Religion, social space and identity: the prathyaksha raksha daiva sabha and the making of cultural boundaries in twentieth century kerala1

¹An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference of Subaltern Historians in 1998. I am grateful to Gautam Bhadra, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Gyan Pandey and Susie Tharu for their valuable interventions. Thanks are also due to Nizar Ahmad, T.M. Yesudasan, Partha Chatterjee, Anjan Ghosh, Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya and Raziuddin Aquil. A stimulating and prolonged discussion with Saurabh Dube helped me to reconsider some of the problems posed in the paper.

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyse one of the social movements of twentieth century Kerala that tried to engage with the problems of material and spiritual progress in the context of modernity by investigating the rise of the Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha (hereafter PRDS). The movement originated within the framework of missionary Christianity, but moved beyond the limits of the missionary project and eventually offered a critique of it.

The introductory part of the paper discusses the social and economic transformation of the erstwhile Travancore State during the colonial period, focusing on the transformation of the local caste structure. The problem of colonial modernity is then dealt with, as the issues analysed in the paper bear testimony to the transformation that modernity brought about. This is followed by discussions on the problems of caste, Christianity and the transformation of Dalit (formerly untouchable) communities in Travancore. Issues such as myths and histories of appropriation, notions of history and new bodily and physical practices, along with questions of identity formation, are taken up later on to delineate the trajectories of change.

¹An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference of Subaltern Historians in 1998. I am grateful to Gautam Bhadra, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Gyan Pandey and Susie Tharu for their valuable interventions. Thanks are also due to Nizar Ahmad, T.M. Yesudasan, Partha Chatterjee, Anjan Ghosh, Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya and Raziuddin Aquil. A stimulating and prolonged discussion with Saurabh Dube helped me to reconsider some of the problems posed in the paper.

Notes

¹An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference of Subaltern Historians in 1998. I am grateful to Gautam Bhadra, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Gyan Pandey and Susie Tharu for their valuable interventions. Thanks are also due to Nizar Ahmad, T.M. Yesudasan, Partha Chatterjee, Anjan Ghosh, Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya and Raziuddin Aquil. A stimulating and prolonged discussion with Saurabh Dube helped me to reconsider some of the problems posed in the paper.

²K. Saradamoni, Emergence Of a Slave Caste; Pulayas Of Kerala (Delhi: Peoples Publishing House, 1980).

³T.C. Varghese, Agrarian Change and Economic Consequences: Land Tenures in Kerala 1850–1960 (Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1970).

⁴Ravi Raman, ‘Labour under Imperial Hegemony: The Case Of Tea Plantation in South India 1914–1941’, in S. Bhattacharya (ed.), The South Indian Economy: Agrarian Change, Industrial Structure and State Policy, c. 1914–1947 (Delhi: OUP, 1991), pp.243–67.

⁵Ravi Raman, ‘Labour under Imperial Hegemony: The Case Of Tea Plantation in South India 1914–1941’, in S. Bhattacharya (ed.), The South Indian Economy: Agrarian Change, Industrial Structure and State Policy, c. 1914–1947 (Delhi: OUP, 1991), pp.243–67.

⁶Commodity chain refers to the tree-like interconnections between different commodities at the level of production and exchange. For more details see Christopher Chase Dunn, Global Formation: Structure Of the World Economy (London: Basil Blackwell, 1989), p.30.

⁷Modernity is central to theorisation in contemporary social thinking, as it encompasses the entirety of humanity in one way or another. Theorisation on modernity tries to provide a vision for the future, although there are several critiques to such positions. There are those holding philosophical positions who still believe in the rational understanding of the world. For a critical engagement with the problems of modernity see Jurgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourses Of Modernity (Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1993).

⁸For an extremely engaging discussion on these questions, see Timothy Mitchell, ‘The Stage Of Modernity’, in Timothy Mitchell (ed.), Questions Of Modernity, Contradictions in Modernity, Vol.II (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), pp.1–7.

⁹Partha Chatterjee, ‘Anderson's Utopia’, in Diacritics, Vol.29, no.4 (Winter 1999), pp.128–34.

¹⁰Anthony Giddens, The Consequences Of Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990).

¹¹For details see Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large, Cultural Dimensions Of Globalization (Delhi: OUP, 1997); Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (New Delhi: OUP, 2001); Partha Chatterjee, Our Modernity, SEPHIS-CODESRIA Lecture No.1 (Rotterdam, 1997); and Partha Chatterjee, ‘Two Poets Of Death: On Civil and Political Society in the Non-Christian World’, in Timothy Mitchell (ed.), Questions Of Modernity, Contradictions in Modernity, Vol.II (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), pp.35–40.

¹²There is a growing body of social science literature on the Ezhavas and the reform movement SNDP. In their recent book on social mobility in Kerala, Filippo Osella and Caroline Osella have argued that ‘modernity together with a generalised commitment to progress, appears as integral to Ezhavas' self-defined identities, embedded in community identity’ that was forged through the long process of reforms and mobilisation. For details see Filippo Osella and Caroline Osella, Social Mobility in Kerala. Modernity and Identity in Conflict (London: Pluto Press, 2002), p.9.

¹³M. Moffat, An Untouchable Community in South India: Structure and Consensus (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).

¹⁴Robert Deliege, The World Of the Untouchables: Paraiyars Of Tamil Nadu (trans. David Philips) (Delhi: OUP, 1997), p.8.

¹⁵David Moss, ‘Idioms Of Subordination and Styles Of Protest among Christian and Hindu Harijan Castes in Tamil Nadu’, in Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.), Vol.28, no.1 (1994), pp.67–106. Also see David Moss, ‘Catholic Saints and the Hindu Village Pantheon in Rural Tamil Nadu, India’, in Man: The Journal Of the Royal Anthropological Society (n.s.), Vol.29 (June 1994), pp.301–32.

¹⁶Deliege, The World Of the Untouchables, p.9.

¹⁷It is to be observed that Christianity has its presence in various denominations in Kerala. The traditional Syrian Christian Church which claimed the heritage of Eastern Christianity under the spiritual guidance of the ‘Jacobite’ patriarchs of Antioch could be considered the most ancient church in Kerala. With the coming of the Portuguese, most of the traditional church was forced to accept the Catholic Church hierarchy, but one group of the Syrian Christians resisted this and reverted to their traditional Eastern faith after taking an oath at Mattancherry at Cochin while holding a rope tied to a granite cross known as the Koonen Cross. In the nineteenth century with the coming of Protestant missions, first the Anglican Church and then various other Protestant sects became established. In the twentieth century the Salvation Army and Plymouth Brethren arrived followed by the various Pentecostal churches. From the mid nineteenth century missions were active among the lower castes and by the last decades of the nineteenth century converts from the lower castes had become a distinct community although they remained within different denominations. But in the early decades of the twentieth century different caste orders were set up in response to discrimination within the church. The Syrian Christians are considered as part of traditional elite society in Kerala. For details of Church history and sects, see C.M. Augur, Church History Of Travancore (Madras: Asian Education Services, 1903); Susan Bayly, Saints, Godesses, and King: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700–1900 (Cambridge: CUP, 1992), pp.241–320; Susan Viswanathan, The Christianity Of Kerala: History, Belief and Rituals Among the Yakoba (Madras: OUP, 1995); and Biju Mathew, ‘Strategies Of Identity: The Case Of the Syrian Christians Of Kerala’ (unpublished MPhil Dissertation, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, 1993). In order to understand caste within Christianity, see Ninan Koshy, Caste in Kerala Churches (Bangalore: 1968); C.J. Fuller, ‘Kerala Christians and the Caste System’, in Dipanker Gupta (ed.), Social Stratification (Delhi: OUP, 1992), pp.195–212; and Duncan B. Forrester, Caste and Christianity. Attitudes and Policies on Caste Of Anglo-Saxon Protestant Missions in India (London: Curzon Press, 1980).

¹⁸For details of the work of the Basel Mission in Malabar see C.R. Raina, ‘Basel Mission and Social Change in Malabar’ (unpublished MPhil dissertation, University of Calicut, 1988).

¹⁹The Church Missionary Society in Travancore was initially a Mission of Help to the Syrian Christians. They began to work among lower castes only after the formal break with the Syrian Christians in 1836.

²⁰The Syrian Christians were for all practical purposes treated on a par with the upper castes. Their political position began to change from the late nineteenth century due to the emergence of new socio-economic forces. But their worldview and perception of caste structure, notions of purity, pollution and caste hierarchy remain the same today.

²¹William Adam, The Law and Custom Of Slavery in British India in a Series Of Letters to Thomas Fowell Buxton, Esq (London: Smith Elder and Co. Corn Hill, 1840), pp.122–9.

²²The Travancore and Cochin Diocesan Record of 1912 carried the story of an ex-slave named Kumaran who was sold at the age of 10 or 12 from Pandalam in the south to Kanjirappaally in the plantation district for Rs.14. For details see Travancore and Cochin Diocesan Record (hereafter TCDR), Vol.XXII, no.4 (Aug. 1912), p.86; TCDR, Vol.XV, no.3 (May 1905), pp.42–3; Rev. J. Hawksworth to sec., 14 June 1853, C.I. 2/07/19, Special Collections, Birmingham University; and J. Hawksworth, ‘Questions by a Missionary and Answers by Travancore Slaves Taught in a School Of the Church Missionary Society, 1853’, C.I. 2/07/24, Special Collections, Birmingham University.

²³For some documents that speak of the sale of slaves, see P. Unnikrishnan Nair, Thiruvalla Grandhavari II (Kottayam: School of Social Sciences, 1999), pp.74–5, 77; and Rajan Gurukkal, ‘On Grandhavari’, in ibid., p.8.

²⁴Rev. Henry Baker Junior, The Hill Arrians Of Travancore and the Progress Of Christianity Among Them (London: Wertheim Macintosh & Hunt, 1862), p.22.

²⁵James C. Scott, Weapons Of the Weak: Everyday Forms Of Peasant Resistance (Delhi: OUP, 1986), p.29. See also James C. Scott and Benedict J. Tria (eds), Everyday Forms Of Peasant Resistance in South-East Asia (London: Frank Cass, 1986), pp.5–35. The notion of weapons of the weak is used here as the situation is qualitatively different from what David Ludden refers to in his study on South Indian agrarian economy. When he deals with the question of dominance what comes out as striking is the active moments of resistance offered by the Palla and Shannar lower caste labouring people, with the former in certain instances referred to as slaves. In the example of Travancore we hardly come across active moments of resistance in the early or mid nineteenth century involving villagers and townspeople. For details see David Ludden, Peasant History in South India (Delhi: OUP, 1989), pp.188–96.

²⁶‘Rev. Koshy's Journal for Quarter ending September 30, 1856’, in Madras Church Missionary Record, Vol.XXIV, no.5 (May 1857), pp.138–141.

²⁷ The First Part Of Cottayam Report, Acc. No.91, 0 1/2, Special Collections, Birmingham University, pp.64, 82, 87.

²⁸ TCDR, Vol.XV, no.3 (May 1905), pp.42–3.

²⁹The significance of the use of language in another missionary context is discussed in Joel Robbins, ‘God is Nothing but Talk: Modernity, Language, and Prayer in a Papua New Guinea Society’, in American Anthropologist, Vol.103, no.4 (Dec. 2001), pp.901–12.

³² Ibid., pp.69–70. Onam is the traditional harvest festival that is celebrated in the month of August.

³⁰ Madras Church Missionary Record, Vol.XVIL (1850), p.285. This familiarity with language and Biblical knowledge helped create a class of intellectuals who articulated many of the current social problems in the religious idiom. The Church Missionary Intelligencer, a missionary journal, noted in 1864 the case of a runaway slave of Western Pulaya origin who had been baptised as Xavier, working among Eastern Pulayas as a teacher. Quoted in J.W. Gladstone, Protestant Christianity and Peoples Movement in Kerala 1850–1936 (Trivandrum: Seminary Publication, 1984), pp.117–18.

³¹ TCDR, Vol.XV (May 1905), pp.42–3; and TCDR, Vol.XXII (Aug. 1912), no.4, p.85.

³³George Matthan, ‘Slaves Of Travancore, Annual Report, Madras and South Indian’, Proceedings Of the Church Missionary Society 1856–57. Matthan reported the case of a youth crying at the time of prayer repenting of his sins when he understood that Christ died for his sins. See also ‘Extracts from the Journal Of Rev. Oomen Mamen for the Half Year ending December 31, 1856’, in Madras Church Missionary Record, Vol.XXIV, no.5 (May 1857), p.127.

³⁴‘Rev. Koshy's Journal’, pp.138–41.

³⁵P.C. Joseph, The Economic and Social Environment Of the Church in North Travancore and Cochin (Kottayam: CMS College Kottayam, 1938), pp.18–19. See also Proceedings Of the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East. Fifty-Sixth Year. 1854–55, p.126.

³⁶‘Journal Of J. Tharian for the Half Year ending December 31, 1856’, in Church Missionary Record, Vol.XXIV, no.5 (May 1857) p.141; and Baker Jr., The Hill Arrians Of Travancore, p.26.

³⁷ TCDR, Vol.XXII, no.4 (Aug. 1912), pp.85–6.

³⁸Joseph, The Economic and Social Environment Of the Church, pp.20–21.

³⁹ Deepika (11 Apr. 1910). The observation was made in relation to the controversy in the Anglican Church regarding the seating arrangement of Dalit and upper caste Christians. It was observed that ‘if not caste at least one should consider cleanliness as health sciences advise’.

⁴⁰George Parker, ‘The Challenge Of a Mass Movement: The Problems it Brings to a Society’, in The Chronicle Of the London Missionary Society (o.s.) Vol.LXXII, (n.s.) Vol.XXIV, p.212. For details on the photographic representation of colonial subjects see Sujith Kumar Parayil, ‘Photography and Colonial Modernity in Keralam’, in Manas Ray (ed.), Space, Sexuality and Post Colonial Cultures (Calcutta: 2003), pp.97–120.

⁴¹ TCDR, Vol.XXIII, no.5 (Oct. 1913), pp.99–105. This organisation was called Sadhu Jana Kristhiya Sangham (Poor Christians' Association) in the manner of Ayyankali's Sadhu Jana Paripalana Sangham (Association for the Protection of Poor People). Ayyankali was the most important Dalit leader of modern Kerala.

⁴² TCDR, Vol.XXIII, no.5 (Oct. 1913), pp.99–105. This organisation was called Sadhu Jana Kristhiya Sangham (Poor Christians' Association) in the manner of Ayyankali's Sadhu Jana Paripalana Sangham (Association for the Protection of Poor People). Ayyankali was the most important Dalit leader of modern Kerala.

⁴³Vijayan Kangazha, Sree Kumara Gurudevan: Biography (Trichur: 1978), p.8.

⁴⁶ TCDR, Vol.XXIV (Feb.1914), p.15.

⁴⁴Revival movements were popular in the central Travancore area from1873 onwards. The last one was in 1906–07. For details see The CMS Mission in Travancore and Cochin (London: Church Missionary Society, 1915), p.24.

⁴⁵ TCDR, Vol.XXIV (Feb.1914), p.15.

⁴⁷ TCDR, Vol.XXIV (Feb.1914), p.15.

⁴⁸This conferences was held at Vakathanam. This news spread far and wide, and the next day there was confrontation at the conference venue, but as Yohannan's people were also prepared to meet the eventuality it did not spiral into a big confrontation. For details see Samiti, Sree Kumara Gurudevan, p.47.

⁴⁹ TCDR, Vol.XXIX, no.6 (Dec. 1919), p.95. Yohannan's speeches also criticised the practices of Syrian Christians, so that the upper castes began to fear he was plotting a breakdown of the existing social order. They, too, used to send people to report on what was discussed at Yohannan's meetings.

⁵⁰‘Travancore and Cochin Mission Annual Report for 1916’, in TCDR, Vol.XXVII, no.3 (May 1917), pp.44–5.

⁵²‘Travancore and Cochin Mission Annual Report for 1916’, in TCDR, Vol.XXVII, no.3 (May 1917), pp.44–5.

⁵¹‘Travancore and Cochin Mission Annual Report for 1916’, in TCDR, Vol.XXVII, no.3 (May 1917), pp.44–5.

⁵³In 1950 with the change of faith, one section of his followers under the leadership of his second wife, Janamma, broke away and became the official PRDS. Yohannan's biography was reinscribed under the new name Kumara Gurudevan.

⁵⁸ TCDR, Vol.XXVII, no.8 (May 1917), p.35.

⁵⁴The ‘Travancore and Cochin Diocesan Report’ carried brief reports of blasphemy from other mission centres like Uganda in Africa. For details see TCDR, Vol.XXVII, no.1 (Jan. 1919), pp.19–20.

⁵⁵The ‘Travancore and Cochin Diocesan Report’ carried brief reports of blasphemy from other mission centres like Uganda in Africa. For details see TCDR, Vol.XXVII, no.1 (Jan. 1919), pp.19–20.

⁵⁶Charles Taylor, ‘Modern Social Imaginaries’, in Public Culture, Vol.14, no.1 (Winter 2002), p.106.

⁵⁷The term ‘habitus’ is used here in the sense in which Pierre Bourdieu introduced it in The Logic Of Practice. For details see Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic Of Practice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980), pp.52–5. Most people who joined the movement of Yohannan were from various Christian denominations and they were very much aware of the Biblical prophetic tradition.

⁵⁹ TCDR, Vol.XXVII, no.8 (May 1917), p.35.

⁶⁰‘Travancore and Cochin Mission Progress Report 1915’, p.14.

⁶¹In the latter half of the twentieth century there was a substantial decline in the predominance of female pastors, although women are still in the committees of the PRDS.

⁶²According to the teachings of the PRDS, Dalits became slaves when there was no prathyakshata or revelation. In order to escape from slavery they took refuge in Christian and Hindu rituals—baptism and ‘Suddhi’ respectively—that did not clean them. Yohannan believed that prathyakshata was a concept capable of resolving the crisis that individuals in society faced in the context of slavery.

⁶³Samiti, Sree Kumara Gurudevan, pp.50–4.

⁶⁵Samiti, Sree Kumara Gurudevan, pp.50–4.

⁶⁴Samiti, Sree Kumara Gurudevan, pp.50–4.

⁶⁶Roland Barthes, Mythologies (London: 1989), pp.117–74. See also Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology 2 (London: Penguin Books, 1977).

⁶⁷Hayden White, The Content Of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). See also Roland Barthes, ‘This Discourse Of History’, in The Rustle Of Language (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp.127–40.

⁶⁸Hayden White, The Content Of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). See also Roland Barthes, ‘This Discourse Of History’, in The Rustle Of Language (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), p.35.

⁶⁹Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology 2, p.16.

⁷⁰White, The Content Of the Form, p.34.

⁷¹For a theoretical discussion on the hagiographies of saints, see Michel de Certeau, The Writing Of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), pp.269–83.

⁷²For a theoretical discussion on the hagiographies of saints, see Michel de Certeau, The Writing Of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), p.270.

⁷³Saurabh Dube, ‘Myths, Symbols and Community: Satnampanth Of Chattisgarh’, in Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra Pandey (eds), Subaltern Studies, Vol.VII (Delhi: OUP, 1992), p.134.

⁷⁴Kangazha, Sree Kumara Gurudevan: Biography, pp.19–23. Yohannan was affectionately called Appachan meaning father.

⁷⁵ Ibid. One interpretation of the name of the PRDS is that it is the church that provides visible salvation. The other is that the invisible God has appeared to the church, and the third is the idea that the church believes only in visible salvation. See Rev. P.C. Joseph, Poykayil Sree Kumara Guru, Jeevithavum Darshanavum (Thiruvalla: Christian Literature Society, 1994), p.62.

⁷⁶Prominent among them were ‘Vakathanam Lahala’, ‘Mundakkayam Atilahala’, ‘Vellinadi Samaram’, ‘Kozhikkuchira Lahala of 1912–13,’ and ‘Mangalam Atilahala’. In all cases Yohannan and his followers escaped with minor casualties. Only in one instance did a Dalit woman die.

⁷⁷Certeau, The Writing Of History, p.273.

⁷⁸Certeau, The Writing Of History, p.31.

⁷⁹Kangazha, Sree Kumara Gurudevan: Biography, pp.17–18.

⁸⁰Interview with J. John at Eraviperoor, 18 Sept. 2001.

⁸¹Baby and Babu Rajan, Thiruvithamkur Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha Charithram Poykayil Yohannanu Shesham (Ettumanoor: 1994), p.14.

⁸²Baby and Babu Rajan, Thiruvithamkur Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha Charithram Poykayil Yohannanu Shesham (Ettumanoor: 1994), p.14.

⁸³Ettupara Kunju was one of the early supporters of the Sabha and had had a close association with Yohannan. The people's faith in Ettupara Kunju's words grew as his speeches included new themes and songs probably based on those of Yohannan.

⁸⁴Rajan, Thiruvithamkur Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha Charithram Poykayil Yohannanu Shesham, p.15.

⁸⁵Later Ettupara Kunju lost his followers and became an exile of sorts.

⁸⁶Rajan, Thiruvithamkur Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha Charithram Poykayil Yohannanu Shesham, p.15.

⁸⁷Rajan, Thiruvithamkur Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha Charithram Poykayil Yohannanu Shesham, p.15.

⁸⁸On one occasion when Yohannan was preaching at Kulathur, he was informed of a woman who had been paralysed. Yohannan cured her when she was brought to him. In the same way he cured a man who was bed-ridden due to a serious illness. There is also a legend of his healing a madman.

⁸⁹Here I am referring to the mentality of people who have been overwhelmed by prophetic pronouncements. This was largely a result of the religious ideas that people had and which was decisive in determining their worldview. The mentality and religious ideas of an individual in relation to the society in which he/she lived have been excellently analysed in Carlo Ginsburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos Of a Sixteenth Century Miller (London: 1981).

⁹⁰Yohannan's first marriage was in 1907 to Maria from which he had four children who remained obscure. His second marriage was in 1925 to Janamma, which bore two children. Some of his biographies downplay the fact that he was married and led an ordinary life, as by then the narrative mould had shifted to mythology. It was his second wife and their sons who took over the leadership of the sect after Yohannan's death. Yohannan died in 1939, aged 61. For details see Rajan, Thiruvithamkur Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha Charithram Poykayil Yohannanu Shesham.

⁹¹Thomas Soderqvist, ‘Biography or Ethnobiography or Both? Embodied Reflexibility and the Deconstruction Of Knowledge-Power’, in Frederick Steier (ed.), Research and Reflexivity (New Delhi: Sage, 1991), pp.143–62.

⁹²‘Proceedings Of the Sree Mulam Popular Assembly, Seventeenth Session, 2 March 1921’, pp.12, 31–2. I am thankful to Dr. James Chiriyankandath for providing me with copies of the Proceedings.

⁹³ Sree Kumara Gurudeva Geethangal (Eraviperoor: n.d.), p.41.

⁹⁴Grantha Rachana Samiti, Sree Kumara Gurudevan (Kottayam: 1983), pp.12–18.

⁹⁵For details see ibid., and participant observation of the ritual discourses during Rakshanirnayam and the memorial day of Yohannan. The discourses develop the theme of a glorious Adi-Dravida past and the later fall and enslavement as ritually significant.

⁹⁶Samiti, Sree Kumara Gurudevan. p.19–20.

⁹⁷Joseph, Poykayil Sree Kumara Guru, pp.60–4.

⁹⁸In contemporary social theory the human body assumes significance particularly when colonial transformation is analysed. For details see John and Jean Comaroff, Ethnography and Historical Imagination (Oxford: Westview Press, 1992), pp.69–94.

⁹⁹ Jnanopadesam, Poykayil Kumara Guru Devan (PRDS), p.31.

¹⁰⁰For an interesting argument about caste and body, see Partha Chatterjee, ‘Caste and Subaltern Consciousness’, in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies, Vol.VI (Delhi: OUP, 1999), p.21.

¹⁰¹An instance in which Yohannan himself cleaned the house and bathed the children of lower caste parents who had gone to work for landlords is recalled emotionally in the movement's ritual discourses and biographies.

¹⁰²Kangazha, Sree Kumara Gurudevan: Biography, pp.31–3.

¹⁰³Kangazha, Sree Kumara Gurudevan: Biography, pp.31–3.

¹⁰⁴For details see Robert L. Hardgrave Jr., The Nadars Of Tamilnad:The Political Culture Of a Community in Change (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), pp.55–70.

¹⁰⁵ Kanam is the money paid to the bridegroom's parents by the bride's parents.

¹⁰⁶Kangazha, Sree Kumara Gurudevan Biography, and field data.

¹⁰⁷Stuart Hall, ‘Introduction: Who Needs Identity?’, in Stuart Hall and Paul Du Gay (eds), Questions Of Cultural Identity (London: Sage, 1996), p.2.

¹⁰⁸Stuart Hall, ‘Introduction: Who Needs Identity?’, in Stuart Hall and Paul Du Gay (eds), Questions Of Cultural Identity (London: Sage, 1996), p.2.

¹⁰⁹Stuart Hall, ‘Introduction: Who Needs Identity?’, in Stuart Hall and Paul Du Gay (eds), Questions Of Cultural Identity (London: Sage, 1996), p.3.

¹¹⁰ TCDR, Vol.XX, no.1, (Feb. 1910), pp.13–15.

¹¹¹C. Abhimanyu, Ayyankali (Trivandrum: Department of Cultural Publications, Government of Kerala, 1989), p.212.

¹¹²Rajan, Thiruvithamkur Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha Charithram Poykayil Yohannanu Shesham, p.29.

¹¹³ Jnanopadesam: Poykayil Kumara Guru Devan, p.20.

¹¹⁴Rajan, Thiruvithamkur Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha Charithram Poykayil Yohannanu Shesham, p.29.

¹¹⁵Rajan, Thiruvithamkur Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha Charithram Poykayil Yohannanu Shesham, p.71.

¹¹⁶The Sikhs were given scheduled caste status in 1956 and Buddhists in 1990. For details on the socio-legal aspects of the reservation policy in India, see Marc Galanter, Competing Equalities. Law and the Backward Classes in India (Delhi: OUP, 1984), p.305. For details on Dalit Christians, see Lancy Lobo, ‘Visions, Illusions and Dilemmas Of Dalit Christians in India’, in Ghanashyam Shah (ed.), Dalit Identity and Politics (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2001), pp.242–57.

¹¹⁷Rajan, Thiruvithamkur Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha Charithram Poykayil Yohannanu Shesham, pp.122–3.

¹¹⁸The members of PRDS assumed Hindu names instead of their Christians ones.

¹¹⁹For detailed information on the movement of Ambedkar see Eleanor Zelliot, From Untouchable to Dalit (Delhi: Manohar, 1992). Also see Gail Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in Colonial India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1994). For an understanding of the contemporary debates on culture and subordination in the context of Dalit experience, see Ghanashyam Shah (ed.), Dalit Identity and Politics (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2001).

¹²⁰Zelliot, From Untouchable to Dalit, p.133.

¹²¹Zelliot, From Untouchable to Dalit, p.137.

¹²²Hall, ‘Introduction: Who Needs Identity?’, p.3.