Mahatma’s life in South Africa built him to be what he was later when he reached India in the middle of the First World War. The practice of apartheid in that country and his own efforts in fighting against it by establishing the Natal Indian Congress in 1894 as a barrister gave him enough experience to organise people. It is an interesting coincidence that he became the President of Indian National Congress thirty years later in 1924 in the Belgaum congress, the centenary of which was celebrated at Belgaum recently.
The Mahatma’s return to India saw him as a social activist in the middle of the First World War. Though he was a politically conscious person who had in mind the liberation of the country from the shackles of a foreign nation, he was more a social activist to begin with. Apart from getting involved with several social issues initially in the northern belt of the country, he also gave enough support to causes with great consequences in the social front. One of them was his involvement in the Vaikom Satyagraha. More than an individual participant and a leader of the struggle, his presence lent a great moral support to the movement led by local leaders, among them a sizable number of people from the upper class, who joined the common people to fight against untouchability that was practised by the upper classes.
Travancore was a small princely state in comparison with several bigger ones in different parts of the country. However, it was a progressive state judged by the standards of that time and in comparison with other principalities because it had a legislative council from 1937 and the king and subsequently the regent queen were benevolent people. The state of Cochin was also in touch with the state of Travancore, these together became one state after independence and the royal rulers of both supported each other and concurred on several solutions to social problems. The leaders of the people of both the states were also very learned and committed. The untouchability practised at the Vaikom Mahashiva temple was of a broader nature because the Ezhavas, today they belong to the OBC, also were not allowed not only to enter the temple but also to walk through the four small roads that led to the temple. Anybody who passed through those roads, even inadvertently, was subjected to severe beating, a form of punishment meted out by the temple authorities.
An important fact that had to be considered is the leadership that was offered by Sri Narayana Guru for the movement of temple entry by the people. There were many dedicated leaders including a powerful Christian, a barrister, who led the movement. The Devan Neelakandan Namboodiri of the Elayadath Illam or Mane who administered the temple was a very firm person who did not allow anyone even to approach him. He practised untouchability and did not want to be involved even in a conversation with the leaders of the movement. The advice of Sri Narayana Guru who had by then commanded a lot of disciples from various communities also fell in the deaf ears of the administrators of the temple. There were twenty thousand people who signed a document to be presented to the king to allow people to walk through the roads and visit the temple.
No doubt, Narayana Guru was a great influence not only on the Ezavas but also on the Nairs, both of whom led the movement for temple entry. The collective of people were ready to make a mass entry into the temple by walking through the forbidden roads. Plans were afoot to do it though Narayana Guru was against it. The temple entry became such an issue that was going to be a very violent one which would have been a fight between the upper classes and the lower classes.
It is into this scene that the Mahatma entered. By the time he arrived, people of the area were in a rebellious mood and it was expected that any day there would be a mass entry into the temple. The local leaders, especially those who were peace-loving, had contacted the Mahatma and requested him to reach Vaikom and speak to the people and give greater emphasis on a non-co-operation movement rather than on a violent entry into the temple. Therefore, there may be nothing wrong in saying that the Mahatma’s visit decided the quality of resistance by the people in the demand for temple entry. It also had a great impact on the movement for avoiding the practice of untouchability on the lower classes.
On his arrival, the Mahatma conferred with the local leaders, especially to understand the ground realities. His experience in the northern belt was in support of his involvement in the Vaikom temple entry movement. He had conversations with Narayana Guru at the latter’s ashram and the Mahatma was not in agreement with some of the belief systems of the guru like one caste, one religion and one god. However, this did not come in the way of the Mahatma’s support for the Vaikom temple entry movement. He addressed the people who had assembled together in an open ground and appealed to them to have the movement as peaceful as possible and assured them that he would take up the matter with the custodians of the temple.
It may be important to understand the attitude of Devan Neelakandan Namboodiri of the Vaikom Illam or Mane who obstinately objected not only to the entry of Ezhavas and the scheduled castes into the temple but also their walking through the four roads which were around the temple. He was an obstinate believer in the karma philosophy of the past. He believed that all these lower classes were born into such polluted castes because they had committed some offences in their previous birth and god had punished them to be born as untouchables. Hence, they had to continue to live as untouchables to get salvation and to be born again in the next birth into better classes. He not only believed in such tenets but also had a treatise written on palm leaf to prove what he believed as true.
However, apart from Sri Narayana Guru, there were also other intellectuals and social leaders who disapproved of the practice of untouchability. Vallathol Narayan Menon was one of the intellectuals of the upper classes themselves and was a great poet and thinker. He examined the palm leave writings and proved that these were not original writings by any sage and instead they were something fabricated, and therefore, were not to be respected at all. As an intellectual who commanded very high respect in the upper class society too, Poet Vallathol’s studies of the records and his subsequent opinions were of great support to the movement.
The Mahatma’s arrival boosted the morale not only of the leaders of the movement but also of the masses that followed. He agreed to meet Namboodiri, the custodian of the Vaikom Mahashiva temple. The latter was not ready for a conversation with the Mahatma. However, leaders of the upper classes who believed in the practice of untouchability advised him to meet the Mahatma for fear of a very violent appraisal by the general public which also had a great support from many people from the upper classes too.
The Namboodiri refused to meet the Mahatma at the ashram of Narayana Guru or in any other place except his own Illam or Mane, his residential quarters attached to the temple. Though many of the leaders did not want the Mahatma to agree to such a meeting at his Illam or Mane for fear of the Mahatma being slighted, the Mahatma agreed to visit him in his house. However, the Mahatma was not allowed an entry into his house because he was not a Brahmin. Therefore, a type of a small temporary porch was constructed in front of the Illam or Mane and the Namboodiri sat inside and the Mahatma sat in the small porch that was newly built and spoke to each other. Already known to many as a possibility, the Namboodiri refused to admit Ezhavas and the scheduled castes even into the roads near the temple.
History tells us that it took more than a decade for the regent queen of Travancore to make a declaration that people of all communities could walk through the roads near the temple and enter the temple. It was known as the Temple Entry Declaration. This was the result of the movement led by all communities of that part of present Kerala which was then known as Travancore state.
The credit for the Mahatma is that his arrival, his speaking to the public in a meeting attended by large numbers of people and his conversation with the Namboodiri of the Illam or Mane of the Vaikom temple had a great influence on the rebellious mood of the general public who planned for a mass entry into the temple defying all conventions that existed there and they led peaceful protest thereafter.
All the same, one question remained to be answered after the Mahatma’s visit to Vaikom and his leadership to the Vaikom Satyagraha. No doubt, his visit gave a chance for the Mahatma to meet people and tell them about the need for non-cooperation movement and the peaceful ways that they had to be conducted, but the question that remained was about his agreement to speak to the Namboodiri, the ruler of the temple, by sitting outside the latter’s house. People asked, afterwards, whether it was a defeatist’s compromise that the Mahatma made by agreeing to such a conversation where the position power exerted by the Namboodiri was exactly opposite of what the people wanted including the temple entry and avoidance of practice of untouchability. While this was raised by many of the leaders of the upper classes with the Mahatma, the latter clarified with them that it was essential that a person of his status agreed for a compromise, though he himself did not approve of it, so as to pacify the people and lead them away from a violent mass entry into the temple which would have been worst of a model to fight against all untouchability and upper class practices.
Vaikom Satyagraha and the Mahatma’s involvement there is a classic example of how he allowed himself to be accepted as a leader of the people by travelling and being with the people of the southern corner of the country. In addition, it also showed his willingness to give greater importance to the non-violence as a policy in the face of an alternate possibility of a success through violence. More importantly, he established his disapproval of any practice of untouchability in any form anywhere in the country even when it had a religious theoretic approval. Further, he was spreading and asserting his leadership in front of multiples of populations away from his main place of work. Much more importantly, he once again asserted his belief that it was not enough to get liberated from a foreign rule, it was more necessary to get liberated from the unsocial practices and evils that were inherent in different layers of Indian societies.
Very recently, the centenary of the Vaikom Satyagraha and the Mahatma’s visit were organised by the state of Kerala which collectively proclaimed to the world their success in the Vaikom Temple Entry Satyagraha but also their acceptance of the leadership offered by the Mahatma by projecting his belief in non-violence in fighting against social practices and the foreign rule to make a free India where people were equal not only in temples but also in common assemblies.
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Prof. Sunney Tharappan, is Director of College for Leadership and HRD, Mangaluru. He trains and writes and lives in Mangaluru.