A controversy over five paragraphs of text in an NCERT book, prescribed for Class 9 students of CBSE schools, threatens to snowball into a prolonged agitation as political parties pitch in to demand correction of the passage that is perceived to denigrate the Nadars of Kanyakumari district. The ‘offending’ passage is part of the lesson titled Clothing: A Social History, an essay on the change in sartorial styles in different cultures against the backdrop of social transformation by Janaki Nair, a professor in the Centre for Historical Studies in New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.
The contentious passage, subtitled Caste conflict and dress change, deals with the historic ‘upper cloth revolt’ that raged in Kanyakumari, then part of the princely state of Travancore, from the 1820s to 1859. While encapsulating a socio-political struggle that spanned four decades in five paragraphs, the author has confined herself to basic facts: Women of the Shanar caste were barred from covering their upper torso at one time and they gained the right to do so after a prolonged violent conflict.
Three points have raised the hackles of political parties and activists from the Nadar community. One, the reference to the caste as ‘Shanar’; two, the line ‘...a community of toddy tappers who migrated to southern Travancore to work under Nair landlords’; and three, the ‘blackout’ of the name of Ayya Vaikundar, a 19th century religious savant-social activist from Swamithope in Kumari who played a prominent role in the movement.
Balaprajathipathi Adigal, a descendant of Ayya Vaikundar, now the high priest of the Ayya Vazhi cult, quoted from the passage — ‘Under the influence of Christian missions, Shanar women converts began in the 1820s to wear tailored blouses and cloths to cover themselves like the upper castes’ – and said, “It was Ayya Vaikundar who fought for the rights of the lower caste people in the district since the age of 17. The textbook blacked out his role in the movement.” He took exception to the term ‘Shanar’, to the description of them as ‘toddy tappers’ and migrants. “Nadars were the natives,” he said.
Some academics beg to differ with the politicians and leaders of Nadar associations who have issued statements and given press conferences. Ivy Peter, a retired history professor of Women’s Christian College in Nagercoil, says the first stirring of the upper cloth movement did start under the influence of the Christian missions as is evident from the order issued in 1813 by Col John Munro, the British resident in Travancore court, granting permission to women converted to Christianity to wear a stitched upper cloth way before Vaikuntar, born in 1809 or 1810, got active.
While no one can deny the role of Vaikuntar in the social transformation for the Nadars, academics point out that the NCERT text only mentions that women ‘started wearing’ the upper cloth under the influence of Christian missions. As the essay does tracing the detailed history of the movement, omission of Vaikuntar’s name cannot be termed a blackout, they say.
D Peter, retired Economics professor in Nagercoil, social activist, local historian and editor of a local magazine Samuthaya Sinthanai (Social Thoughts), sees nothing wrong in the use of the word ‘Shanar’ as till July 7, 1921, when the Government of Madras issued a GO that the term ‘Nadar’ be adopted, the caste was referred to as ‘Shanar’.
About the statement on the migration of Shanars to Kanyakumari, Peter says that there are three theories suggesting that they could have come from different places. “Whether the people came from elsewhere or not, they are the natives as they have been living there for centuries. On that count there is no need to raise a hullabaloo over a lesson in a school textbook,” he feels. Almost all those who want the text corrected insist that the Nadars are sons of the soil.
Though Janaki Nair is not willing to speak to the media on the issue, it is learnt that she sourced the information on migration from the book The Nadars of Tamilnad by Robert L Hardgrave, a political historian of the USA, which was published in 1969. In the book Hardgrave says: “The migration undoubtedly occurred quite early, perhaps during the sixteenth century…. In the luxuriant lands of Travancore, these Nadars continued as palmyrah climbers, laboring on the lands of aristocratic Nadars or Vellalas in the eastern portion of Kanyakumari, and towards the west, on the lands of the powerful Nair community.”
Leaders of today’s Nadar community, which has made rapid strides since those days, are not prepared to accept Hardgrave’s version. They point out that not all Nadars were serving upper castes or were toddy tappers.
There were wealthy families owning large tracts of land even then, they say.
A group of affluent Nadars from Kanyakumari, now living in Chennai, recently met and decided to issue a legal notice to NCERT and Janaki Nair demanding changes in the essay. “We are sons of the soil, there can be no second opinion on that,” says M G Devasahayam, a former AS officer and social activist in the group. Will NCERT give in to popular demand and make changes in the text? One has to wait and watch.
