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Home , Elections in Kerala, Madras State

POLITICS, WOMEN AND WELL-BEING CAMBRIDGE COMMONWEALTH SERIES Publishedby Macmillan in association with the Managers of the Cambridge University Smuts Memorial Fund/or the Advancement of Commonwealth Studies General Editors: E. T. Stokes (1972-81); D. A. Low (1983- ), both Smuts Professor of the History of the British Commonwealth, University of Cambridge Selected titles: David Butler and D. A. Low (editor.~) SOVEREIGNS AND SURROGATES: Constitutional Heads of State in the Commonwealth John Darwin BRITAIN. EGYPT AND THE MIDDLE EAST: Imperial Policy in the Aftermath of War, 1918-22 T. R. H. Davenport SOUTH AFRICA: A Modern History Margaret P. Doxey THE COMMONWEALTH SECRETARIAT AND THE CONTEMPORARY COMMONWEALTH Mark Francis GOVERNERS AND SETTLERS: Images of Authority in the British Colonies, 1820-60 R. F. Holland BRITAIN AND THE COMMONWEALTH ALLIANCE, 1918-39 Robin Jeffrey POLITICS, WOMEN AND WELL-BEING: How became 'a Model' D.A. Low (editor) CONSTITUTIONAL HEADS AND POLITICAL CRISES: Commonwealth Episodes, 1945-85 THE POLITICAL INHERITANCE OF PAKISTAN W. David Mcintyre THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE COMMONWEALTH 1965-90 A. N. Porter and A. J. Stockwell BRITISH IMPERIAL POLICY AND DECOLONIZATION, 1938-64 Volume I: 1938-51 Volume 2: 1951-64 Sumlt Sarkar MODERN , 1885-1947 T.E. Smith COMMONWEALTH MIGRATION: Flows and Policies B. R. Tomlinson THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE RAJ, 1914-47 Politics, Women and Well-Being

How Kerala became 'a Model'

Robin Jeffrey La Trobe University, Melbourne ltl Robin Jeffrey 1992 Soflcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1992

All rights reserved.No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or * transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London wn 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Publishedby PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue,New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representat ives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLCand of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan~ is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries .

ISBN 978-1-349-12254-7 ISBN 978-1-349-12252-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-12252-3

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Transferredto digital printing 2003 To Annakutty, Rajamma, Shantha ... and their husbands Contents

List of Tables x Preface xi List of Abbreviations xiii Chronology, 1920-91 xv

Introduction: Making and Unmaking Models 1 The Idea of a '' 6 Women and Politics 9 History, 'Models' and the Future II

PART I HOW OLD KERALA GAVE WAY Janamma (c.186D-c.1940) 16 1 Old Kerala 19 The Sense of Kerala 22 , Malabar and Cochin 25 2 Family 34 How It Worked 35 Why It Crumbled 37 Public Politics and the Abolition of Matriliny 41 and Tiyyas: Families and Dignity 49 The New Model Family 53 3 Education 55 Schooling: Attitudes and Organisation 59 Schooling: Ideas 66 Teaching: a Subversive Activity 68 4 Economy and Attitudes 72 Depression 75 War: a Newly Comfortable Class 79 War: 'Life Is a Ration Shop' 83 From the Gutter: New Dreams 87

VII viii Contents

PART II HOW PUBLIC POLITICS TOOK HOLD Mary Poonen Lukose (1886-1976) 92 5 Christians Suggest 96 6 'Communities' Form 102 The Service Society 102 Ezhavas and Others 107 and the Muslim League 110 7 Nationalism Inspires 118 8 Classes Organise 126 From Social Activists to Communists 126 Reconciling Marx with Malabar 129 Taking Marx to the Countryside 132 Competition: The War and After 136 Challenge Implanted: Rebels, Propagandists, Ministers 140

PART III HOW 'THE MODEL' TOOK SHAPE Akkamma Cheriyan Varkey (1909-82) 146 9 Education 150 'New Earth, New Heaven' 151 Struggles for the Heart 153 Growth and Consequences 156 10 Land 160 Land, Class and Attitudes 161 Malabar: The Pressure of Tenants 164 Travancore and Cochin: The Demands of the Landless 167 The Democratic Dilemma, 1948-56 169 Pressing for Change 171 Making Laws Work 176 Outcomes 182 II Well·Being 186 Health and Governments 188 N~~ I~ Family Planning 195 Nutrition 200 People Who Get Houses Sometimes Throw Stones 204 Teashops, Women and Well-Being 209 ~ontents ix

PART IV CONCLUSION K. R. Gouri (b./919) 214 12 Limits and Hopes: Political Action and Active Women 217

Glossary 229 Notes 231 Index 274 List of Tables and Maps

Tables

I Daily newspapers by language 3 2 Indicators, major states 5 3 Voter turnout, Kerala and India II I.I Malabar, Cochin and Travancore, 1941 26 2.I Population of Kerala, 1820-1991 37 2.2 Marriage and inheritance legislation 43 3.1 Literacy, male and female, 1875-1981 57 3.2 Female literacy, 1875-1981 60 4.1 Value of 1000 coconuts, 1860-1987 76 4.2 Cultivated area under various crops , 1930s 77 5.1 Christians by sect, 1941 100 6.I Literacy, III 9.1 Education expenditure as a percentage of total budget, 1904-5 to 1984-5 158 9.2 Primary and secondary students, 1950-88 159 10.1 Selected world population densities 162 10.2 Distribution of land, 1957-77 175 10.3 Rural labour households owning land, 1964-5 to 83-4 179 10.4 Rural households, 1983-4 180 I I.I Patients as a proportion of population 192 11.2 Nurses in Kerala, 1951-81 194 11 .3 Population growth 197 11.4 Contraception in Kerala, 1960-85 199

Maps

I. Kerala, 1990 xviii 2. Travancore, 1941 28 3. Cochin, 1941 29 4. , 1930s 30

x Preface

Eating breakfast in a small hotel in Trivandrum in 1971, I watched what I still feel was a remarkable scene. As a boy aged about 16 ladled vegetable curries onto the stainless steel plates of the patrons, a trousered, middle-aged north Indian snapped his fingers to call for attention. The young waiter advanced on him in fury, ladle poised in the pail of hot sambar. 'Aan aanu; patti 0110' , he hissed - I'm a man, not a dog. I had heard many people talk of the fierce independence - trouble­ someness, some called it - of , the people of Kerala; now I had a story of my own. . As I began to do research into Kerala's history, I discovered that this reputation for challenge was at odds with earlier accounts of Kerala society. Until well into the twentieth century, the most rigid caste system in India had existed in Kerala, and the highly placed had extracted the most extreme forms of obsequiousness from the lowly. In the most vivid example, some castes were held to be so impure that the mere sight of them polluted their superiors . They were not simply 'untouchable', but 'unseeable', Later, I became increasingly aware that Kerala by the 1970s was becoming an object of fascination for scholars and policy-makers concerned with 'development'. Kerala's people had the highest life expectancy in India, the lowest infant mortality rate and a birth rate that seemed to be falling. In short, their quality of life appeared better than that of people in India's other states. Two questions teased me: how did Kerala's reputation for assertive­ ness grow out of a society that once was noted for its ordered rigidity? And to what extent did the process by which this happened contribute to the noteworthy social statistics that have led people to write about a 'Kerala model of economic development'? This book attempts to work out those questions. The resulting explanation is essentially historical, but it is, I hope, history that meets the present. The sources on which the book is based range from the records of English missionary societies to the publications of the and the Kerala government. The notes at the end, and the comments in the Abbreviations section (pp. xiii-xiv), are, I hope,

xi xii Preface clear and specific about particular documents and their location. I have therefore not weighed down the book with a bibliography. A great many people have helped me during the time I have been interested in Kerala and have worked on this book. The late K. Prabhakaran, who died in January 1989, befriended me on my first research visit in 1971 and helped me generously thereafter. He, Puthuppalli Raghavan and Abraham Nidhiry, along with V. K. Narayanan, my first teacher, are often in my thoughts, and I am in their debt. Peter Reeves has provided indispensable encouragement and advice. Dipesh Chakrabarty and Talis Polis have been generous with their time and comments, and the latter, as Dean of the School of Social Sciences in which I work, has facilitated my writing and research in a host of ways. A. K. Damodaran, Leela Gulati, K. G. Kumar, Anthony Low, V. K. Madhavan Kutty, V. Ramachandran and Marika Vicziany have provided suggestions, ideas and references. Melville and Thelma Joseph have helped in more ways than they probably know . The School of Social Sciences at La Trobe University in Melbourne has provided me with succour and support since 1979. The Research School of Pacific Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra did the same between 1973 and 1978. The Trivandrum Hotel, its owner K. C. Pillai and its manager K. R. V. Pisharody, have kept me and my wife healthy, comfortable and very well fed on numerous visits to Trivandrum. Finally, I thank Lesley, without whose delightful distractions this book might have been finished sooner - but what a strange little person I would have been.

ROBIN JEFFREY List of Abbreviations

ARDHS Administration Report ofthe Department ofHealth Services, Kerala. BI Business India, fortnightly, Bombay. CAR Cochin Administration Report. CDS Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum. CM Chief Minister. CMS Church Missionary Society. Cofl Census of India. CPI Communist Party of India CPI(M) Communist Party of India (Marxist). CS Confidential Section of the Travancore government. These files were held in the cellar of the Kerala Secretariat, Trivandrum, when I consulted them in the mid-1970s. EPW Economic and Political Weekly, Bombay. FR Fortnightly Report, prepared for the in British times; printed; now available in the National Archives of India and State Archives. G.O. Government Order. H The Hindu, Madras-based daily newspaper. HIE Hindu International Edition, Madras weekly. HP Home Political Department, Government of India. IG Inspector-General of Police. 10L India Office Library and Records, London. IT India Today, New , fortnightly. KS Kerala Secretariat, Trivandrum KSA Kerala State Archives, branches in Trivandrum, Ernaku­ lam and Calicut. LMS London Missionary Society. MM Madras Mail, Madras daily newspaper. MS Madras States . NAI National Archives of India, New Delhi. NMML Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. PSP . PW People's War, weekly produced by the Communist Party of India during the Second World War; available in the NAI. SMAP Sri Mulam Assembly Proceedings.

xiii xiv List of Abbreviations

TAR Travancore Administration Report. TGER Travancore Government English Records, held in the Secretariat, Trivandrum, in the 1970s. TGG Travancore Government Gazette. TNSA Tamil Nadu State Archives . WSB Weekly Secret Bulletin, printed digest prepared by Travan­ core police in the 1930s; held in the Kerala State Archives, Trivandrum, in the I970s. Chronology, 1920-91

(Note: A detailed list of the legislation that dismantled matriliny is in Table 2.2.)

1920-2 Non-cooperation movement throughout India 1921 Malabar Revolt or Rebellion. 1923 Tragic Plight by N. Kumaran Asan published. 1924-5 in Travancore brings Gandhi to Kerala. 1925 Death of Mulam Tirunal, Maharaja of Travancore; Nayar Act gives members of matrilineal joint-families the right to claim their share of family property and in effect divide the family. 1925-31 Regency in Travancore under Senior Maharani (Setu Lakshmi Bai). 1930 Malabar Tenancy Act gives some rights to superior tenants 1930-3 Civil disobedience movement throughout India is especially strong in Malabar District. 1936 Temple Entry Proclamation in Travancore; Sir C. P. Rama­ swami Aiyar becomes Dewan of Travancore. 1937 'Dyarchy' in Cochin - a minister responsible to the legislature. 1938 Civil disobedience movement for responsible government in Travancore. 1942 Quit India movement 1944 From the Gutter by P. Kesava Dev published. 1944-7 Tappers' movement against government in Cochin. 1946 Punnapra-Vayalar revolt against Travancore government. 1947 Indian independence; Cochin Maharaja institutes resp­ onsible government; Ramaswami Aiyar forced to flee Travancore. 1948 Universal-suffrage elections in Travancore and Cochin ­ Congress wins overwhelmingly; Pattom Thanu Pillai first CM of Travancore but resigns in October; T. K. Narayana Pillai CM; Panampilli Govinda Menon briefly CM of Cochin, then E. Ikkanda Warriar. 1949 State of Travancore-Cochin formed; Narayana Pillai CM. 1950 T-C government falls; C. Kesavan becomes Congress CM.

xv xvi Chronology. 1920-91

1951 First census after independence; population of Kerala estimated at 13.6 million. 1952 First Indian general elections; minority Congress govern­ ment in T-C under A. J. John; You Made Me a Communist by Thoppil Bhasi first performed. 1954 Government falls; President's Rule; mid-term elections; Praja Socialist Party, under Pattom Thanu Pillai, forms minority government; School of Nursing opened in Medi­ cal College, Trivandrum. 1955 Government falls; Congress under Panampilli Govinda Menon forms minority government. 1956 Government falls; President's Rule; Kerala state formed by uniting Malabar with T-C; Tamil-speaking taluks of south Travancore joined to Madras state. 1957 Second Indian general elections; Communists and allied independents win a majority in Kerala; E. M. S. Namboo­ diripad becomes CM . 1959 Communist government dismissed; President's Rule. 1960 Mid-term elections won by anti-Communist alliance; Pat­ tom Thanu Pillai becomes CM. 1961 Census of India puts Kerala population at 16.9 million. 1962 R. Sankar of Congress replaces Thanu Pillai as CM. 1964 Weak Kerala Land Reforms Act of anti-Communist coali­ tion comes into force; government collapses; President's Rule; Communist Party of India splits and Communist Party of India (Marxist) emerges. 1965 Mid-term elections fail to produce a party able to form a government; President's Rule. 1967 Fourth national general elections; CPI(M)-led United Front government formed with E. M. S. Namboodiripad as CM. 1969 Kerala Land Reform (Amendment) Act passed; United Front government falls; C. Achutha Menon of CPI forms minority government. 1970 Enforcement of Land Reform (Amendment) Act begins; Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum, set up; President's Rule, then a mid-term election, out of which Achutha Menon is able to form a CPI-led coalition with CPI(M) in bitter opposition. 1971 Census of India puts Kerala's population at 21.4 million; Congress joins Achutha Menon government. 1972-6 'One-lakh houses' campaign builds 57 000 houses for poor. Chronology, 1920-91 xvii

1973 Oil crisis; large-scale Gulf migration begins. 1975 Mrs Gandhi proclaims 'emergency'; elections, due in Ker­ ala, are postponed; United Nations publishes Poverty, Education and Development Policy, produced by the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum. 1976 Joint Hindu Family System (Abolition) Act abolishes the vestiges of the matrilineal joint-family. 1977 'Emergency' ends; elections in Kerala return ruling coali­ tion; K. Karunakaran and A. K. Antony of Congress are CMs in quick succession. 1978 P. K. Vasudevan Nair of CPI is CM. 1979 Coalition collapses; C. H. Mohammad Koya of Indian Union Muslim League is CM; President's Rule; Cochin Stock Exchange founded. 1980 Mid-term elections return CPI(M)-Ied coalition with E. K. Nayanar as CM. 1981 Census of India: Kerala population 25.4 million; govern­ ment falls - President's Rule. 1982 Mid-term elections won by Congress (I)-led coalition - K. Karunakaran becomes CM. 1987 Elections won by CPI(M)-Ied coalition - E. K. Nayanar becomes CM. 1990 Kottayam and Ernakulam Districts claim to be 100 per cent literate; Cochin Stock Exchange fourth largest in India; Gulf crisis drives tens of thousands of workers back to Kerala. 1991 Census puts Kerala's population at 29.0 million; Kerala's 10th state elections - Congress-led alliance wins; K. Karunakaran CM. Kozhikode (Calicutl MaJappurame ~ \~:~

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Map 1 Kerala , 1990 xviii