guru [1856-1928] can never be exaggerated in such a world.

Born into a low caste of a rigidly stratified society in Kerala, Guru did not respond to injustice with bitterness or retaliation. Nineteenth-century Kerala was marked by an extreme and unyielding caste hierarchy that governed every aspect of life. Where you could walk, what you could wear, how you pray to your God… anything and everything had to conform to rigid rubrics. The lower castes were not merely excluded from the mainstream but rendered socially invisible. Their very presence was considered polluting.

The low castes were denied access to temples, schools, and even public roads. They were deprived of human dignity. Women faced additional layers of humiliation, including restrictions on clothing and mobility. Lower caste women were forbidden from covering their breasts up to the middle of the 19^th century. And they were exploited in many ways, obviously. Untouchability was only in daytime.

Religion, instead of being a source of spiritual equality, was often used to legitimise these hierarchies. It was against this background of institutionalised inequality and quiet suffering that Narayana Guru’s message of unity and human dignity emerged. He didn’t preach an abstract philosophy. His was a direct challenge to a profoundly unjust social order.

“One Caste, One Religion, One God for humankind,” Guru taught. It was not a call for uniformity, but for unity beyond division. It was a deeply tolerant vision, rooted not in passive acceptance, but in active reimagining.

Tolerance, in Guru’s philosophy, was not about merely ‘putting up with’ the other. It was about dissolving the very barriers that made the other seem alien. Even temples where gods reside were closed to many sections of people in Kerala until the middle of 20^th century. [Surprisingly, even now there are temples in Kerala that have ridiculous restrictions on entry.]

Narayana Guru belonged to the Ezhava community which was a socially disadvantaged caste. He consecrated temples open to all, defying the caste restrictions of his time. He was not simply protesting exclusion but quietly asserting a new moral order, one where access to the sacred could not be monopolised.

What’s to be noted is that tolerance was not mere endurance for Guru. Such tolerance can coexist with prejudice. One may tolerate what one still secretly despises. But Guru’s tolerance was transformative. It asked not only that we accept others, but that we examine the assumptions that make the acceptance necessary.

In today’s India particularly, where identity has become a battleground, Guru’s message feels uncannily relevant. We are quick to defend our beliefs, but slow to understand another’s. Social media amplifies outrage [See my post on Outrage Culture], rewards division, and turns disagreement into hostility. In such a climate, tolerance demands courage. Not the courage to shout rhetoric, but the courage to listen.

Tolerance has its limits too and Guru was well aware of that. He did not tolerate injustice in silence. His reforms were acts of resistance, but resistance tempered by compassion, without a trace of hatred. This balance is difficult but essential. A society that tolerates everything, including oppression, ceases to be just. But a society that cannot tolerate difference ceases to be humane.

Guru taught a discerning tolerance. A tolerance that resists what degrades human dignity while embracing the diversity that enriches it.

Narayana Guru’s legacy lies not merely in the institutions he built or the reforms he initiated, but in the ethical sensibility he embodied. He showed that tolerance is not a passive virtue but an active discipline. It requires us to move beyond the comfort of our certainties and encounter the unfamiliar without fear.

In the end, tolerance is not about the other at all. It is about the self: its capacity to expand, to accommodate, and to grow.

And perhaps that is the quiet strength of any civilisation: not how fiercely it asserts identity, but how generously it makes space for others.

Note: In my novel Black Hole C F Andrews tells a fictional character, "Aaron, dear... You want to convert the Indians into Christianity. But I've seen our Christ walking on the shores of the Arabian ocean wearing the robes of a Hindu sage." Andrews was referring to his encounter with Sree Narayana Guru.  

PS. This post is a part of Blogchatter A2Z Challenge 2026

Previous Posts in this series

Authority	Bigotry	Courage
Dissent	Empathy	Faith
Gaslighting	Hero Worship	Integrity
Joker	Kafka in His Labyrinth	Loyalty vs Conscience
Majoritarianism	Negative Capability	Outrage Culture
Populism	Quixotism	Rhetoric
Self & Society	Tomorrow: Unconditional Love