Kerala, the tiny state situated at the southern
tip of India is better known to the outside world through web world as "God’s
Own Country". This tiny state, Kerala has positioned herself
remarkably in the Guinness Book of World Records for her highest level of
literacy rate in the world. Ironically enough, the Kerala society remained for
several centuries trapped in a mesh of weird customs, ceremonies and rituals,
which operated at different levels with varying degrees of intensity through an
intricate mechanism of caste hierarchies. In fact those practices have prevailed for centuries in Kerala
as part of the origin of caste systems in our country.
Caste is best defined as a form of social
stratification characterized by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of
life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and
customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural notions of purity
and pollution. Its paradigmatic, ethnographic, classic example is the division
of India's Hindu society into rigid social groups, with roots in India's
ancient history and persisting even today.
Hinduism had been criticized for centuries for
its highly complex weaved patterns and infrastructure among other religions in
India. Kerala, the tiny state situated on the southern tip of the peninsula was
not different from the main stream. What had triggered divisions among once
united society? Depending upon the status that the different occupations such groups
held in the society, ideas of nobleness, purity and respectability began to be
associated with each. There initiated the upper caste and lower caste, more
holy caste and less holy caste, and more respectable caste and less respectable
caste. Thus the whole society had turned into a spectrum of various castes with
varying degrees of status, power and prestige.
One of such strange notions that prevailed in
Kerala until recently was ‘untouchability’ that slowly transcribed into
widespread “inequalities” and unprecedented discriminatory treatments within
the weird hierarchies among Hindus. The lower caste was considered to be the
polluting elements of a society. They were abandoned from touching and seeing
other superiors in public or private places. They had to keep themselves out of
the sight of the highest caste such as ‘Nambootiris’. However, some of
the lower caste people were not totally blocked from coming out into a public
gathering. Each caste group had rigid rules regarding the distance to be kept
by them from higher or lower castes. The ‘unseeable’, ‘untouchable’
and ‘unapproachable’ notions caused immense complexity and ill feelings
among various groups of the society.
The earlier customs had strict principles such as
‘maryada’ (norm), ‘margam’ (way), ‘acharam’ (convention)
determined by lineage of birth. Brahmins were the supreme guardians of a
society and others were supposed to fall into respective pits to follow the
orders from Brahmins. It took only a short while of time for ‘acharam’
to change into ‘anacharam’ due to egoistic nature and hierarchy spread
throughout the society. For instance, it is believed that there were sixty-four
categories of anacharams which crippled down substantially respective society’s
progress. Some of such anacharams were quite weird. The society imposed a taboo
on the Brahmin girl looking at any man other than her husband. A widow
remarriage was also prohibited. No Brahmin ladies were allowed to inherit the
throne of a ruler. An investigation of these anacharams would reveal that the
purpose behind such notions was just to avoid perpetuation of vested interests.
The system of inheritance was also clearly
defined in two different lineages. The Nayar caste used to follow
matrilineal (marumakkathayam) while the Namboothiri caste
followed patrilineal (makkathayam) manner. Under Nayar’s system, the
assets of a family goes to the eldest female member and their management is
vested on her brother. The children of the eldest daughter have the right on
the ancestral home (tharavadu) by virtue of birth. However, within
Namboothiri caste, their systems of inheritance and marriage were eminently
efficient and helped in the custody of their family properties undivided. In
effect, the system was analogous to primogeniture followed in some countries in
the west.
The systems of marriage that existed in Kerala in
the past were diverse and ingenious. One of the strange customs prevailed in
some houses of Nayars, Ezhavas and the artisan communities was the practice of
having a common wife by the brothers of the same household or sisters of the
same household having a common husband. The main objectives of these practices
had the maintenance of economic interests.
The marriage relationship between Nayar and
Namboothiri families was also strange in comparison to today’s way of life.
Nayars considered it as a mark of aristocracy to give their daughters and
sisters in marriage to Namboothiri family irrespective of bridegroom’s age. But
all Namboothiri men did not marry Nayar ladies. The eldest son in the family was socially bound to marry from
another Namboothiri family. The younger sons were given the liberty to choose
their women from outside Namboothiri caste. The elder Namboothiri son’s
marriage was known by the name ‘Veli’ while the younger brothers’
approved relation with women from Nayar tharawadu, used to be known as ‘Sambandham’.
In sambandham, the Namboothiri father had no legal obligation to his children
born from his Nayar wife. The children inherited only mother’s wealth not
father’s. The Namboothiri men who used to get involved in such marriages opt to
serve as temple priests in places near to his wife’s house. The interest vested
in Nayar ‘tharawadu’ (ancestral home) in getting into such sambandham
was to maintain such conjugal relationship for having children from an
intellectually superior lineage, so that the tharawadu would continue its
aristocratic spell for generations and the women’s assets remained within the
tharawadu. The elder brother from a Namboothiri family as mentioned above
enters into ‘Veli’ with another Namboothiri girl. Since the younger
brothers chose their women from outside the caste, many Namboothiri girls had
to sacrifice their life to elder brothers who have been married many times or
alternatively opt to remain spinsters for life. Widowhood was very common due
to the fact that at times Namboothiri teenage girls were forced to marry a man
in sixties or above. Once widowed, they remained widows for life. Namboothiris’
wives were restricted to live in the inner chambers of their house called ‘mana’
or ‘illum’. They were responsible to hide their faces and body from
public places or from other people. After marriage Namboothiri girl literally bogged down to the chores of
husband’s household, reduce to the level of chattel, with very little contact
with the real life and society around.
Of all the communities of Kerala, Brahmins used
to follow the most complex process of rituals in connection with one’s major
phases of life such as marriage, pregnancy, birth of a child, death etc. It is
very interesting to explore and understand the inner meanings of many of their
observances. They are chronicled and these texts were meticulously followed by
orthodox communities of that time. Such discriminatory segregations and outlook
has even infected into the subclasses of the main castes from the superior to
subordinate levels. To some extend such unfortunate situations is still
prevailing among upper and lower subclasses of Hindus. A microscopic analysis
and dissection in depth into subclasses of from the main stream takes volumes
to conclude this article. We all know that the past can’t be erased but we all
can learn from it for a better tomorrow.
Three of such examples are added here for you to
have a feeling of olden times rituals.. "Garbhadhanam": Blessings
from God for women to conceive. "Seemandham": A worship in the fourth
month of pregnancy to get a good child. "Jatakarmmam": The ritual
performed immediately after the birth of a boy. It is aimed for the highest
intellectual caliber in the child. If the baby were a girl the observance would
be performed at a later date.
As stated above these were only a
few among several other such caste driven mechanisms inhibiting the equality of
mankind of God’s Own Country during those days. Having narrated the mechanisms
of caste prevailed in that tiny corner of the world’s largest democracy
allowing caste discrimination to persist is shameful in any part of this world.
We all ought to take the lead in contributing whatever we can to help in
eliminating “caste based polarization of society” one of the largest and most
serious human rights issues in the world today and give hope to millions of
victims of caste discrimination – not only in India itself, but around the
world.
- Kapilan-
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