Kerala Gandhi

Sahitya Akademi
Kerala and Gandhi

Author(s): Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Source: Indian Literature, Vol. 56, No. 4 (270) (July/August 2012), pp. 145-174
Published by: Sahitya Akademi
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SPECIAL FEATURE
Kerala and Gandhi*
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
There
foris Kerala
a definitional flaw
as we now in the
know titlenot
it did 'Kerala
existand Gandhi',
in Mahatma
Gandhi's time. We had the States of Travancore and Cochin,
and we had Malabar. In this lecture, I will refer to all three
together as 'Kerala'. My reference in this lecture to the names
of castes and communities then in vogue is also contextual.
Thanks to Kerala's enlightened vision those names and terms
like "untouchable" now belong to history, not to current use.
Gandhi came to know those three areas well for he visited
them repeatedly and intensively, with a view to understanding

them and sharing some of his innermost thoughts with the
people living there. He came to the region altogether five
times—in 1920 for one day, in 1925 for about twelve to thirteen
days, in 1927 for nine to ten days, in 1934 for thirteen to fourteen
days and finally in 1937, when he spent about ten days. That
is, over the five visits, he spent between 45 to 50 days in the
region, not a huge amount of time.
Nevertheless, it was a definitive five-part span in terms of
the impact of Travancore-Cochin and Malabar on Gandhi's thought
and work and of Gandhi's evolving ideas on the minds of people
here.
* Sree Chithira Thirunal Memorial Lecture given at Thiruvananthapuram

on 24 November 2011, in a function organised by Sree Chithira
Thirunal Smaraka Samithi, Thiruvananthapuram. We are grateful to
Ambassador T.P. Sreenivasan for kindly granting permission on behalf
of the Samithi.
146
Indian Literature: 270
Gandhi observed the great strengths of the Malayalam

speaking people clearly, and their difficulties sympathetically.
He did not, at that time, have strong Malayalam-speaking
or Kerala-knowing friends, though he already had many Malayali
colleagues and devoted associates. Esther Faering, the Danish
Missionary who had taken Gandhi as a mentor, announced her
engagement to a medical student from Kerala, A.Govindan Kutty
Menon aka E.Kunhi Menon that very year, but Gandhi was not
to come to know him until later.
It is unlikely that anyone told him of the region's cultural

mores in any detail. For instance, Raja Svati Thirunal's
compositions, the unique dance form of Kathakali or of
Champakkulam Paachu Pillai venerated then for his performance
in thaadi and kaththi roles or Bheeman Paramu Pillai, the court
dancer of Travancore, may not have been brought to his attention.
It would have been assumed that this man who was creating
a national climate should not be troubled with local weather
patterns. And so who would have told him - or presumed to

tell him - of, for instance, the remarkable portrait in oil by Raja
Ravi Varma of the free-swinging Mohini?
But of social and political briefing, there would have been
no dearth. K.P. Kesava Menon, for one, would have very likely
aquainted him properly about Ayyankali and Asan and Vallathol.
Gandhi's first visit took place on 18 August, 1920. That
was an electric and electrifying time. And he was as one possessed.
His inaugural nation-wide non-cooperation movement over the
Punjab Wrong and Khilafat in full swing, he drove in from
Madurai, with Maulana Shaukat Ali. The two were a kind of
pair at the time, symbolizing the potential and the potency of
Hindu-Muslim collaboration in the cause of national
emancipation.
Not surprisingly, they chose Calicut for this flyin
We do not know if the Maulana referred to the place as K
the way Arabs are said to have pronounced it but we ca
he would have been offered local biriyani with prawn,
and mackerel though, out of deference to Gandhi's p
he may have opted for vegetarian sadya.
They addressed a meeting in the city. On what, in
terminology, may be called 'a high,' Gandhi spoke on th
and Khilafat issues. Hindu-Muslim unity was not wit
147
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
complications but it was as yet an unexceptionable idea and the

Moplah experience lay in the future.
What was the socio-political scene in the region then?
Vakkom Abdul Khader Maulvi, just four years younger than
Gandhi, was already a figure to reckon with at the time as a
famous educationist, reformer and founder of Swadeshabhimani.
I have not come across any account of an interaction between
Gandhi and Vakkom Maulvi. The Swadesabhimani had been
confiscated ten years earlier by the Travancore State following

the Maulvi's criticism of Dewan P. Rajagopalachari. But Muslim
in Malayalam and Al Islam in Arabi-Malayalam script were appearing.
I do not know if archival issues of those papers are still extant.
If so, they would be invaluable as mines for research, with strong
contemporary saliences. It would be important to research the
Maulvi's 1920 response to Maulana Shaukat Ali and to Gandhi.
Gandhi's first visit was notable for two important and in my view,
unique messages. The first was to Kerala's Muslim community.
I quote:
... I have... ventured to suggest to my Hindu brethren that

if they wanted to live at peace with Mussulmans, there is
(now) an opportunity which is not going to recur for the
next hundred years.... But the Mussulmans of India will have
to take the lead in the matter.
The second was to the middle class, comprising all

communities, not just in Kerala but all across India. In his words:
The Khilafat Non-co-operation Committee has, under my

advice, called upon lawyers to give up practice, parents to
withdraw their children from schools and college students
to leave their colleges... Emptying of the schools will
constitute a demonstration of the will of the middle class of
India.
I find his specific reference to the middle class of India

most instructive. He used to, not unoften, speak of the poor,
of the rich. But not so much of the middle class as such, though
he singled out intellectuals and the literate classes. His first speech
in Calicut provided one instance when he referred directly, by
name, so to say, to the middle class.
148
So, Gandhi's first visit to the region helped him see two
things clearly:
1. Kerala was fertile ground for Hindu-Muslim unity, with

Muslims being pro-actively leading; and
2. Crucial to political action in Kerala was its middle class.
If an ally, it could be formidable. If not an ally, it could be even
more so.
Gandhi and the Maulana left the next

for Mangalore. It may be noted that on
not yet the loin-cloth wearing Mahatm
dhoti and white cap. And he was just fi
Kerala had, at the time, in Sri Naraya
five years old, a great and highly valued
the region needed a powerful philosoph
thinker to help it grow out of its own pas
humanitarian and at the same time, an
future, it already had such a person in
So Gandhi's spiritual message and ascet
exactly a novelty. Sri Narayana Guru's m
not have, and did not pass Gandhi by.
If the region needed an organizer o
protest against social or political wrong
the legendary Ayyankali, then fifty-seve
a pathfinder on account of the agricultural wor
strike of 1907-8. If the region's Muslims ne
a leader as I have mentioned already, it had fo
seven years old Vakkom Maulvi, a compl
alternative to Maulana Shaukat Ali.
And in the wider cultural field, the region's
middle classes had Kumaran Asan whose Veenapoovu
appearing at the same time as Ayyankali's strike, and
had entered the popular consciousness. Ulloor
Parameswara Iyer was forty-three and Vallathol forty
two, already a Mahakavi, with his Sahitya Manjari,
Badhira Vilapam and Chandrayogam being well
known.
Among political figures, dignitaries and public

intellectuals, Mannath Padmanabhan was forty-two
Kumaran Asan
149
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
at the time, K.P. Kesava Menon thirty-nine, Sri

Moolam Thirunal thirty five, Pattom Thanu
Pillai thirty-five, John Mathai thirty-four, George
Joseph thirty-three, the future Maharani regent
Sethu Lakshmi Bayi twenty-five, K.M. Panikkar
twenty-five, V.K. Krishna Menon twenty-four,
and K.P.S.Menon twenty-two. Anyone under
twelve is to be regarded a child but future leaders,
then children, included the future Kathakali guru
Gopinath at age twelve, E.M.S. Namboodiripad
at age eleven, Ackamma Cherian also at eleven,
Thakazhi at eight, Sri Chithira Thirunal also at
eight, C. Achutha Menon seven and, at age zero
plus, the future President of India, Kocheril
E.M.S. Namboodiripad
Raman Narayanan, arriving that very year in his
parents' modest home in Uzhavoor.
Everything about the region was therefore fascinating -
its stubborn, almost purblind orthodoxy, as well as its spirit for
reform, its conservatism and liberalism, its royalty still at some
height if not at its zenith, literary renaissance, journalistic
vibrancy, an incipient communism, future cabinet ministerships,
chief ministerships, multiple ambassadorships, governorships and
a Presidency of India, no less, were all in active gestation.
And yet, despite the fact that Kerala was intellectually and
politically self-reliant and, in fact, capable of giving the rest of
the country a lead, it still found in Gandhi something it could
do with, absorb, and find strangely stimulating.
The immediate purpose, Hindu-Muslim unity and
collaboration with Muslims in the lead, was a message that could
be easily visualized in the region because of the population mix
it was heir to. And to a degree it offered that assurance to its
visitors.
But when have human affairs proceeded according to plans,

even the best and noblest of them? For the man obsessed with
the great goal of a lasting Hindu-Muslim accord in India via
Khilafat, a jolt lay ahead. And it came from within Malabar.
Within a year of the visit, the 'high' mood of Hindu
Muslim camaraderie was shaken rudely.
It took some time for him and the rest of the country
to see how the macabre drama had unfolded, and to realize that
ISO
the British raj's disallowance of healthy and open

YOUNG INDIA.
kbusiud pm *to»se»Y *-o i political propaganda for Khilafat and for Hindu
Muslim unity in Malabar had led a set of local
BOMBAY. «*niII>AV WV»,
Pragjee Soorjee A Co.

issues to turn into an attack by Moplah tenants
ocALKfts m
ANILINE AND ALIZARINE DYES

on their Hindu landlords and then into a much
SULPHUR COLOURS
DIRECT COLOURS
larger conflagration, from which reports of forcible
BASIC COLOURS conversions did the greatest damage.
P R A <x £ £ £ SOORJEE & CO
Shocked, Gandhi asked Muslim opinion
CWikiK tank MM. f»rt
BOMBAY. nationwide to publicly disapprove of these excesses
and, going beyond that, to 'feel the shame... about
forcible conversions'.
Writing in Young India on 20 October,

1921 about the Moplah events, Gandhi said
something that goes beyond the Moplah
Young India edited by experience. And it is extraordinarily relevant to
Mahatma Gandhi
us today. He said:
If we do not wake up betimes, we shall find a similar tragedy

enacted by all the submerged classes. The present awakening
is affecting all classes. The "untouchables" and all the so-called
semi-savage tribes will presently bear witness to our wrongs against
them if we do not do penance and render tardy justice to them.
I cannot think of a more timely and pertinent warning

to contemporary India. And we have to thank Malabar's painful
experience of 1921 for it.
Meanwhile, Gandhi's Khilafat and Punjab initiatives came
in for distinguished and trenchant criticism from an outstanding
Indian and Malayali of note, Sir C.Sankaran Nair. In a 1922 work
titled 'Gandhi and Anarchy,' Sir Sankaran Nair said: "The Hindus
have nothing to do with the Khilafat agitation. The Mahomedans
are themselves not agreed as to the claims advanced on behalf
of the Caliph..Sir Sankaran Nair was not wrong in the particulars
but he was not right in the general. Gandhi's intuitive hearkening
to the Khilafat cause was part of his quest for Hindu-Muslim
accord, a bond that would prove to the one the solidarity-in
distress of the other. Khilafat was an occasion. Sir Sankaran
Nair then issued a warning: "Non-violence and passive suffering
will lead to bloodshed or be unfruitful of any satisfactory
result."
151
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Had life been granted to him beyond 1934, Sir Sankaran

Nair would have been glad to see his fears proved wrong.
Meanwhile, Gandhi's engagement with the issue of Harijan
uplift was being matched by a home-grown event of significance
in Travancore. And that, in fact, was to set the tone for his
engagement with the rest of the region to the very last. Vaikom
(Vykom) was witnessing and enacting a Satyagraha for access to
roads leading to three sides of the temple being granted to those
that were then "untouchables" including the community then
called 'Ezhava.' While "full temple entry" was to be secured only
in 1936, Gandhi's non-political social agenda was coming fully
to the fore here, with the Chengannur-born barrister, writer and
freedom fighter George Joseph giving the movement inspirational
lead.
Joseph wanted national-level leaders to come to Vaikom.

Gandhi was not in favour of that. Money does not seem to have
been the problem. Nor was there a dearth of national leaders
who would have been able to make time for Vaikom. But no,
Gandhi felt Travancore should find and give to its cause its own
leadership. Next, Joseph was inclined to go off food to pressurize
the State. Gandhi was not in favour of that either.
With Joseph imprisoned, Rajagopalachari monitored the
Vaikom situation for Gandhi and on 15 April, 1924 sought his
advice on tactics and direction, especially on the hunger-strike
idea.
Gandhi wired back: "Hunger strike unlawful. Think Vaikom

struggle should be kept up
under reservations
suggested."
Gandhi's reply merits
analysis. He had himself, by
this time, fasted in 1918 in
Ahmedabad to bring redress
to striking mill-workers, and
on three occasions in 1919
around the first national
satyagraha, Jallianwala Bagh,

and its aftermath, then in
1921, over acts of violence
C Rajagopalachari with Mahatma Gandhi
152
during satyagrahic action, in 1922 after Chauri Chaura, and was

to fast the same year, some five months later, in Delhi, for Hindu
Muslim unity.
But in Vaikom he disfavoured Joseph or anyone starving
as a method of protest. Why?
The clue to his seeming contradiction over the foregoing
of food as a weapon lies, I think, in the difference between a
hunger strike and a fast, and over the likely denouement to such
proceedings. A hunger strike is a pressure tactic, plain and simple,
a moral junior to a fast. And as such even if it has strength, it
lacks stature. Whereas a fast with all its ingredients of atonement,
self-purification, and complete non-violence in thought, word
and deed, is a different order of persuasion to be resorted to
only by an adept, and then, directed not at Authority alone,
but equally at Society. Gandhi was to dissuade Kelappan, likewise,
later.
Gandhi as a guide was hard to understand, hard to follow.

And yet there was none to match him for the sheer power of
political instinct and - social intuition.
Meanwhile, floods unleashed fury in the Malabar area and
C. Rajagopalachari, despite being wracked by asthma at the time
and wanting to take a respite from hectic activity, had to engage
with Nature's anger. The Moplah population, already under
stress, received the brunt of the floods. On 22 July, 1924, CR
wired Gandhi, who was scheduled to take over as Congress
President:
Flood ravages terrible magnitude advise whether we should

attempt relief from Congress funds.
He also wired the Congress Office in Allahabad, which in

turn wired Gandhi on 5 April, 1924:
Rajagopalachari requests conversion Tamil loan fifteen

thousand to grant to enable give help (Malabar) floods stop
all India funds now one lakh twenty five thousand fixed
deposit twenty two thousand current account twelve thousand
liabilities wire opinion on both requests = Congress.
Gandhi's reply was:
Gopalkrishna
...floods too vast Congress capacity we should cooperate

with neutral agency even government if they accept service.
Personal service can and must always be given. If Congress
can it may raise special subscriptions.
I find this interlude on Malabar floods instructive for three
things:
1. Congress regarded natural calamities in the 1920s as being

as much part of its duties, as political work.
2. Gandhi thought that the funds required for flood relief
in Malabar were beyond the Congress' capacity but that what
it could offer was physical service.
3. The Congress' total funds in 1924 were: a Fixed Deposit
of Rs.1.25 lakhs and a Current Account of 25,000 and liabilities,
Rs. 12,000, making a Grand Total of Rs.1.38 lakhs.
And so, money was not the yardstick, action, right action,
was. And the two were not inseparable.
By the time of Gandhi's next visit to these parts, in March
1925, Vaikom, of course, had to be and was at its heart.
G. Ramachandran, then a student at Visva-Bharati, Tagore's
university at Santiniketan, was a Malayali. He went with Tagore's
friend and Gandhi's trusted fellow-Believer, C.F. Andrews to Delhi
to meet the Mahatma. 'GR' was then an atheist. On the 13th
day of the fast accompanied by Andrews, he went to the silent

room where Gandhi lay fasting. Ramachandran observed the
scene with "all his critical and intellectual awareness."
And then, in 'GR's own words:
The question came to me: how did this little man succeed in
becoming the unquestioned leader of India's political revolution
and how did he perform the miracle of linking that revolution
with non-violence? How could, at all, a man of prayer become
the leader of revolution? All distinctions of caste, religion and
creed melted away in the power of devotion to the unseen God.
My mind caught fire.
Ramachandran secured an interview, that is, a Question

and Answer session with the Mahatma. I shall cite but a couple
of samples of that major conversation:
154
R How is it that many intelligent and eminent men, who love

and admire you, hold that you consríously or unconsciously have
ruled out of the scheme of national regeneration all considerations
of Arti'
G: I am sorry that in this matter I have been generally misunderstood.
There are two aspects of things—the outward and the inward.
It is purely a matter of emphasis with me. The outward has
no meaning except in so far as it helps the inward. All true
Art is thus the expression of the soul. The outward forms have
value only in so far as they are the expression of the inner
spirit of man.
The conversation then shifted to the institution of marriage

and celibacy.
R But may not an artist or a poet or a great genius leave a legacy

of his genius to posterity through his own children?
G: Certainly not. He will have more disciples than he can ever
have children; and through those disciples all his gifts to the
world will be handed down in a way that nothing else can
do...
So, between the last visit and this one, Gandhi had found
an extremely intelligent but devoted associate from Kerala, and
one who was to be a critical interpreter of Gandhi throughout
his, that is, Ramachandran's life. The intellectual tradition of
Kerala could have done no less.
During the same interregnum that saw the Moplah Rebellion

happen, and Malabar face the fury of floods, there also took place
in Travancore, a key change of dramatic personae: Upon the deat
of Sri Moolam Thirunal Ramavarma, on August 7, 1924, thirtee
years old Balarama Varma had succeeded to the throne o
Travancore taking the regnal name Sree Chithira Thirunal, under
the Regency of his twenty-nine year old maternal aunt, th
legendary Maharani Sethu Lakshmi Bayi. This was an event that
had a significance far greater than the Palace might have imagine
It coordinated the Fates to make Gandhi's work in Vaikom, which
was to have national reverberations, a success.
Some other events that intervened are worth noting.
Between the 1920 and 1925 visits, the Malayalam newspaper
Mathrubhumi took birth, Vallathol's Magdalena Mariyam appeared
as well, to an acclaim as wide as was received by Vallathol's
IS J
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
rejection of a royal honour proposed to be bestowed on him

by the visiting Prince of Wales in 1922. And Kumar an Asan
published, during this same interval, Pushpavaadi (1922) Duravasthha
(1922) Chandaalabhikshuki (1922) which poem described an
untouchable turned a Buddhist nun, and Karuna (1923). Without
doubt Sri Narayana Guru's influence was upon Asan's literary
output but in some tenuous way, Gandhi's personality must have
reached, on filament steps, Asan's sensibility as well and given
his pen renewed power.
Intellectually, therefore, Kerala was now readier than earlier
for a further push into social renewal. The Moplah setback
notwithstanding, there was an eagerness among Hindus and
Muslims and Christians alike, to hear the Mahatma and to take
forward his satyagrahic battles, now encompassing not just Swaraj
and the Hindu-Muslim question, but untouchability as well.
Arriving at Ernakulam on 8 March, 1925 this time, he was
down to his minimalist clothing. Kerala was seeing the 'loin
cloth' Mahatma for the first time. Over some twelve days Gandhi
travelled widely and well in the two princely states and parts
of Malabar. On this occasion, he was also able to comment on
the scenery he beheld and the people in a manner he did not,
the last time. Perhaps G. Ramachandran's influence was at work.
In a letter to a Gujarati colleague, he wrote:
...The country is enchanting. The people are simple. You

see creeks everywhere and we have to negotiate them to go to
Vaikom.
Rajagopalachari accompanied him on this tour as did thirty

six year old K. Kelappan. Apologizing for the absence by his side,
on this visit, of the Ali Brothers, Gandhi spoke on national themes
again - Hindu-Muslim unity and, pointedly, raised the
untouchability issue. But 1925 was not 1920, local bodies and
entities were being regarded as accountable more than before
and so he turned to local affairs as well.
Doubtless to the discomfiture of the local Municipality,

he said:
One often learns that... the municipalities give to those who

have much and take away much from those who have very
156
little. They care more for the rich and the powerful and
little or less for the poor and down-trodden. ("Hear, hear.")
I hope that it is not true of this town...
The local chastisement administered, he came straight to

the purpose of his visit at a public meeting he addressed that
very evening in Cochin town:
... I have not come in order to argue with the orthodox

people. I have come with a message of peace, f want to
plead wisdom and tell them that this untouchability and
unapproachability cannot be part of Hinduism.
He left for Vaikom - his principal destination - the very

next day, spending three days there, during the course of which
a meeting was arranged in the district magistrate's house between
him and some Sanatanists.
Like an objective lawyer, Gandhi said he was prepared to

be persuaded that the Shastras enjoined untouchability provided
some authority was shown to him. But not just any authority.
Had he, meanwhile, seen or been shown by G.Ramachandran,
Ravi Varma's immortal depiction of the young but serene Adi
Sankara, surrounded in his open-air meditativeness by his four
devoted disciples Padmapada, Totakacharya, Suresvara and
Hastamalika?
Gandhi wrote in a letter to one of the organisers of that

meeting:
What I am looking forward to is not anybody's authority

but Shankaracharya's in favour of unapproachability as
defined by you and the other friends.
At a public meeting in Vaikom, he said:
Neither approve nor disapprove, but simply listen to my

remarks. I venture to suggest to those who are professors
of Hinduism, who hold Hinduism as dear as life itself, that
Hinduism like every other religion, apart from the sanction
of Shastras, has got to submit itself to the test of universal
reason.
157
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
If on his earlier visit, his reference to the middle class was

rather new, this emphasis on 'reason' too was fresh.
I said earlier that here was no Vishwamitra and of course
he was not one. But then his ability to bewilder, to stun, by

his original use of images, was to the fore. On the 12th of March
in Quilon where the Municipality gave him welcome he said
what only he could and get away with it:
...I have fallen in love with the women of Travancore...
Their white dress has captivated me...
If liberals would find that quotation gladdening their

hearts, the same people will get a jolt by the next sentence:
I hope and believe that it (the white dress) is a symbol and

emblem of the purity within (Cheers).
Who would, who would want to cheer such a statement

today?
And then of course came the inevitable:
...but I am distressed to find that they wear the calico of

Manchester or even the calico of Ahmedabad. I ask them
to copy their sisters of Assam. Every woman in Assam knows
how to weave...
I would like to believe, but I think I would be wrong, that

before his Quilon statement he had seen an oleograph of Ravi
Varma's Malabari Soundarya where she is wearing the finest
Calico apart from her emerald and ruby studded necklace.
Reaching Alleppey from Vaikom, he was hosted to a reception
by Dr. K.P. Panikkar, President of the Municipality. At Varkala,
he stayed at the Shivagiri Math and, in a historic meeting, had
an audience with Sri Narayana Guru there. Describing his meeting
with Sri Narayana Guru, Gandhi said:
I was telling His Holiness this morning, I described myself

as a scavenger—Bhangi—and Bhangi occupies the lowest rung
of the ladder among suppressed classes. I am not ashamed
to call myself a Bhangi...
158
Upto that point, Gandhi is non-controvertially radical. But

in the very next sentence he again poses a difficulty:
... and I ask every Bhangi not to be ashamed of his calling.

A Bhangi, if he is true to his salt, is a sanitarian...
There is no getting away from the fact that Gandhi is ever

inconvenient.
Later, at her instance, he called on the Maharani-Regen

of Travancore Sethu Lakshmi Bayi.
Addressing a meeting, he said:
...I am able to tell you that Her Highness's sympathies, so

far as she herself is personally concerned, are entirely with
those who are trying to seek redress... but as the head of
the State, she feels powerless, unless there is public opinion
behind her...
The Travancore royalty had more than impressed him; it

had made an impact on him. At Trivandrum itself, on thel3th,
14th and 15th of March, he stayed at the Maharaja's guest house,
and after meeting the young Maharaja, Sree Chithira Thirunal
Balarama Varma, the Maharani Regent and the Dewan
T.Raghavaiah and discussing the question of the entry of
'untouchables' to the Thiruvarppu temple roads with them,
Gandhi said something which, for its accuracy as much as for
its graciousness deserves to be better known:
...the severe simplicity of the Royalty in Travancore has

bewitched me... I would be guilty of discourtesy or suppressing
the truth if I did not publicly give voice to what has so
enraptured me...
His references to the Princes of India is valid for indeed

he had come to know many of them, including Maharaja
Krisharajendra Wodeyar of Mysore on whom he had bestowed
the title of 'Rajarshi' and who, ironically, is the subject of one
of Ravi Varma's works with almost as many jewels on his person
as those on his bride, the Queen.
The Maharani-Regent herself he described in these terms:
159
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
She seemed to me an object lesson for many a prince and

many a millionaire whose loud ornamentation, ugly looking
diamonds, rings and studs and still more loud and almost
vulgar furniture offend the taste and present a terrible and
sad contrast between them and the masses from whom they
derive their wealth.
Gandhi's time in Trivandrum was packed. It included a visit

to the Maharaja's College of Science where he expressed a deeply
felt view:
I think that we cannot live without science, if we keep it

in its right place... In my humble opinion there are limitations
even to scientific search, and the limitations that I place
upon scientific search are the limitations that humanity
imposes upon us.
We owe that major statement to the ambience offered to

Gandhi at that College.
The next day, he covered among other places,
Balaramapuram, where he visited a 'Pulaya'-run school and went,
for the first time, to Kanyakumari. He is unlikely to have
forgotten the visit for its authorities allowed him up to just that
point and no further, as he was one who had 'crossed the sea.'
Something inside him must have raged, standing on that sea
edge, must have fretted. I cannot but recall, in this context, the
extraordinary work of Ravi Varma's called Rama-Sagara
Darpaharan. Only, no Varuna was around this time, no Gauri,
no Varunani.
At Chengannur, on 15 March, he did something very

characteristic: he called on the parents of his valued colleague,
George Joseph. The Joseph brothers, George and Pothan, were
exceptional in every sense, independent, self-respecting, and
audacious. Mortality has erased them from our active engagement.
They await a biographer.
At Kottayam later that day, Gandhi made a point of calling
on the Bishop Mar Alexander Choolaparambil who had become
the Bishop of Kottayam Knanaya Catholic Diocese in 1914, and
had been a member of Travancore Legislative Council from 1920
to 1922.
160
I wonder if Diocesan records would throw light on the

ingredients of the discussion which would have gone beyond
courtesies. Did Gandhi take up the question of Christian support
to Vaikom or did he dwell on castes within the Church or both?
And did he broach the subject of conversion? Kottayam may be

able to tell us.
A discussion was held with a group of Sanatanists at Vaikom.

It had to be and was, sharp.
G: Is it fair to exclude a whole section of Hindus, because of their

supposed lower birth, from public roads which can be used by non
Hindus, by criminals and bad characters, and even by dogs and
cattle?
Nambudiri Trustee: How can it be helped? They are reaping the

reward of their karma...
G : But supposing the avarnas said that they were instruments

in the hands of God in order to impose afflictions on you? What
would you do?
N: Then Government would stand between them and us and prevent
them from so doing. Good men would do so...
Quite obviously the sub-conscious compact between the

higher authorities and the higher classes is not new!
In a fighting speech made at a public meeting in Vaikom,
Gandhi spoke the language one might associate with a follower
of Voltaire whom Marxist rationalists would appreciate. He said:
In this age of reason, in this age of universal knowledge,

in this age of education and comparative theology, any
religion which entrenches itself behind Shastraic injunctions
and authority is, in my own humble opinion, bound to fail.
In my opinion, untouchability is a blot upon humanity and
therefore upon Hinduism. It cannot stand the test of reason.
Very significantly, to my mind, poet Vallathol Narayana

Menon met him at Vaikom and presented a copy of his Sahitya
Manjari containing a poem on Gandhi - titled "My Guru."
Going into the Palghat region from there on 19 March,
and visiting Shabari Ashram at Olavakote, he returned to the
Tamil country.
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Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Recalling his visit and applauding the royal proclamation

by which the public roads and streets in Travancore were thrown
open to all Hindus irrespective of caste, Gandhi described it as
a "bedrock of freedom."
Gandhi's next visit took place two years later, in 1927.

Untouchability was the issue again. On the eve of his visit,
addressing a meeting at Nagercoil he once again appealed to
reason:
That in this age of reason, in this age of wide travel, in

this age of a comparative study of religions, there should
be found people, some of whom are educated, to uphold
the hideous doctrine of treating a single human being as
an untouchable, or unapproachable, or unseeable because
of his birth, passes my comprehension.
At a meeting that evening organized by the city's wom

in the Victoria Jubilee Hall, he reproached them for ticket
entry to it. Later in the evening, he addressed a public me
Addressing meetings in Quilon, Karuvatta and Aileppey
11 and 12 October, he reached Cochin on 13 October. He was
the State's guest. Dewan T.S. Narayana Aiyer called on him the
same day, as did the Maharani Parukutty Nethyaramma.
The Gujaratis of Ernakulam went into an overdrive of
hospitality when he reached that town, leaving him just enough
time to address a public meeting that evening.
Addressing the gathering he said:
I am also glad to inform you that on behalf of the Darbar

I received this morning a cheque for Rs. 500 from the Dewan
Sahib, and I also received through the Consort of His
Highness the Maharaja notes valued at Rs. 300 on behalf
of the Maharaja's daughter Shrimati Vilasini Devi who is
at present in England... The only return that I can make
for this kindness is to give frankly my view of some of
the things that exist in this State...You have untouchability,
unapproachability and unseeability. And it is a matter of deep
grief to me to find this in a State ruled by a Hindu ruler.
That untouchability should exist in these Hindu States is
most regrettable.
A VOICE : It is worse here than in Travancore.
When darkness reigns supreme, where is the use of fixing
the extent of that darkness?
162
He spent two days at Thrissur, staying in the royal guest

house. Significantly, he held discussions there with the
Sankaracharya of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham. And at Palghat,
re-visiting Shabari Ashram, he said:
Within an hour after we reached Palghat, Mr. C.

Rajagopalachari came to me and asked me whether I was
hearing any strange sounds. I told him, yes. And he straightway
asked me whether 1 knew what it was. He told me that
that was the voice of a Nayadi... On hearing that he was

within a stone's throw I hastened out to see who this man
could be who was making all that sound. He was not walking
along the road, but he was at some distance from the hedge
that guarded the road. I asked him to come near and he
came near but not at the roadside of the hedge and told
me that he dared not come on the roadside.
That is what in a Sociology Department would be cal

a good preamble for a case-study.
After a detour into the Tamil country, he returned
25 October to Calicut to revert to the subject of Hindu-Musl
unity.
I should be false to myself and false to my country if I

did not, in spite of the blackness of the horizon, re-declare
my immovable faith in the necessity and possibility of Hindus
and Mussalmans living in this land as blood-brothers.
That, in a newly set-up Department for Integral Studies,

would be seen as the core-value of a secular optimist.
And, predictably, Gandhi turned, in that speech, came to khadi,
but with a local twist:
Calicut was the first port where India turned to import calico
from outside. But... it behoves you now to undo the mischief
which Calicut commenced.
That, in a department teaching textile technology would

be regarded as an invaluable encouragement to research into
Calico's origins and would be valued in a Department of Linguistic
Studies for the etymology of the word 'calico' from Calicut,
a fact that dictionaries have confirmed.
163
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
As was his practice, Gandhi auctioned several articles at this

meeting for his public funds. He was an adept auctioneer.
....There is this wrist watch and some rings, one of which

is beautiful....
For an inveterate hater of jewellery, only the compulsions

of auctioneering would have led to his describing a ring as
"beautiful." Some of those who purchased those items must still
be around, with the objects well-preserved. Within family-talk
and family-tales it is unlikely that someone purchasing a ring
from the hands of Gandhi would be easily forgotten. I hope
someone comes up with that ring and compares it with the rings
worn on the little finger of her right hand by Ravi Varma's
Malabari Saundarya or in the ring finger of her right hand by
the beautiful Sarada, described as "a Keralite lady of royal family,"
playing on a sitar.
It is not as if Gandhi worked in Kerala only when Gandhi
visited Kerala. During the 1930 Salt Satyagraha, among the
persons who accompanied Mahatma Gandhi on his march from
Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi, was a young Keralan, Thevarthundiyil
Titus Titus, from a Christian family of Travancore. We need
to know more about this rare man and his later career.
The Kerala region itself was active during that satyagraha.
The industrialist C. Samuel Aaron of North Malabar and Mrs
Gracy Aaron were in the forefront with Kelappan. When the

satyagrahis reached the village of Chombal on 16 April 1930,
the local residents led by the Aarons gave them a rousing
reception. Kelappan's team reached Pariyaram near Payyanur on
21 April. On 22 Mrs Gracy Aaron led the women and showered
flowers and rice on them. Samuel Aaron had placed his Brighter
Hotel Buildings at the disposal of the Congress Satayagrahis.
Aaron was taken to the Central jail at Cannanore. Gandhi did
not need to be present for his work to be carried on bravely
and fruitfully. The country needs to know more about the Aarons.
A decade, almost, was to elapse before Gandhi re-visited
the region, in 1934.
Meanwhile, imprisoned in Yeravada, Gandhi thought a great
deal about Guruvayur and, as a corollary, about his colleagues
in the South as well.
164
The issue of "untouchables" being allowed entry in temples

in South India had acquired a sharp edge. Kelappan Nair played
a dramatic role in the proceedings. A referendum was contemplated
to measure public opinion in the orthodox citadel of nearly
28,000 adult 'caste Hindus' on whether Harijans may or may
not be allowed entry into the temple. Kasturba Gandhi,
accompanied by Urmila Devi, a sister of the late Deshbandhu
Chittaranjan Das went to the region to give moral support 'from
the North.'
The episode in which savama public opinion in the area

was for reform, the orthodoxy was opposing it tooth and nail,
and the Zamorin was completely immobilized, led to the
redoubtable Kelappan deciding on a fast. At Gandhi's behest, he
suspended it. Gandhi wrote to Kelappan a letter that seems to
have a lesson for our times:
...Fasting by you, if it comes, must not take place on the

public road. It must be in a house or a hut. There can be
no public exhibition of you, whilst you are under fast.
The arrangements for the referendum were closely

monitored by Gandhi from his cell in Yeravada jail. Those wanting
change won the referendum. Fifty-six percent of the caste Hindus
supported harijan entry, 9% opposed it, 8% were neutral and
27 % stayed silent. Kelappan, with Rajagopalachari giving him
tactical and logistical support scored a victory of no ordinary
importance. Gandhi issued a lengthy statement on December
30, 1932:
... It should be remembered that the referendum was taken

amidst adverse influences. The Zamorin would not co
operate, and I am sorry to have to say, even cast aspersions

upon the workers and the procedure they followed. The
Ponnani Taluk is the stronghold of orthodoxy and yet there
was a decisive majority in favour of admission of the
untouchables to that shrine now made famous throughout
the length and breadth of the land...
It is important to note that the Guruvayur referendum

the action in Ponnani were taking place around the same
as Gandhi's famous parleys with Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in Po
165
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
leading to the Poona Pact. But the temple gates were not going
to open yet. Legislation was called for and that was going to
be a complicated affair. Legislation following a mass campaign,
even a successful mass campaign, is always difficult.
With the Poona Pact behind him, but not an Act on Temple
Entry yet, Gandhi came into Malabar from Bangalore on 10
January, 1934. He was now on what is known to history as his
'Harijan tour' of India. It was to take him through several
provinces, with the sole objective of raising funds for his Harijan
cause, and raising public awareness about the issue. As he reached
Palghat, he was greeted by black flag demonstrators who were
Brahmins. They were targeting a man who had dismantled
barriers - their barriers - in Vaikom and Guruvayur.
He told his audience:
He is no Brahmin merely because he carries a black flag

or red flag and has marks on his forehead. Brahminhood
is not known by external marks...
Chittur, Koduvayur, Thenkurissi, Villayanchatur, Nellepilli,

Karimpuzha, Cherplacherry and Ottappalam covered en route, he
was at Guruvayur on 11 January.
Recalling this visit later, he said:
The Zamorin had certainly some cause for indignation when

the battle was raging round that famous temple of the South,
and yet he had prohibited any demonstration even the black
flags, against me, and he received me with marked cordiality
in his palace. He frankly recognized that on each side it
was a battle of principle against principle.
Gandhi was again making collections for his Harijan Fund

and, of course, jewellery was welcome. In Calicut, he spoke of
a girl - Kaumudi - who had given him all the jewellery that
was on her person. Not being content with that, Gandhi asked
her to promise she will not ask her father to replace the jewellery.
"I had her definite promise that she was not going to ask
her father to replace those articles of jewellery," Gandhi said,
and added:
She has enough and more articles to wear and jewellery
166
also. Of course for a Malabar girl this is not an amazing

performance. Because so far as my knowledge goes, Malabar
girls are the simplest of all the girls in the world. Somehow
or other they have left on my mind the impression that
they have the least desire for jewellery. I may be wholly
mistaken. Anyway that is the impression that they have left
on my mind....
I do not doubt that had Ravi Varma been alive and still
at his easel in 1934 - he would have been 86 - he would have
painted Kaumudi taking off her jewels, one by one, and placing
them in the hands of a mendicant-Mahatma, with her prou
father watching on....
Talking of paintings, Gandhi unveiled a portrait of Sri K.
Madhavan Nair at Calicut. This gave Gandhi great pleasure.
He said much about Sri Madhavan Nair but also, incidentally
something about another unlikely subject, his wife, Kasturb
My wife is a simple woman. She knows nothing, she does

not know the English language, certainly she does not know
Malayalam, but she was able to tell me in her very simple
language that she was very much struck by the simplicity
of his character.
She merely strengthened the impression that Mr. Madhavan

had left on my mind and that impression is still indelible.
I have the most vivid recollection of my contact with him
and what struck me most was his transparent humility.
I must confess that I differ from his description of Kasturba

as one who "knows nothing." If that were indeed the case, Gandhi
would not have sent her to Guruvayur, nor would we have got
from her such a discerning evaluation of Sri Madhavan Nair.
At another public meeting in Calicut, held at the beach
at 6 pm and attended by 15,000 people, Gandhi spoke of his visit
to Kalpetta and showed us an unexpected side to him:
This morning they took me to a most beautiful bit of

Malabar; they took me up the hills with the most romantic
scenery... and I recalled a hymn—I think it was composed
by Bishop Heber. But whether it was composed by him or
some other bishop, this is the line that I single out from
that hymn for your edification. It is said that, as he was
approaching this Western coast of India, involuntarily this
Gopalkrishna
line came to his lips, or to his pen: "Every prospect pleases,

man alone is vile."
I cannot say the line from Heber is particularly edifying,

for though it contains a tribute to our coast, it also carries a
scandalous vilification of us as a people. I think Gandhi, with
his mind enraged by the fact of untouchability was being more
than receptive to any castigation at that time. The redemptive
thing about Gandhi's reference to Heber's line is that he
characteristically included himself in the 'vile' species.
In the same speech, Gandhi gave a nugget. I call it that
because it is, as far as I know, the only foray by him into the
theory of literature and what could be called a post real-time
contextualization of the text. Taking the Heber quote further,
he said:
...poets can never be confined even in cages of their own

construction. Poets write for eternity. Their words are charged
with a meaning of which they have no conception when
they utter or write them. Scented breezes come from
plantations that Nature has designed for man in Malabar.
But through untouchability he has violated Nature and thus
become vile....
He added:
I have said from many a platform after entering Malabar,

if there was a map of untouchability made for the whole
of India, Malabar would be marked as the blackest spot in
all the land; and as matters stand today, I suppose you will
admit that you will have to plead guilty to the charge.
It was while Gandhi was in Kerala this time, that the great
Bihar earthquake took place eliciting from him the controversial
description of it as "a divine chastisement" for the sin of
untouchability. I believe that verbal over-reach of his, for which
he was roundly criticized by Rabindranath Tagore, among others,
was the result of his reaction to what he had seen of the 'vileness'
of untouchability and unapproachability in Malabar.
It is not as if Gandhi's visits were a series of public meetings
at which he talked at his audiences. There was a more direct
aspect as well.
168
In Trivandrum, Gandhi visited the Harijan Hostel. The

accountant in him was alert. He asked for the break-up of the
messing charges. He was told the meals cost Rs.9.
G: It can't cost Rs. 9.
(After looking into the accounts)

G: ...Rs 9 is too much...Do you have curdi
Ans: Only buttermilk.
G: It does not cost much.
Gandhi was to visit Kerala once more, in 1937.

Between 1934 and 1937, many developments took place
in Kerala which set the tone and atmospherics for that final visit.
One was of little public significance, but of considerable personal
importance to Gandhi and to Kasturba. Their eldest son the
hugely charismatic but hugely tragic Harilal, whose defiant spirit
and independent will had taken the shape of wanting to convert
to Islam, took the plunge, albeit for a brief while in May, 1936.
While most references suggest the conversion took place in
Nagpur, he announced it at the Jama Masjid in Bombay on 29
May, 1936. But his biographer C.B. Dalai tells us that according
to one reference, the conversion took place in a village in
Ponnani, in Kerala.
Steeling his emotions and steadying his mind, Gandhi
issued a public statement which started with:
If his acceptance was from the heart and free from any
worldly considerations, I should have no quarrel...
and it ended with:
1 do not mind if he is known as Abdulla or Harilal if, by

adopting one name for the other, he becomes a true devotee
of God which both the names mean.
Whatever be the venue of the conversion - Nagpu

Bombay or Kerala - it is established that Harilal went th
September to Ernakulam where he said in a speech "I am
longer a Bania." He then went to Calicut, and afterwards
Madras where, on 17 September, 1936, he was arrested in
intoxicated state and fined.
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Gopalkrishna Gandhi
This was the last straw for Kasturba, who issued an appeal
to her son to mend his ways.
In an open letter to Harilal after the Madras incident, the
mother said:
I did not like your conversion but when I saw your statement
that you had decided to improve yourself I felt secretly glad
even about your conversion hoping that you would now
start leading a sober life. But that hope too has been dashed
to pieces....
In a parallel appeal to those Muslims who were interested

in Harilal's conversion she said:
...You are not doing the right thing in the eyes of God.
On 14 November that very year, Harilal announced his re

conversion to Hinduism. But the deep hurt caused to his mother,
to his father, and ultimately to himself, remains a bitter fact and
Ponnani, Ernakulam and Calicut can never be far from the
narratives of that experience.
If Kerala figures in a painful passage in the lives of Harilal
Gandhi and of his parents, it also plays a tender role in a sequel
to the same passage. During the brief phase that Harilal was
Abdullah, his son Kantilal decided to marry G. Ramachandran's
niece Saraswati. The children and grand-children of Kantilal
Harilal Gandhi and Saraswati Thengachi carry forward a precious
link, not just in terms of a connection in blood, but by the
connecting tissues of a wound healed by Time.
Towards the end of 1936 Gandhi had the great satisfaction
of seeing the Maharaja of Travancore issue a Proclamation
opening the temples in his territories to Harijans. Gandhi wrote
in Young India in December, 1936:
The Proclamation, as I believe it, is in response to the Time

Spirit by a Prince imbued with the spirit of reform. It has
behind it the sanction of popular approval, if what appears
in the Press and what 1 have learnt from persons who should
know can be relied upon.
There was a clamour for him to visit Kerala to celebrate.
170
He wired representatives of the Ezhava community in December

1936: DO NOT BE IMPATIENT. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO COME
BEFORE JANUARY 6TH. SEND ME A FIVE DAYS PROGRAM

AND MAKE ARRANGEMENTS. This was done and in Ja
1937, he went.
On Gandhi's last visit to Kerala in 1937, he reached
Trivandrum from Madras on 12 January. Speaking at a huge
meeting he did not forget his 'thank you-s.'
After thanking the inspirational guidance of Sri Narayana
Guru and acknowledging the role of Kelappan, he said: "But I
think that we may not forget the orthodoxy which has come
to our assistance at this hour, and in this connection I suppose
I may not omit to mention the Namboodiri orthodox people
whom I had found to my great regret very difficult to convert
to the obvious truth. If they and the other orthodox people had
not recognized the spirit of the times, it might be that they
would have rendered the task of their Highnesses well nigh
impossible or, at least, ineffective."
Gandhi would not be Gandhi if he did not have something
to say by way of frank criticism even in a moment like this.
And so he added:
1 came here. I have wondered why you have called this

celebration Ezhava Temple-entry Proclamation Celebrations.
I wonder if presently we shall have All Travancore Pulaya
and Pariah Celebrations!
At Venganoor he said:
In Ayyan Kali, whom you half in jest and half in endearment

call the Pulaya Rajah, you have an indefatigable worker.
I understand that under his leadership you have been making
steady progress and I have no doubt that this gracious
Proclamation will quicken the progress you are making.
And in Kottayam he held a meeting with Christian residents

at Bishop Moore's house.
On the third day of what he called his 'pilgrimage,' he
wrote a memorable summing-up:
I approached the great temple in Trivandrum with awe and
171
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
due veneration. Curiosity had given way to the incoming

of something that was to fill the void of years... All those
bare bodies in spotlessly white lungis standing row upon row
in perfectly silent and reverent attitude produced an impression
upon me which will endure till life lasts.
E.M.S. Namboodiripad, who was seven when

Gandhi first visited the region, was now an elected
all-India joint Secretary of the Congress Socialist
E.M.S. Namboodiripad
Party and set to become a member of the Madras
Legislative Asssembly. His closely argued work The
Mahatma and the Ism was still over two decades
away but the young EMS was already assessing

the man to whom he granted much, grudged
much but about whom he was to say with accuracy:
"...his idealism played a big role in rousing the
hitherto slumbering millions of the rural poor."
And K.R. Narayanan, who was at age zero
when Gandhi first came to Kerala, was now The Mahatma
seventeen and about to matriculate from St. Mary's and the Ism
High School at Kuravilangad, go on to get a First
Division in the University of Travancore.
When he was 25, Narayanan was a reporter with The Times
of India in Bombay. He was, as a reporter, awarded a Tata
scholarship to study in London. Just then, Gandhi happened to
be visiting Bombay. Young Narayanan met Gandhi and asked (I
am not quoting the exact words, but the essence): "You have
simplified for us the choice between truth and untruth, violence
and non-violence. It is not difficult to choose between those.
But what would you advise when the choice is not between truth
and untruth but it is between two truths, that are equally
compelling?" The question was sharp, it was phrased step-by
step, it was as intellectual as anything can be. And it stands, in
my humble opinion, above the answer that he got.
The second question was no less daunting. Narayanan put
it like this: "And, when in England I am asked about the
untouchability issue in India, should I reply as a Harijan or should
I reply as an Indian?"
To this, Narayanan got a masterly answer from Gandhi:
"When abroad," Gandhi answered, "you will say that this is an
172
internal matter for us to solve once the British leave India."
"When abroad," is the key-word here. One might say

Gandhi advised subterfuge and circumlocution when abroad, he
did not advise obfuscation of the issue inside India. Without
doubt, young Narayanan had his own inner response to the

answers, but equally and without doubt he benefited from them
as well. Fortunately for historiography, the questions and answer
form part of The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi.
The years 1938-39 brought Kerala to Gandhi's attention
most centrally.
Gandhi received at this time cause for celebration through
the valiant patriotism of Ackamma Cherian whose campaigns
for responsible government and act of courage outside the
Kowdiar palace in 1939 led him to address her as the 'Rani o
Jhansi of Travancore,' everyone missing the irony of the fac
that the Mahatma was giving a royal title to one who was fightin
for the end of royal rule.
Gandhi also suffered a loss, in March 1938, in the passing
away, at the age of fifty-one, of his firm friend and colleague,
George Joseph. A free-thinking nationalist who participated in
the struggle on his own terms, Joseph had disagreed often with
the senior leadership, never turning from colleagueship to
cronyism, a journey that had many passengers on the boat.
George Joseph's brother Pothan Joseph whose association
in one capacity or another with more than twenty newspapers
is legendary will be remembered in Gandhiana for one of th
most moving obituaries written on the death, in February 1943
of Kasturba Gandhi. Pothan Joseph wrote it for Dawn, whic
he was then editing. I cannot but mention here a little know
and unpublished condolence telegram that Gandhi received whil
in his Poona prison from V.K. Krishna Menon in London
"RESPECTFUL AND LOVING REGARDS AND DEEP
SYMPATHY KRISHNA MENON.' Whoever said Krishna Menon
was not a man of feelings?
A couple of years later occurred the Punnapra-Vayalar
tragedy. I hope researchers are able to find statements from the
Mahatma and Pandit Nehru on the grim proceedings. My studies
are inexpert and insufficient and so it is possible I might have
missed something Gandhi wrote or said on the plight of the
Ezhava coir workers of Alleppey and their cause reflected in
173
Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Punnapra-Vayalar. I must confess I find it intriguing that one who

was so passionate about the rights of the Ezhavas to gain access
into temples, should not have gone into popular record on the
land-based rights of the same people in a non-religious setting.
To my mind, whatever be the local dimensions and complicating
politics of the incident, it bore out the applicability to Alleppey's
coir workers of Gandhi's 1921 statement:
We have not felt the call of love to see that no one was
left ignorant of the necessity of humaneness or remained
in want of food or clothing for no fault of his own.
If we do not wake up betimes, we shall find a similar
tragedy enacted by all the submerged classes. The present
awakening is affecting all classes.
In the summer of 1947, Gandhi lost no time in criticising

Travancore's decision to stay independent of the Union of India
and adopt an "American 'Executive' model of government."
Gandhi is difficult to agree with, difficult to disagree with.
He is a challenge when accepted as a preceptor, a torment when
taken to be an adversary. And so many seek the expedient, like
water finding its levels, of making him that which you can quote
when you want to, ignore at other times.
It must be said to the credit of EMS Namboodiripad's innate
honesty and integrity that he put his position in black and white.
After making the point that Gandhi's was an approach "which,
in actual practice, helped the bourgeoise," ends his revised (1981)
edition of The Mahatma and the Ism with this recommendation:
Marxist-Leninists... should carry on a principled, ideological

struggle against the philosophy and practice of Gandhism,
though, on specific issues where it is possible to develop
joint actions, the opportunity should be fully utilized.
In Kerala, Gandhi found the resources he needed - human,

intellectual and political, not to forget, spiritual and dharmic -
for the several struggles he was waging. These were, essentially,
struggles on many fronts for an India that was not merely
prosperous but just, an India that was not merely just but whose
communities were in concord with each other and within
themselves.
174
Everything he was engaged in doing on the Indian stage,

was available to him here, in Kerala, in miniaturised intensity
- the struggle against social practices which he found offensive,
against feudal structures which he regarded as being outdated,
against caste prejudices which were anathema to him, against
the canker of communal politics which denied the very basis
of Indian pluralism.
And he also found precursors who had independently
arrived at the same positions ahead of him.
If, in his own words, his life was an experiment with truth,
Kerala was one of the most prominent fields of that experiment
and one in which he learnt with gratitude and applied to his
work with benefit.
I am grateful to Mr. E.S. Reddy, Dr. A J Thomas, Mr Mammen Mathe

Mrs Mini Krishnan, the Sabarmati Archives and Ms. Kinnari Bhatt, M
Gowri Ramnarayan among others, for valuable insights, references an
information. The views expressed are of course mine. My use of cas
names and community names in direct quotations from Mahatma Gand
and in my comments in the lecture are contextual, being necessitate
by their employment during the Mahatma's campaign against
"untouchability" and are not to be taken to validate their use in any
manner today.—Author

Kerala Gandhi

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Kerala Gandhi

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Sahitya Akademi

Kerala and Gandhi

Kerala and Gandhi*

them repeatedly and intensively, with a view to understanding

* Sree Chithira Thirunal Memorial Lecture given at Thiruvananthapuram

Gandhi observed the great strengths of the Malayalam

It is unlikely that anyone told him of the region's cultural

patterns. And so who would have told him - or presumed to

complications but it was as yet an unexceptionable idea and the

confiscated ten years earlier by the Travancore State following

... I have... ventured to suggest to my Hindu brethren that

The second was to the middle class, comprising all

The Khilafat Non-co-operation Committee has, under my

I find his specific reference to the middle class of India

1. Kerala was fertile ground for Hindu-Muslim unity, with

Gandhi and the Maulana left the next

Among political figures, dignitaries and public

at the time, K.P. Kesava Menon thirty-nine, Sri

But when have human affairs proceeded according to plans,

the British raj's disallowance of healthy and open

Pragjee Soorjee A Co.

ANILINE AND ALIZARINE DYES

Writing in Young India on 20 October,

If we do not wake up betimes, we shall find a similar tragedy

I cannot think of a more timely and pertinent warning

Had life been granted to him beyond 1934, Sir Sankaran

Joseph wanted national-level leaders to come to Vaikom.

Gandhi wired back: "Hunger strike unlawful. Think Vaikom

satyagraha, Jallianwala Bagh,

during satyagrahic action, in 1922 after Chauri Chaura, and was

Gandhi as a guide was hard to understand, hard to follow.

Flood ravages terrible magnitude advise whether we should

He also wired the Congress Office in Allahabad, which in

Rajagopalachari requests conversion Tamil loan fifteen

Gandhi's reply was:

...floods too vast Congress capacity we should cooperate

I find this interlude on Malabar floods instructive for three

1. Congress regarded natural calamities in the 1920s as being

day of the fast accompanied by Andrews, he went to the silent

Ramachandran secured an interview, that is, a Question

R How is it that many intelligent and eminent men, who love

The conversation then shifted to the institution of marriage

R But may not an artist or a poet or a great genius leave a legacy

During the same interregnum that saw the Moplah Rebellion

rejection of a royal honour proposed to be bestowed on him

...The country is enchanting. The people are simple. You

Rajagopalachari accompanied him on this tour as did thirty

Doubtless to the discomfiture of the local Municipality,

One often learns that... the municipalities give to those who

The local chastisement administered, he came straight to

... I have not come in order to argue with the orthodox

He left for Vaikom - his principal destination - the very

Like an objective lawyer, Gandhi said he was prepared to

Gandhi wrote in a letter to one of the organisers of that

What I am looking forward to is not anybody's authority

At a public meeting in Vaikom, he said:

Neither approve nor disapprove, but simply listen to my

If on his earlier visit, his reference to the middle class was

he was not one. But then his ability to bewilder, to stun, by

...I have fallen in love with the women of Travancore...

Their white dress has captivated me...

If liberals would find that quotation gladdening their

I hope and believe that it (the white dress) is a symbol and