Vaikom Satyagraha
Historical Context:
- A non-violent protest began in the temple town of Vaikom in the princely state of Travancore on March 30, 1924, and this marked the commencement of “temple entry movements” throughout the nation.
- At the period, caste prejudice and untouchability were widespread throughout India, with some of the strictest and most inhumane standards being documented in Travancore. Caste-based prejudice affected groups like the Ezhavas and Pulayas. They included a ban on walking on the streets near temples as well as on entering temples.
- In response, the Vaikom Satyagraha was started. It prioritised social reform amid rising nationalist feeling and protests across the nation. Also, it introduced Gandhian peaceful protest strategies for the first time to Travancore.
In the start of the 20th century, Travancore’s social environment was as follows:
- “Feudal, militaristic, and brutal system of custom-ridden rule” characterised the princely realm of Travancore.
- Even though the caste system wasn’t unique to Travancore, there were some of the most strict, sophisticated, and brutal social standards and rituals there.
- Several social and political changes that occurred in the second half of the 19th century would hasten social change more quickly than at any other time.
- Secondly, with the help of the East India Company and an enlarged missionary network, many members of the lower castes chose to become Christians in order to flee an oppressive system that still bound them.
- Second, numerous progressive reforms were implemented as a result of pressure from the British Resident and the accession to the throne of the well-educated and slightly westernised Maharaja Ayilyam Thirunal. The implementation of a contemporary educational system with free elementary education for everyone, including lower castes, was the most significant of them.
- Finally, these changes and the forces of capitalism produced new social hierarchies that weren’t necessarily in line with earlier ones. A sizable educated elite had started to emerge among caste-Hindus, Christians, and even avarna Hindus, particularly Ezhavas, by the turn of the 20th century.
- The extreme material and intellectual privations of lower castes did not continue, despite the fact that religion and custom remained ubiquitous and were often further strengthened.
The Vaikom Satyagraha’s lead-up:
- Ezhava leader TK Madhavan originally brought up the topic of temple access in a 1917 editorial in his newspaper Deshabhimani. He started to support more direct tactics in 1920, spurred on by the success of Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Campaign.
- In order to make a point that year, he personally walked beyond the limited signposts on a route close to the Vaikom temple in north Travancore.
- But it wasn’t simple. In Travancore, there were upper-caste counter-agitations in the 1920s; nonetheless, the Maharaja refrained from enacting reforms out of concern for caste Hindus’ retaliation.
Satyagraha known as Vaikom:
- “A Nair, an Ezhava, and a Pulaya, dressed in Khaddar uniforms and garlanded, and accompanied by a crowd of thousands, sought to utilise the highways” in the early hours of March 30, 1924, according to Robin Jeffrey.
- The cops apprehended them and took them into custody as the crowd dispersed. Nonetheless, the same three guys from different castes would enter the “forbidden routes” every morning and risk arrest. This play continued incessantly until April 10, when the police ceased making arrests and barricaded the entire area.
- Once the Maharaja of Travancore passed away in August 1924, Queen Sethulakshmi Bai, the young Maharani Regent, released all captives. But she resisted allowing all castes access to temples when a sizable protesting crowd marched to Trivandrum’s royal palace.
- Gandhi started his tour of Travancore in March 1925 and was able to reach a compromise: three of the four roads leading to the temples were made accessible to all people, but the fourth, known as the eastern road, was kept as a caste-hindu area.
- When the government finished building diversionary roads that the lower castes could use without contaminating the temple, this was finally put into practise in November 1925. The final satyagrahi was recalled from Vaikom on November 23, 1925.
The aftereffects and legacy:
- It is admirable in and of itself that such a powerful and vibrant movement persisted for more than 600 days nonstop despite intimidation from the public, police crackdowns, and even a natural disaster (one of the worst floods in recorded history hit Vaikom in 1924). Additionally, the Vaikom Satyagraha demonstrated a level of unity across caste lines that was essential for this ongoing mobilisation.
- However, the satyagraha’s conclusion was unspectacular and led to a compromise that many people found difficult to accept. It would cause a rift within the Congress, with Periyar and Gandhi famously clashing over the problem. Gandhi, as usual, valued a good compromise, but Periyar required a much more radical approach to the fight.
- The Vaikom Satyagraha, according to historian MR Manmathan, allowed “the (upper caste) leadership of the Congress to coerce the caste-Hindus to compromise on the question of temple-entry as the only viable means to ward off religious conversion which challenged the very survival of the Hindu community,” he claims.
- The Maharaja of Travancore signed the historic Temple Entry Proclamation in November 1936, nearly ten years after the Satyagraha was over, lifting the long-standing restriction on the entry of low-caste people into Travancore temples. Even when viewing the Vaikom Satyagraha critically, the final result can be viewed as a major success.
- While the British may have stepped in in the past to support more liberal policies to prevent social unrest, they were too preoccupied at the time with dealing with the Non-Cooperation Movement. The lower castes, however, gained a new ally.
- Till 1917, the Indian National Congress refused to take up social reform, “lest the growing political unity of Indians against the British got disrupted”, But with the rise of MK Gandhi and increased activism within lower caste communities and untouchables, social reform soon found itself front and centre of Congress’s and Gandhi’s politics.
- When Gandhi came to south India in 1921, Madhavan managed to arrange a meeting with him and secured his support for a mass agitation to enter temples. Due to various reasons, it would take two more years before any concrete progress was made in the matter.
- In the 1923 Kakinada session of the INC, a resolution was passed by the Kerala Provincial Congress Committee to take up anti-untouchability as a key issue. This was followed by a massive public messaging campaign and a movement to open Hindu temples and all public roads to avarnas.
- Vaikom, a small town with a revered Shiva temple, was chosen as the location for the first satyagraha. Notably, to widen the appeal of the movement, leaders including Madhavan, chose not to emphasise on the issue of temple re-entry to begin with. Rather, the movement focussed on opening up the four roads around the temple to avarnas.
