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THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY 21, 1964 Caste in A Preface to the Elections

Robert L Hardgrave Jr The elaboration of caste ranking and the generally common economic position shared by members of a caste, together with the high correlation between caste rank and economic position, have given rise to a political situation in Kerala in which the most significant actors are castes and communities. These communities are by no means completely united; but there is, nevertheless, a tendency towards an align' ment of major communities with different parties. These socio-political constellations, reflecting a super-imposition of ritual rank, social status and economic position, represent essentially a class orientation, There are, of course, various cross-pressures which cut across caste/class lines, but the high correlation bet- ween ritual rank and economic position has given caste a significance in its political role which is unparalleled in the rest of ,

THE ubiquity of caste in the politics ed mainly from low caste communities ranking of castes, their inter­ of modern India has increasingly by the Portuguese, are far less prosper actions as individuals must not de­ become a byword of political analysis ous, although numerically they domin­ viate widely from the stratified in the subcontinent. "Caste is so tacitly ate the Christian community. The Pro­ order of interaction among their and so completely accepted by all, in­ testants, as the Catholics, are recent respective castes taken as wholes. cluding those most vocal in condemning converts and share a similarly depress­ (4) Finally, the totality of such a it," writes M N , "that it is ed economic position. The , community structure must be se­ everywhere the unit of social action."1 as a whole, are concentrated in Travan- parated from any possible confu­ Caste, as a fundamental aspect of the core-Cochin and are dominant in Kot- sion which it may suffer by con­ social and economic structure of India, tayam . nection with inconsistent struc­ is undoubtedly a major parametric vari­ tures outside.2 able of the Indian political system. It The is, however, only one of several such Among the Hindus, there are appro­ Caste Ran king variables, and its significance demands ximately 420 castes (jati) in Kerala, Caste ranking places the systematic analysis. This paper seeks to and the average village contains 17 at the peak of the ritual hierarchy. The analyze the emergence of caste as a caste groups. Despite the dispersed significant variable in contemporary Nambudiri , numbering 8 per spatial pattern of settlement, there is cent of population, command Kerala through an exploration of the a definite social nucleus and the castes breakdown of traditional society. ritual status, but are not a major force are elaborately ranked in the ritual in politics. Of the lower castes, there The complexity of religious, regional, hierarchy, each separated not only by are a few Kshatriya descendants of the and caste differentiation in Kerala led endogamy, commensality, dialectual old Malabar kingdoms, and there are Vivekananda to call Kerala a "mad­ variation, and ritual pollution, but by no indigenous Vaisyas. The most im­ house" of communalism. Of Kerala's spatial distance as . A Nayar, for portant caste ranking below the Nambu­ population, 16 per cent is Muslim, 23 example, traditionally may approach a diri is the Nayar, the traditional war­ per cent Christian, and 61 per cent Nambudiri but must not touch him. rior. The Nayars or are a pros­ Hindu. The Muslim community, called An must keep a distance of 36 perous landowning community and Mappillas, date from the ninth century steps from a , and a Pulayan number 25.3 per cent of the Hindus in in Kerala. Traditional traders of the must not approach him within 96 Kerala. Below the Nayar are ranked the , they are today an ex­ steps. There are even castes so defiling traditional service castes, such as the tremely heterogeneous community in that their mere sight alone is polluting. barber and washerman, which are nu­ and occupation, and among their The elaboration of caste ranking among merically insignificant. The highest of numbers can be found landlords, mer­ Hindus of Kerala forms an almost per­ the polluting castes is the traditional chants, traders, and agricultural labour­ fect unilinear ladder and fulfills in ex­ toddy-tapper, the Ezhava, or Tiyyar as ers. They are primarily concentrated treme degree McKim Marriott's four he is called in Malabar. Numbering 44.4 geographically in the area of southern structural conditions for maximal ela­ per cent of the Hindu population, the Malabar, corresponding to the former boration of caste ranking. economically depressed are do­ Kingdom of Calicut, minant in Palghat District, where they ... (1) the concrete structural units The Christians cultivate the lands of the wealthy Tamil of a community—in this case its Brahmin landowning minority. Below The Christian community is divided hereditary, generally endogamous the Ezhavas are the Scheduled Castes, among the Syrian Christians (of which groups—must themselves be num­ 20.4 per cent of the Hindu population. there are two major sects), the Roman erous. (2) Secondly, their members The most important caste in this group Catholics, and the Protestants. Econo­ as corporate groups must interact is the Pulaya (Cheruman), which until mically powerful as traders, landown­ with members of other groups in a 1850 was the caste of agricultural serfs ers, and administrators, the Syrian clearly stratified order. (3) Further­ of the Nayars, temple servants, and Christians have been an important com­ more, so that members of such Brahmins. Each of these castes in the munity in since the sixth castes in a community may agree ritual hierarchy is in turn sub-divided cantury, The Roman Catholics, convert­ with each other on an elaborate into a number of smaller endogamous

1841

THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY November 21, 1964 subcastes. There are, for example, more verumpattam tenure to the sub-tenant The vertical system of rights and than 100 Nayar subcastes. Each sub- Ezhava households. These lands were, obligations, however, was not wholly caste is, within the position of the larg­ in turn, cultivated by serfs. Of the net confined to the village. Such overlap­ er caste unit, ranked hierarchically. produce, one third was retained by the ping, as hypergamy among the supper sub-tenant, and the remaining portion castes, contributed to the unity of the Systems of Tenure was divided as it ascended the ladder nad. Communications, nevertheless, The ritual hierarchy of caste reflects of subinfeudation. This elaborate were truncated. Despite the inland the traditional relationship of each caste system of subinfeudation often involved waterways of central Kerala, heavy to the land, which was a fundamental as many as four or five levels of non- rainfall, seasonal floods, and the determinant of wealth, power, and social cultivating tenants, each extracting a mountainous terrain severely limited status in traditional Kerala. The systems portion of the produce from the same contacts beyond the local level. The of land tenure in Kerala are extremely tract of land. horizontal extension of caste geographi­ complex. The Malabar Land Law, for The Pulaya serfs were attached to cally was thus limited, and communica­ example, recognized 28 different kinds the plots upon which they lived and tions were largely a function of caste of tenure, ranging from perpetual, ir­ were held as ancestral property. They position. The internal organization of redeemable leases to tenancy-at-will. received at fixed periods during the a caste was localized. Among the For purposes of analysis, however, a year a traditional payment in kind. Ezhava and Pulaya, for example, the land system of ideal type may be con­ The service castes of the village, the caste group was usually coterminous structed. washermen, barbers, and artisans, like­ with the village. The smaller castes of wise received a traditional payment in village servants had assemblies which The kingdoms of Kerala before the kind. The lineages of the servant castes, included usually no more than four or coming of the British were divided into whether matrilineal or patrilineal, held five adjacent villages. The assembly a system of (nads), headed by both the duty and the right (desam of the retainer Nayar caste was often feudatory chieftains under the Raja, avakasam) to perform these services in limited to a single village and at most and which were in turn divided into the village of their birth. These service extended over two to four adjacent villages (desams). Political authority in rights, however, often cut across village small villages. Within this area (called the villages rested with the elder of the boundaries, and obligation involved Calicut and kata in Cochin) the wealthiest Nayar household. The village service to the appropriate upper-caste Nayars exercized judicial authority. lands were owned by the royal lineage household when required. Customary The area of social interaction for the itself, by the chieftains of the nads, by payment was in kind, and each servant Nayars, apart from their participation temples under Brahmin management, family held a house site and garden in war, was the nad. Among the chiefs or by a Nambudiri family, the latter from the landlord by hereditary right and royal lineages, such interaction was being most prevalent. The landlord and was provided with the materials limited to the kingdom. Only the Nam­ (jentni) could sell land only with the of his craft. budiri transcended the political unit to consent of the chieftain or Raja and a realm of horizontal interaction which then only to families of the appropriate Relationships of Servitude included the whole of Kerala, Thus, caste. Further, he could not evict ten­ for the non-Brahmins of Kerala, terri­ ants, village servants, or serfs without Kathleen Gough has characterised torial segmentation overrode the unity their consent, unless they committed a the traditional system as "relationships and uniformity of a caste over a wider grave crime. On the other hand, land of servitude." In the elaborate hier­ area. "Territorial segmentation," as ownership included judicial rights over archy of rights, each economic function suggested by Eric Miller, "stressed the the population of the village. The Nam­ was fulfilled by a particular caste. The interdependence of all the castes at the budiri lands were held intact by a superior exercised judicial authority village level and inhibited the develop­ tradition which permitted only the over the inferior, and, in turn, the in­ ment of internal solidarity over wide eldest son of the family to marry, the ferior provided economic and ritual areas. Cleavages were between younger sons forming liaisons with services to the superior. It was, in (geographical) political units, never Nayar women. This hypergamous re­ fact, a system of reciprocity and redis­ between castes."7 lationship strengthened the ties be­ tribution, implying neither equality nor 4 tween the two dominant castes of the justice. "Castes were characterized by Introduction to Ryotwari region. The Nambudiri , retaining hereditary occupation and correspond­ The traditional social and economic part of the land for cultivation by his ingly hereditary differential rights in structure was little affected by change 5 serfs, leased the rest to Nayar matri- the produce of village lands." The in the years before 1792. In that year, lineal households (taravad). The Nayar system bears close affinity to the jajmani however, the British promulgated a lineages, usually numbering four or system of North India, which Beidel- fixity of land tenure under the ryot- five in a village, held the land under man has described as "a feudalistic wari system. The principle of the sys- hereditary kaman tenancy. In return system of prescribed, hereditary obliga­ tern is that the Government collects for land rights, the Nayars owed mili­ tions of payment and of occupational land revenue directly from the cultiva­ tary services to the landlord and to the and ceremonial duties between two or tor, who is assumed also to be the free­ chieftain of the nad. A portion of the more specific families of different hold proprietor. In Kerala, as in most of produce from the lands would also be castes in the same locality."5 The India, they were not the same persons. rendered. The Nayar estates were held traditional economic system of Kerala "Instead of finding landlords and ten­ intact through duolocal matrilineal was a symbiotic relationship of occupa­ ants operating through a system of kinship, and control over the lands was tional castes functioning according to prices, bargaining, and contracts, the exercised by the elder (kanakkaran). rigidly prescribed patterns of behaviour, British found a maze of caste and cus­ A portion of the lands was retained providing at once economic security tom regulating inter-family relation­ for cultivation by the serfs of the and a clearly defined status and role ships. Where the British expected to household, the rest being leased under pattern. find an owner they found a profusion

1843 1844 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY November 21, 1964 of overlapping claims."8 Overriding subsistence level and reduced the effi­ made in kind, gave way to periodic these rights, the British recognised the ciency of agricultural production. In wage employment. Likewise, the intro­ janmi landlord as the absolute owner , for example, there duction of machine-made goods render­ of the land. The customary limitations are today "cultivators tilling plots less ed many of the traditional caste ser­ upon the janmi were disregarded, and than a tenth of an acre in size; there vices unnecessary. This factor, to­ the kannakkaran was recognized only are landowners who have leased hold­ gether with their expanding population, as a leaseholder and as such liable to ings to intermediaries and then sub-let forced many of the service castes into be turned off the land. The landlord portions of those same lands from their agricultural wage labour and seasonal was thus for the first time invested own tenants as cultivators; and there employment. with the right of eviction and could, as are tenants holding lands on half a As the vertical economic ties between well, raise rents to meet his pleasure. dozen tenures from as many landlords castes weakened at the village level, so who have in turn sub-let them to fifty too was there a loosening of ritual re­ In the nineteenth century, sub­ or more sub-tenants."11 ordinate tenancy was illdefined, and lationships. Elaborate ceremonies, re­ land was often held only by oral lease. As the holdings became smaller, many quiring the participation of all village By 1880, evictions had thrown roughly of the Ezhava varumpattam tenants castes, were held less frequently. Cere­ one tenant in five off his holding. Land were pushed off the land to join the monies increasingly came to be confined reform legislation, in attempting to expanding ranks of agricultural labour, within a single caste. Further, the remedy the situation, gradually granted and of those who continued to main­ political and judicial authority of the security of tenure to most tenants, but tain holdings, progressively larger num­ Nayar assembly broke down, and other such reform, nevertheless, offered op­ bers were forced to supplement their castes, no longer tied to the Nayar portunity for abuse. The Malabar Ten­ income through employment on the households, refused to recognize the ancy Act of 1929, for example, granted lands of others. legitimacy of their authority. Inter- caste disputes passes almost entirely to the landlord the right to evict all cate­ Acceleration of Change gories of tenants if he desired to re­ the courts, and internal disputes within sume lands for his own maintenance or An acceleration of economic change a caste increasingly came to be settled that of his family. The actual cultiva­ came in 1846, with the building of per­ by the caste council, rather than, as tion of such lands could, without viola­ manent roads, in 1861 with the railway, often in the past, by referring it to the tion of the act, be assumed by agricul­ and, foremost, with the introduction of Nayar assembly. tural labor." a cash economy based upon plantation Break-up of Caste Ties estates of , , rubber, , Armies Disbanded and cocoanut. Economic crises and The disintegration of the vertical re­ fragmentation, which rendered many lationship between castes, however, did With Pax Britanica, the armies of of the old household estates unecono­ not liberate the lower castes from their the Kerala kingdom were disbanded, mic, brought lands to the market. The depressed position in the ritual hier­ and the Nayar warriors returned to Syrian Christians and Muslim traders, archy. Traditionally, the elaboration their ancestral estates. Gradually poly- exploiting the new economic opportuni­ of the ritual hierarchy reflected the androus marriage among the Nayars ties of the cash economy, invested in economic position of the constituent began to die out, and with monogamy, lands as they came up for sale. The castes. The caste system historically men assumed rights and obligations to plantations attracted Pulayas and was not rigid, for as a caste gained their children. The matrilineage Ezhavas as coolie labour, but these low economic power, a commensurate ritual gradually disintegrated, and the great castes of the Hindu hierarchy were rank usually followed. Caste ranking taravad household gave way to the ele­ rarely able to accumulate sufficient in Kerala reflected such a process, but mentary family. The Malabar Marriage savings to invest in land. Rather, having in the development of its linear elabora­ Act of 1896 permitted Nayar men to lost the security of tenure or serfdom, tion, a rigidity stifled the movement of register their marriages with the they were subjected to the vagaries of castes in the hierarchy, freezing, as it authorities, and in so doing, the man a cash economy dependent upon a flu­ were, the lower castes in their positions was legally bound to maintain his wife ctuating international market. They of subservience. Only the and children. Upon his death, the became caught in an accelerating pro­ and Christians, both being outside the lands passed, not to the taravad, but to cess of pauperization. hierarchy, were able to exploit new his children. Further legislation, the economic opportunities, and in so do­ Malabar Marumakkatayam (Matriliny) Concomitant with the developments ing, to raise themselves in social status. Act of 1933 permitted a man for the of fragmentation and the introduction The process of pauperization initiated first time to claim an individual share of a cash economy came an increasing by economic change accentuated the of the ancestral estate as his personal spatial mobility, undermining the verti­ economic disparity between castes, property.10 Such changes in the Nayar cal unity of the village. The village seeming almost to sanction the tradi­ kinship system were not without affect was no longer a closed economic unit; tionally high correlation between ritual upon the Nambudiri jamni. The Nam- it was no longer self-sufficient for food rank and economic position. budiri Act of 1933 permitted the ­ and services. Population pressure, the riage of the younger sons to Nambudiri dimunition of land holdings, and the As the vertical ties between castes girls and the division of the ancestral availability of employment on the disintegrated under the impact of frag­ estates for inheritance by each son. plantations loosened the vertical ties mentation of landholdings and the between castes at the village level. The emergence of a cash economy, the The increasing subdivision and frag­ traditional relationship between the horizontal spatial tie between members mentation of holdings, as a result of janmi or kannakkaran and the agricul­ of the same caste expanded. Communi­ changes in the kinship system and tural labourers, the system by which the cations broke down the solidarity of growing population pressure, reduced soil was tilled by hereditary right and the nad, and in place of the cleavage the income of cultivating families to the obligation and for which payment was between political units, there emerged 1845

THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY November 21, 1964

a basic cleavage between castes. Com­ The Nambudiri Brahmins, the major tical role which is unparalleled in the munications facilitated a ''transition landowners and by no means a depres­ rest of India.13 from a system in which castes were in­ sed caste, has been slow to respond to terdependent within small areas to a Western education and to the opportu­ Notes system in which they are becoming nities of the new economy. In 1908, 1 M N Srinivas, "Caste in Modern widely ramifying classes in opposition the more progressive elements of the India," Journal of Asian Studies, to one another.''12 Communications in Nambudiri community organized the Vol XVI, p 548. the process of social mobilization stimu­ Yogaksema movement for certain social 2 McKim Marriott, "Caste Ranking lated an awareness in each caste of its reforms and for the study of English. and Community Structure in Five position vis-a-vis the social, economic, Rapidly the association became politi­ Religions of India and ," and political system as a whole. cized and, as the Ezhavas' SNDP, Deccan College Monograph Series, demanded the reservation of seats. Nayars Vs Ezhavas No 23, Poona: Deccan College, 1960, p 27. The most highly organized community Long subject to deprivation by the of Kerala in these early years, as today, 3 Kathleen Gough, "Criteria of Caste upper castes and increasingly self-con­ was the Christian. Each of the Ranking in , "Mem in scious of its position, the Ezhava, Christian sects, through its system of India, Vol 39, No 2 (1959) , pp freed from the dependency of the ver­ schools and churches, had formed as­ 15-17. tical ties and having transcended ter­ sociations, the most important being 4 Walter C Neale, "Reciprocity and ritorial segmentation in horizontal ex­ the Roman Catholic community. The Redistribution in the Indian Vill­ tension, came slowly to organize them­ Muslims, too, formed communal orga­ age: Sequel to Some Notable Dis­ selves into associations. In the early nizations for the advancement of their cussions," in Karl Polanyi (ed), years of the century, the Sahodara community interests. "Trade and Market in the Early Sangam and the Thiyya Mahajana were Empires", Glencoe: Free Press, founded, but it was only through the Communities and Parties 1957, pp 222-23. Shri Narayana Guruswamy Dharma Education and an accompanying high 5 David M Schneider and Kathleen Paripalana Sangha (SNDR) that the degree of political , together Gough, "Matrilineal Kinship," Ezhava community organized through­ with increasingly bad economic condi­ Berkeley: out the region for social tions, a restless youth frustrated in Press. 1961, p 314. uplift. While advocating the abolition ambition, and the growing ranks of the 6 of caste with the slogan, "One God, unemployed, have generated an explo­ O Beidelman, "A Compar­ one religion and one caste," the Ezha- sive political atmosphere in Kerala, in ative Analysis of the Jajmani Sys­ vas at the same time attempted to which each community seemingly tries tem, Monographs of the Association Sanskritize their ritual so that they to better itself at the expense of the for Asian Studies, viii, Locust might gain a higher position in the other. But, the coalitions and opposi­ Valley, N Y," Augustin, 1959, p 6. ritual hierarchy. Their social reforms, tions of the communities of Kerala in 7 Eric Miller, "Caste and Territory however, little affected die position in the years since independence reflect not the hierarchy. Indeed, the efforts for in Malabar," American Anthropo­ so much the politics of caste as the logist, Vol 56, No 3 (June 1954), the uplift of the Ezhavas were seen by politics of class in the guise of caste. the Nayars as a threat to their entren­ p 417. A caste's action politically will be unit­ 8 ched position of economic privilege. In ed only in so far as its membership is Walter C Neale, op cit, p 221. 1905 in central Travancore, for example, homogeneous. To the degree that 9 See: Thomas Shea, "Agrarian Un­ the Nayars opposed the admission of there is a fundamental economic dis­ rest and Reform in South India'',, Ezhavas into the Government schools. parity within the caste, so the caste Far Eastern Survey, Vol XXIII, No The Nayars further opposed dress re­ will be divided in its interests. 6 {June 1954); Shea, "Implementing forms, i e, the covering of breasts, In Kerala, the elaboration of caste Land Reform in India/' Far East- among the lower castes. The Ezhava ern Survey, Vol XXV, No 1 (Janu- caste association became increasingly ranking and the generally common economic position shared by members ary!956); Shea, "Barriers to Econo­ concerned with politics and began to mic Development in Traditional exert its influence in order to gain re­ of a caste, together with the high cor­ relation between caste rank and econo­ Societies: Malabar, a Case Study", servation of seats in the Government Journal of Economic History, Vol services, the legislature, and in univer­ mic position, have given rise to a poli­ tical situation in which the most XIX, No 4 (December 1959). sities. In opposition to the 10 organization in Kerala, which they saw significant actors are castes and com­ Kathleen Gough, "Changing Kin­ as Nayar-dominated, the Ezhavas sup­ munities. While these communities are ship Usages in the Setting of Poli­ ported the British in an effort to by no means wholly united, there is, tical and Economic Change Among gain special considerations. nevertheless, a tendency toward an the Nayars of Malabar," Journal of alignment of major communities with the Royal Anthropological Instit­ The Nayars, active in the Congress, different parties. These socio-political ute, Vol LXXXIL had also gained ascendency in the ad­ constellations, reflecting a superimposi- 11 Shea, "Implementing Land Reform ministration of Travancore and Cochin tion of ritual rank, social status, and in India/' op citr p 5. States and in Malabar District of economic position, represent essentially 14 Madras. As the Christians, the Nayars a class orientation. Although in Kerala, Miller, op cit, p 418. responded readily to Western educa­ as in the West, various crosspressures 15 Robert L Hardgravc, Jr, "Caste, tion and took full advantage of the op­ cut across caste/class lines, the high Class, and Politics in Kerala," portunities it offered to extend the eco­ correlation between ritual rank and Political Science Review (Univer­ nomic and political powers of their economic position has given caste a sity of ), Vol 3, No 1 community. solidarity and a significance in its poli­ (M?y 1964), pp 120-6. 1847