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BECOMING CITIZENS
Transformations of State and Jati
in Colonial Keralam
BECOM ING CITIZENS
Transformations of State and Jati in
Colonial Keralam

P S MANOJ KUMAR

AKHAND PUBLISHING HOUSE

DELH I (INDIA)
Published by
AKHAND PUBLISHING HOUSE
Publisher, Distributor, Exporter having an Online Bookstore
H ead Off i ce : L-9A, Ist Floor, Street No. 42,
Sadatpur Extension, Delhi-110094 (INDIA)
Phone N o.: 9968628081, 9555149955 & 9013387535
E-mai l : akhandpublishing@yahoo.com,
akhandpublishinghouse@gmail.com
Websi te : www.akhandbooks.com
BECOM I N G CI TI ZEN S
Transformations of State and Jati in Colonial Keralam
© Author
Ist Edition 2019
ISBN 978-93-81416-86-0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, transmitted or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the copyright owner Author/Editors. Application for such permission should
be addressed to the Publisher and Author/Editors. Please do not participate in or
do not encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s
rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
The responsibility for facts stated, opinion expressed or conclusions reached
and plagiarism, if any, in this book is entirely that of the author. Neither the
publishers nor the editor will be responsible for them whatsoever.
Printed in India
Published by Jhapsu Yadav for Akhand Publishing House. Cover
Designed and Laser Typesetting at VM Graphic and Printed at
VM offset Printers, Delhi.
Acknowledgements
The Contents of this book is the modified version of a part of
my Research Thesis, Formation of Hindu Religious Identity
in Kerala: A Study of Socio- Religious Movements (1792-
1936). Several persons supported me with their time, energy
and love to enlighten me and keep me alive in the course of
my studies. I should say, they are in my mind and I am
grateful to them. But there a few persons about whom I
should mention here and express my heartfelt obligation.
I express my sincere gratitude to my guru, Dr. C. Balan.
I am indebted to him for the freedom he had given me in my
journey of research. I thank him for the best seeds he sowed
in me as a teacher.
My friend Damodar Prasad and I were planning to write
a book on the socio- religious reform movements, back in 1997.
Though that work didn’t materialize, the readings made by
me nourished me much. He, as a friend had stood with me
deeply loving and firmly holding. No words can express my
feel for him.
I should remember the name of Prof. Uma Chakravarti
with reverence. Her advice to rework the research thesis and
bring books out of that had mobilized my work, a lot. My
indebtedness to Prof. Manu Chakravarthy in this regard is
beyond words. His constant calls checking the progress of
the work motivated me much. Nizara Hazarika is constant
support for me. Unvaryingly, she stood with me compelling
me to complete the work. She spared her valuable time for
reading the first drafts of chapters and to make detailed
comments on those.
 (vi)
Dr. Vijayalakshmi M, with motherly care, had supported
me. I am indebted for the care she extended. Kathirvel S, I V
Babu, Shakkeela U V, Lukmanul Hakeem and Bindu
Balagopal- my dear friends had compellingly pushed me to
bring this book. I thank them. Unfortunately, Kathirvel and
Babu had left me forever. Rest in Peace my best buddies.
I am indebted to my parents, Rathnam and Sivaraman Glossary
for their constant encouragement and support. Hema
extended every possible help and support. My daughters,
Akshara and Aaranya with their wonderful presence had
relaxed me and rejuvenated me always with their love and Acharam Customary Practices
understanding. Anacharam Practices not found elsewhere, peculiar
Last but not least, I express my heart felt gratitude to to Keralam
Virendra Yadav and Akhand Publishing House for their Antharjanam Nampoothiri woman
support for bringing this work to light.
Brahmaswom Land possessed by Brahmins
P S Manoj kumar
Devaswom Temple Property
Karanavars Male head of household, who was in
managerial capacity
Kovilakam Household of Royal Family
Koyma Suzerain
Makkathayam Patriliny
Marumakkathayam Matriliny
Parivedanam Same caste marriage by Younger sons
of a Namboothiri Family
Poorvacharams Traditional customs
Sambandham Connubial relationship between Nair
women and Namboodiri, Ambalavasi or
Nair males; Among Ambalavasis,
relationship between women and
Namboothiri
Sanketam Temple territories controlled by
Brahmins- considered as sacred
Smartavicharam Trial by the Smartan underthe orders
of ruler
 (viii)
Tarawad Nair Household
Urala Temple Trustee

Abbreviations

EPW Economic and Political Weekly

INC Indian National Congress
LMS London Missionary Society
OUP Oxford University Press
 Contents

Acknowledgements v
Glossary vii
Abbreviations ix
Introduction xiii
1. Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 1
2. Viewing Jati – Making of a Spectrum 31
3. Jati: The Way of Life, Unknown to Rulers 40
4. Jati Coercion: Political Tool of the State 44
5. Jati as Sophisticated Tool of Surveillance 52
6. Challenges from Within: Ayyavazhi 75
7. Colonial Attempts to Understand Jati 114
8. Out of the Colonial Umbrella- Defining Jati as
Social Status 128
9. Construction of Anti- Brahmanical Consciousness
in Keralam 137
10. Jati as Site of Contestation 148
Conclusion 169
Appendix 172
Bibliography 175
Index 192
 Introduction

Becoming citizens and acquiring the status of citizenship

in Keralam was a laborious process. These were neither easy
task, nor were they peacefully bloomed but were a result of a
complex socio- political and cultural process which demanded
the pains and lives of so many people. The socio- political
and cultural situations during the period from the last decade
of 18th c to the early decades of 20th c- the period of British
colonialism in Keralam- witnessed these processes.
The history of the British colonialism in Keralam begins
with the gaining of Malabar as the spoils of war by the English
East India Company from the Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan
through the Treaty of Srirangapattana in 1792. This marked
the beginning not only of the colonial administration but of
the series of socio- political and religious transitions in
Keralam.
In the period from the last decade of 18th century to the
early decades of 20th century, there were serious attempts on
the part of the colonial administrators and the responding
natives to confront the jati structure which existed in
Keralam, which in its functional and epistemological
dimensions maintained umbilical relationship with the
traditional state structures. Thus in those days, any attempts
to engage with the jati were in effect the engagements with
the state structures.
The colonial administration had seriously engaged with
the native administrative modalities and attempted to
transform it thoroughly. The attempts to develop the colonial
 (xiv) (xv)
administrative modalities and to hegemonize the state (3) How did the traditional power elements (the dominant
functions in Keralam on the part of the British compelled the jatis) react to the British attitudes and how the British
old state structure to transform. The engagements of the administrators handled the situation? (4) How did the
colonial state apparatus with the society of Keralam paved interface between the traditional forces and the new situations
the way not only for the transformation of the traditional emerge out of the policies and administration of the British
state structures but it in a way led to the collapse of the which necessitated the formation of a new state structure?
traditional jati structure which was prevalent. The social (5) The study will also focus on how the native intelligentsia
engagements and the emerging political trends carved out a challenged the traditional state systems normalized/
sort of state structure, which relied upon the knowledge legitimized by the jâti system. In this category, the efforts of
regarding the social components and processes in Keralam. the administrators, socio- religious reformers, political
This, informed state was an aberration from the traditional intelligentsia etc. were focused.
state structure and the governance associated with it.
The engagements with the jati structure and the
guardian state was not that easy as there were tough
resistances in Keralam from various jatis which enjoyed
various rights and privileges for the reason that they were
placed at the center of the jati system and as such functioned
as the wielders of the state powers. But the historical situations
provided by the domination of the British over the social and
political domains and the movements which the intellectuals
and people belonging to the lower castes launched which
attacked the existing ideological and political domination of
Brahmindom provided a socio- political setting which formed
a firm base to attack and surpass the ideological and political
masquerading of ritual and knowledge supremacy of the
Brahmins and social reservations that the superior caste
people claimed. Simultaneously, in these historical situations
which provided the emergence of new state structure and
the transformations of jati structure, the individualization
and the processes for becoming the citizens were being
materialized. Along with these certain concepts regarding
the rights too were being taking shape.
In this study, attempts are made to comprehend four
matters. (1) How the jatis functioned in the society and what
the nature of relations between the State and jati was in the
pre- British period. (2) What integral differences did the
British bring into change the structure of the jati and what
were the policies of the British which materialized this change.
 1

Views on ‘Caste’1 – Making

of a Spectrum

Caste was an important problem which puzzled the

British and the people who lived within the jati system.
There were several attempts to understand jati from
different perspectives ranging from sociological,
anthropological/ racial, historical, and economic during
the colonial period.
The intellectual indebtedness of the Europeans of
other countries to Portuguese in the matters regarding
jati has been traced out by Joan Pau- Rubies. He argues:
The Portuguese presence in Asia after 1499
entailed an important leap both in the amount
of information regarding oriental societies
which was available, and in the variety of
generic forms it took… The fact that the
Portuguese Pires, Barbosa, Paes and Nunes…
introduced an understanding of India as a
caste society into Europe… The point here is
not to claim any direct influence across the
centuries: but between these early Portuguese
writers, published by Ramusio in his travel
collection, and the late French Jesuits of the
Coromandel Coast whose work, via
Dubois, was so valuable to the British, there
2 Becoming Citizens
stood a formidable tradition of seventeenth-
century missionary writers on South Indian
religion.2
Understanding Caste: Colonial Attempts
Major attempts were made to understand the
institution of caste in Colonial India. The survey reports,
census reports, ethnographical reports and Manuals
produced by the administrators have ample information
regarding the attempts conducted during this period in
Keralam.3 In this study no attempts is made for detailed
discussions regarding the attempts of the colonial
administrators to understand caste through the above
mentioned tools. The focus is on certain scholars who
have made some landmark observations regarding the
structure and functioning of caste.
In his writings on Malabar, Barbosa had identified
18 groups which he has traced in a descending order of
social power as higher and lower castes. He observes:
“In these kingdoms of Malabar there are eighteen sects
of Gentiles, each one of which is much distinguished
from the others in so great a degree that the ones will
not touch the others under pain of death or dishonour
or loss of their property: and all of them have separate
customs in their idol-worship.”4
Thus it reveals that there were attempts to
understand the native people as homogenous group
though ‘all of them have separate customs in their’
religious practices, food practices, inheritance, social
positioning and relations. It is this vision which made
Barbosa to observe that “In these kingdoms of Malabar,
besides the races of the kings and gentiles and natives
of the country, there are other foreign people who are
merchants and traders in this country, in which they
possess houses and estates; and they live like natives of
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 3
the country, and observe their own sect and customs”5
and to place Chettis and Gujarathis as odd members in
the society and fix them as non- natives along with
Mapuler (Mappilas) and Paradesis.6
The categorization of natives and non- natives give
way to the Brahmanical standards of social stratification
and social vision in the span of two centuries. This,
though was a common outlook, is explicitly pronounced
in the work on Indian society produced by Abbe J A
Dubois.7
The general view of the European scholarship on
jati during the period under review has been summed
up by Abbe. J. A. Dubois. According to him, “The word
Caste is a Portuguese term, which has been adopted by
Europeans in general, to denote the different classes or
tribes into which the people of India are divided.”8 He
has viewed it as the most ordinary and the most ancient
form of partition of population in India. Following the
Varna categorization, Dubois recognized fourfold
division of Indian society as Brahmins, Kshatriyas,
Vaisyas and Sudras. He further states that ‘each of these
four principle tribes (emphasis added) is subdivided into
several more, of which it is difficult to determine the
number’9. Dubois has observed that the subdivisions
varied in different districts and that several castes
known in one province do not appear in another.10 He
understood Varna as social division having tribal nature
and jatis as sub divisions within these varnas.
Thus it can be observed that by the 19th century, in
the general understanding of the Europeans,
Brahmanical Varna formed the basic theme of social
segmentation in India and that they found jati as
subdivision within the Varna. This schema with respect
to ‘caste’ and ‘sub- castes’ was accepted generally as the
knowledge regarding varna and jati while preparing the
caste reports and documents. Beyond these, focusing on
4 Becoming Citizens
certain aspects of the working of jatis, certain other
viewpoints appeared in the discourses on caste. One of
the census reports featured it as follows:
Caste or class, by which term should be
understood the sections of the community
distinguished from one another be certain
social usages or historical associations, which
generally create a spirit of exclusiveness often
going to length forbidding intermarriages and
even common meals.11
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar on Caste
Some different voices too were heard during the
colonial period. One among such voices was that of Dr.
B. R. Ambedkar. In his lecture made in the Columbia
University, in 1916, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar argued on the
practical and theoretical problem associated with the
jati. He noted:
I am quite alive to the complex intricacies of a
hoary institution like Caste… The caste
problem is a vast one, both theoretically and
practically. Practically, it is an institution that
portends tremendous consequences. It is a local
problem, but one capable of much wider
mischief, for “as long as caste in India does
exist, Hindus will hardly intermarry or have
any social intercourse with outsiders; and if
Hindus would migrate to other regions on
earth, Indian caste would become a world
problem. Theoretically, it has defied a great
many scholars who have taken upon
themselves, as a labour of love, to dig
into its origin…. According to well-known
Ethnologists, the population of India is a
mixture of Aryans, Dravidians, Mongolians
and Scythians. All these stocks of people came
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 5
into India from various directions and with
various cultures, centuries ago, when they
were in a tribal state… Through constant
contact and mutual intercourse they evolved
a common culture that superseded their
distinctive cultures. It may be granted that
there has not been a thorough amalgamation
of the various stocks that make up the people
of India…. But amalgamation can never be
the sole criterion of homogeneity as predicated
of any people. Ethnically all peoples arc
heterogeneous. It is the unity of culture that
is the basis of homogeneity. Taking this for
granted, I venture to say that there is no
country that can rival the Indian Peninsula
with respect to the unity of its culture. It has
not only a geographic unity, but it has over
and above all a deeper and a much more
fundamental unity-the indubitable cultural
unity that covers the land from end to end.
But it is because of this homogeneity that
Caste becomes a problem so difficult to be
explained. If the Hindu Society were a mere
federation of mutually excluded units the
matter would be simple enough. But Caste is
a parcelling of an already homogeneous unit,
and the explanation of the genesis of Caste is
the explanation of this process of parcelling.12
Caste - Arena of Research
Jati had become a domain of serious studies with
scholars having different opinions articulating their
views substantiating those with the evidences they had
collected. The present author does not intend to capture
the entire historiographical progress with respect to jati
but intends to launch attention on some, which could be
taken as path breaking attempts in the field of jati
6 Becoming Citizens
studies. Some names which are worth remembering with
respect to the discussion on jati are of Louis Dumont13,
M. N. Srinivas14, Andre Beteille15, Nicholas B Dirks16,
McKim Marriot17, Gloria Goodwin Raheja 18, Ronald B
Inden19, Partha Chatterjee20 and Uma Chakravarti21. Jati
was variously understood and pictured by these scholars.
The approaches they generated and the debates that
emerged out of the researches of these scholars on caste
have, no doubt, enriched the studies on jati.
One of the important genres of studies was that
which relied on the scriptures which pronounced on the
Varna and Jati that postulated ‘Caste’ as a traditional
social phenomenon or rather the tradition itself. This
attitude in approach can be seen in the works of Louis
Dumont. According to Dumont, the core ideology upon
which the caste system operates is hierarchy. For
establishing the ideology of hierarchy, Dumont takes the
theorization on to the principle of the system of
‘opposition of pure and impure’ 22 in which the pure
maintains superiority over the impure. Dumont puts it
as follows:
This opposition underlies hierarchy, which is
the superiority of the pure to the impure,
underlies seperation because the pure and the
impure must be kept separate, and underlies
the division of labour because pure and
impure occupations must likewise be kept
separate. The whole is founded on the
necessary and hierarchical coexistence of the
two opposites. One could speak of a ‘synthetic
a priori’ opposition: it is unprofitable to atomize
it into simple elements just to gratify our logic,
and in any case it should not be analysed
without being subsequently recomposed.23
Thus it could be understood that the logic of Dumont in
the analysis of caste was that of pure and impure which
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 7
structures a system, which in turn is evident in society
as hierarchy. The matter of pure and impure is seen by
Dumont as ‘a religious, even a ritualistic, matter.’24 He
continues his argument as follows:
For this type of hierarchy to emerge it was
necessary that the mixture of status and power
ordinarily encountered should be separated,
but this was not enough: for pure hierarchy
to develop without hindrance it was also
necessary that power should be absolutely
inferior to status.25
The above argument was to serve the purpose of
explaining the nature and content of the power- status
dichotomy between the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas,
in which the status of the Brahmins was placed by him
above the Kshatriyas through the logic of purity acquired
by the Brahmins religiously and ritualistically. When it
comes to the case of next hierarchy in relation, Dumont
argues as follows:
…the theory of castes resorts implicitly or
obliquely to the varnas in order to complete
its treatment of power. Indeed in the theory
of the purity of the vegetarian merchant ought
logically to have precedence over a king who
eats meat. But this is not the case, and to
understand the fact it is necessary in
particular to remember that the theory of
varnas, whilst it subordinates king to priest,
power to status, establishes solidarity between
them which opposes them conjointly to the
other social functions.26m
Dumont, in his attempts to tame the contradictions in
the status- power dissentions, has argued on the matter
as follows:
…hierarchy or its concrete and incomplete
form, status ranking, is not everything. It
8 Becoming Citizens
leaves out power and its distribution, but,
given the fact that it does not attack or negate
power; should it not reflect power within itself
in some manner... power exists in the society,
and the Brahmin who thinks in terms of
hierarchy knows this perfectly well; yet
hierarchy cannot give a place to power as such,
without contradicting its own principle.
Therefore it must give a place to power
without saying so…27
Taking the discussion on Jati and placing it as a local,
hereditary and endogamous unit, with hierarchy as the
nature which in specific regions is expressed in the
idiom of purity and impurity, M. N. Srinivas has stated
as follows:
Another grey area in our understanding of
caste is the manner in which the jati system
emerged and spread all over the country, jati
being a local, hereditary, and endogamous
unit practicing a traditional occupation,
frequently along with agriculture… and some
form of trade. The jatis of a micro region
formed a hierarchy with the Brahmins at the
top and the former Untouchables, now
Scheduled Castes (SCs), or Dalits at the
Bottom. The relations between the various
jatis of a region are expressed in the idiom of
purity and impurity. Occupation, diet, place
of residence, clothes, and life style are all
ranked, and they carry clear and specific
meanings to local people everywhere. But
paradoxical as it may seem, such a meticulous
ranking system exists along with a great deal
of disagreement about mutual rank, a jati
claiming a rank which is often not conceded
by its neighbors. Ambiguity of rank, especially
in the middle ranges of the system, is an
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 9
essential feature of the system, and exists
because it is a precondition of mobility.28
Srinivas has also attempted to see the ranking in the
jati system based on the ownership on land. He observes:
Status considerations generally came in the
way of big land owners doing manual work,
which was rated low, the actual work of
cultivation being carried out by tenants,
hereditary servants, and casual labourers.
Each family of landowners was served by
members of such specialist castes as
Carpenter, Blacksmith, Potter, Washerman,
Barber and Priest, the serving families being
rewarded with agreed- upon quantities of
grain at each harvest.29
Srinivas has, in a study elsewhere, reaffirmed his faith
in the hierarchy approach and the basic scheme of pure-
impure paradigm which determined the nature of
hierarchy, adding the land factor to it. He argues:
…essential characteristic of the system of
production was hierarchy. The local sections
of the jatis which came together to produce
the basic needs of daily living, related to each
other hierarchically… That the hierarchy
expressed itself in the idiom of ritual purity
and impurity is a matter of common
knowledge… the higher jatis and everything
associated with them was pure while the
opposite was true of the lower jatis with
untouchability marking the apex of impurity.
But along with the ancient and higher
articulated principles there was another,
much less articulated but no less real and
pervasive principle, namely, a jati’s
relationship to land. Landowners occupied the
top of the pyramid while the landless were at
the bottom. There was a graduation among
10 Becoming Citizens
landowners depending upon the amount of
land owned by a household followed by
tenants and share- croppers… When a jati
owned the bulk of land in a village, and
enjoyed numerical strength, it exercised
dominance in village affairs, everyone obeying
its decrees, even castes marked ritually higher.
M. N. Srinivas had also viewed mobility as an intimate
feature of jati based society. He opines:
While traditional, pre- British Indian society
was stationary in character, it did not preclude
the mobility, upward as well as downward, of
individual castes in the local hierarchy... The
two most potent sources of mobility were the
fluidity of the political system, especially at
the lower levels, and the availability of
marginal land which could be brought under
the plough...31
He also attempted an analysis of the developments
which happened around this ‘mobility’ during the British
period. According to Srinivas, the British rule had a
double edged impact on the ‘mobility’. It closed the
‘traditional avenues of mobility on one side and brought
several new ones into shore. He also observed that the
British rule ‘set forces in motion’ which fundamentally
altered the character of the Indian society. He observes
that ‘Indian society ceased to be stationary and became
mobile and the quantum of mobility increased as the
years went by.’32 It was to establish the ‘mobility’ within
the hierarchy and thereby to establish that it was not
that rigid a system that Srinivas conceptualized the idea
of Sanskritization. He puts the idea of Sanskritization
as follows:
…is the process by which a “low” Hindu caste,
or tribal or other group, changes its customs,
ritual, ideology and way of life in the direction
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 11
of a high, and frequently, “twice- born” caste.
Generally such changes are followed by a
claim to a higher position in the caste
hierarchy than that traditionally conceded to
the claimant caste by the local community. The
claim is usually made over a period of time…
before the “arrival” is conceded. Occasionally
a caste claims a position which its neighbours
are not willing to concede.33
Maintaining the view that ‘there are two distinct
tendencies which are implicit in the caste system’,
Srinivas attempts to elaborate it. He argues those as (1)
‘acceptance of the existence of multiple cultures,
including the moral and religious norms, in any local
society. This acceptance is accompanied by a feeling that
some institutions, ideas, beliefs and practices are
relevant to one’s group while others are not’ (2) ‘the
imitation of the ways of higher castes.’34 Srinivas has
also noted the functions and role of ‘dominant castes’ in
the villages. Through the conceptualization of ‘dominant
castes’, Srinivas was trying to inculcate the elements of
power and maintenance and reiteration of the same
through coercive means in villages. The source of power
according to him was the rules of the locality and those
inherited from great tradition. He says:
The elders of the dominant caste in a village
were the watchdogs of a pluralistic culture and
value system. Traditionally, they prevented
the members of a caste from taking over the
hereditary occupation of another caste whose
interests would have been hurt by an inroad
made into their monopoly, the only exceptions
being agriculture and trade in some
commodities. The dominant caste probably
ignored minor changes in the ritual and style
of life of a low caste, but when the latter
refused to perform the services, economic or
12 Becoming Citizens
ritual, which it traditionally performed, or
when it appropriated an important high- caste
symbol, then punishment followed swiftly…
The dominant castes, then, maintained the
structural distance between the different
castes living within their jurisdiction. Many
of the rules which they upheld and enforced
were local rules while a few… were the rules
of the great tradition… The role of the
dominant caste was not restricted to being the
guardian of the pluralistic culture. It also
stimulated in lower castes a desire to imitate
the dominant castes own prestigious style of
life.35
Maintaining the paradigm of a system of hierarchy of
ritual status, Andre Beteille has attempted to trace out
what jati is. According to him, Jati may be understood
as “…a small and named group of persons characterized
by endogamy, hereditary membership, and a specific
style of life which sometimes includes the pursuit by
tradition of a particular occupation and is usually
associated with a more or less distinct ritual status in a
hierarchical system.”36
After Dumont and Srinivas, a serious attempt of
studying caste can be seen in the works of Nicholas B.
Dirks. Based on the extensive studies conducted among
the Kallars in Tamilnadu, he offers critique to the
positions of Dumont and offers alternative
conceptualizations the Castes of Mind: Colonialism and
the Making of Modern India. He argues that it is through
the census and surveys focusing on the ethnographic
details that the consciousness about “caste” was built
by the British rulers. He says:
…it was under the British that “caste” became
a single term capable of expressing, organizing
and above all “systematizing” India’s diverse
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 13
form of social identity, community and
organization… In short, colonialism made
caste what it is today.37
Elaborating further, Dirks states that the colonialism
in India produced new forms of society which was taken
as traditional. He further argues that the caste we now
understand and see it is not a residue from the ancient
Indian society but specifically a colonial product. He
maintains the view that the caste is a substitute for civil
society which justified and maintained an oriental
vision.38
Challenging the thesis offered by Dumont on caste,
Dirks cites example from the state of Tamilnadu-
‘although Brahmins were indexed at the top of the ritual
order of things, when honors were given in temple
festivals throughout the state, they were given first to
the king and only afterward to the Brahman.’ 39
Elaborating his position Dirks argues:
The history of inam grants… reveals the
extent to which the terms that came to be used
as “caste” titles were themselves political in
origin and meaning. Caste appears in part as
the sedimentation of older political systems,
the residue of a social formation that had lost
its political dynamic as a direct result of the
British colonial conquest.40
Dirks has also delineated the contexts in which the
dharma texts which pronounced the ritual and social
superiority of the Brahmans gained the authoritative
position. He explains:
… in many medieval Hindu contexts kings
derived much of their power from worship and
bestowed their emblems and privileges in a
cultural atmosphere permeated by the
language and attitudes of worship… royal
practices mixed “religion” and “politics” so
14 Becoming Citizens
thoroughly that it would seem ludicrous to try
to separate them. Further, royal protocol and
ideology became progressively permeated by
Islamic forms that increasingly appeared in
the language and customs… the more one
engages in a study of political and cultural
history of medieval and early modern India,
the more peculiar would seem a textualist view
that privileged a small body of dharma texts
from a very specific period and provenance…
they became authoritative in large part
because of a specific collaboration in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
between British Orientalists, Brahman
Pundits and the spaces that were open to the
ethnological textualism because of the
contemporaneous historical emphasis on issues
relating to land, sovereignty and revenue.41
Adding to the dimensions, Bernard S Cohn has deployed
his view on how the colonial programme of census
authenticated the caste upon the Indian society. He
argues:
The “official” view of caste was very much
related to how the British collected information
about the caste system. In the first instance,
a caste was a “thing,” an entity, which was
concrete and measurable; above all it had
definable characteristics-endogamy,
commensality rules, fixed occupation, common
ritual practices… What was recorded could be
collated so that the Lohars, or the Ahirs, or
the Mahishyas, or the Okkaligas could be
pigeonholed and one could then go on to the
next group to be described. This way of
thinking about a particular caste was useful
to the administrator, because it gave the
illusion of knowing the people; he did not have
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 15
to differentiate too much among individual
Indians… India was seen as a collection of
castes… The “official” census-based view of
caste therefore saw the system as one of
separate castes and their customs.42
McKim Marriott has produced serious critique on the
work of Dumont and has attempted to produce another
model for approaching caste. He maintained the view
that the hierarchies which had its basis on diet,
occupation and customs determined by the notions of
purity and impurity do not conform to the working of
castes. To Marriott, castes are ethnic groups within a
larger society which tend to occupy corporate ranks in
relation to each other and marry endogamously. He
explains the ethnic groups to include both “castes” and
“tribes”. He sees it as a “hereditary group within a
society, or constituting a society, which is defined by its
members and by others as a separate people, socially,
biologically, and culturally…”43 He maintained the view
that the caste as a social phenomenon had its role in the
ancient Indus civilization. He opines that there
might be ‘separate and largely independent initial
developments under similar conditions… although one
cannot rule out the possibility’ that there was ‘a
continuity of religious and political organization’ which
‘played a part in establishing those similar conditions’.44
He elaborates it as follows:
Whatever were the circumstances of the
earliest origin of a caste hierarchy, several
different regional developments seem likely
to have occurred. Developments in each region
show effects both of differing structures in
states and civilizations, and of contrasting
contexts in village communities. If these
have grown up in recent centuries a
more widespread, overriding ideology,
16 Becoming Citizens
nomenclature, and practice concerning caste
rank, these may be attributed in large
measure to the later growth and
development of Indian civilization as a whole,
simultaneously universalizing and
transforming certain distinct regional
features. The spread of southern concepts of
pollution and of temple cults to the North, and
the southward spread of the northern
household cult, the ideology of Varna, and
Brahmanism generally may be cited as
examples.45
Regarding the development of caste ranking, Marriott
maintains the view that it was shaped and determined
by at least four ‘general dimensions of community
structure’. Those are (1) the number of ethnic groups
within the local community, (2) the existence of
correlative stratified interaction among those groups as
wholes, (3) the consistency of stratified interaction
among individual members of the different groups, and
(4) the degree to which the community’s hierarchy is
separated from possibly inconsistent hierarchies
elsewhere. These four determinants are themselves
shaped by such basic features of social structure as the
size of local settlements, the degree of local
centralization in economic, political, and religious
organization, and the range and combination of extra
local ties of marriage and descent.46
Relying on these conceptions of caste, Marriott sees
an elaborate transactional system in the villages of India.
In this transactional system, the values, ways of life, and
transactional styles on the basis of four varnas generate
caste hierarchies. He also suggests a multidimensional
model of caste instead of the Brahmanic model for the
behavioral norms and the interaction and transactions
among castes. 47 Marriott observed that three salient
features inherent in transactions generate the social
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 17
differentiation and caste ranking. Those are:
(1) In the absence of reciprocation in the same
or an inferior medium of substance-code, those
who give are to be recognized as differing from
and as standing in rank, power, and quality
of substance-code above those who take.
(2) Those who reciprocate in the same medium
are regarded as being made much the same
as each other and are therefore to be reckoned
as equal.
(3) Those who do not exchange with each other
at all, even indirectly, are considered to be
different in substance-code and to be potential
antagonists; but since they lack asymmetrical
relations, they must be scored as not unequal.48
Through these features, Marriot generates an idea
regarding the substance code and the role of these
substance codes in the act of giving and receiving while
in the act of transaction. He explains this substance code
as follows:
Transactors and transactions are oriented
ultimately neither toward “purity” nor toward
“power” as usually understood in social
science, but toward a unitary Indian concept
of superior value-power understood as
vital energy, substance-code of subtle,
homogeneous quality, and high, consistent
transactional status or rank.49
Marriott profess the substance code which he finds as
latent to transaction, as something related to Varna. He
argues that the Brahmans follow an ‘optimal’ strategy
which guards them against accepting the lower forms of
substance code. This is argued on the basis of the things
they accept. The list of acceptable things for Brahmans
includes the generative/ productive substances as land,
money, cattle etc. or transferrable substances as whole
18 Becoming Citizens
grain. They, when act as the donors, donate superior
gifts. Moreover they maintain a circle from whom the
cooked food can be received. This superiority in
acceptance and donation keep their substance code high.
As for the Kshatriyas, they follow a “maximizing”
strategy. Marriot opines that they maintain equilibrium
in the acts of giving and receiving. Their non-
selectiveness in accepting food from other caste and their
control over land and labour in their domains facilitates
them to engage in large scale distribution of food items
and arrangement of feasts. Vaisyas, according to Marriot,
observes a “minimizing” strategy. Their transactions are
minimal- be it donating or receiving. They maintain
independence and their connectedness with the village
life will be minimal, observes Marriott. As the role of
these people as donors are not very high they do not
have very high ranks and as they receives less, their
rank as receivers are not low. Thus they maintain a
middle position in the society. The Sudras according to
Marriot maintains “pessimal” strategy. They are
receivers of cooked food and those materials for bodily
needs. They lack anything with them, except their
service- which they reciprocate, to donate with. This
makes them people of low ranks in the system of
transaction.50
Gloria Goodwin Raheja in her study on the caste
dynamics of Pahansu51- a village located in Saharanpur
district of Western Uttar Pradesh- has challenged the
‘persistent western view’ which sees hierarchy as the
sole ideology defining relations among castes. In her
study which concentrated on the Gujar dominated
Pahansu village, she attempts to trace out the working
of caste relations at micro- level. She challenges the
Brahmin- centric notion of caste proposed by early
scholars as misleading and offers ‘an alternative view...
that focuses on the ritual aspects of the role of dominant
caste, particularly on presentation patterns and jajmani
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 19
relationship.’52 She formulates the argument as follows:
…there are several contextualy shifting
ideologies of inter-caste relationships apparent
in everyday village social life. Meanings and
values are foregrounded differently from
context to context and they implicate varying
configurations of castes. Detailed data on
prestation patterns and language use…
indicate that aspects of inter-caste relationship,
that I shall call ‘centrality’ and ‘mutuality’ are
distinguishable from the ranked aspect that
is usually called hierarchy. These various
aspects of relationships are differently
foregrounded in the giving and receiving of
distinct types of prestations… Among these
configurations of castes, both the ritual
centrality of the dominant caste ‘sacrificers’
(jajmans) and the mutuality among the castes
of the village prove to be more significant in
social intercourse than the hierarchical pre-
eminence of priestly Brahmans.53
Raheja, instead of viewing the caste in terms of
hierarchy, observes it through the categories of
‘centrality’ and ‘mutuality’. She puts the weight of the
operation of caste in the village society on len- den- the
patterns of giving and receiving gifts.
The Brahman is not the only recipient in Pahansu
of prestations that ensure the barkat (increase) of the
harvested grain. On each day of both the rice and wheat
harvests, the family arber goes to the fields of his jajman
to receive mutthi, a handful of the rice or wheat still on
the stalks… The similarity of the savari and the mutthi
prestations is explicit. Both are dan and thus it is the
right of the jajman to give them and the ‘obligation’ of
the Brahman and the Barber to accept.54
Focusing on the nature of prestations which are
20 Becoming Citizens
made to maintain the mutuality, she observes:
Although there are hundreds of named
prestations given in order to remove
inauspiciousness or to maintain a mutuality
among ‘one’s own’ people in Pahansu, there
are no situations in which a prestation is made
precisely because of a hierarchical
relationship… In the context of prestations
made to remove inauspiciousness, and in the
context of those given badle me, ‘in exchange’,
to ‘one’s own people’, hierarchy is not a
foreground aspect of social relationship.55
Ronald B Inden, in his study on Bengali Culture56
tries to define caste on the base of ‘the dualistic
opposition drawn between “natural substances”
(Dhathu) and “code for conduct” (Dharma).57 He observes
that the “Hindu society is so closed, rigid and unchanging
because Hindus have constructed their society out of
units defined primarily by “blood”, an entity “out there
in the natural order and essentially beyond the control
of man”58
To Inden, dhathu is,
A whole body in the Hindu view consisted of two
complementary parts, a “subtle body”… and a “gross
body” (sthula- shareera) consisting of seven “sustaining
substance”… Of these blood and reproductive substances
are of greatest concern to us, for these were considered
essential bodily substances of a genus…Thus one of the
defining features of a human jati or kula was in particular
shared “bodily substance” (dhathu)59
Summing up, Inden states that “one of the defining
features of a jati or kula was shared substance. As a genus
of living beings, each and every worship, territorial or
occupational jati was defined by its own particular
inherited bodily substance… the sharing of these
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 21
substancs alone did make a social unit a jati.”60
Inden attempts to tie up the ‘code for conduct’ with
the ‘bodily substances’. He puts it as follows:
…a particular code for conduct was considered
to be inherent in its own particular,
homologous substance. Since jatis were
defined by shared bodily substance, the code
for conduct of a jati was appropriately seen to
inhere in its distinctive bodily substance.61
Thus for Inden, the body of a person is a codification of
“coded bodily substance”. The sharing of this is the single
feature that defines the social unit as jati or kula. The
combination of bodily substances and those of worship,
occupation and territory defines the classes of jati.62
Partha Chatterjee too has addressed caste. 63 He
presents jati as a system of ideas which can be ‘shown to
have in its particular quality.’ He argues that “on one
hand a definition- by- self which is the positive
characteristic which identifies the jati as itself and on
the other a definition- for- another by which other jatis
are distinguished from it.”64 He further argues that ‘any
criterion which is supposed to identify a jati implies both
positive and negative definitions’ and that he states that
‘the distinctions and classifications by quality can be
made among jatis’.65 He observes that ‘the most powerful
candidate in sociological literature for this definition of
‘casteness’ is hierarchy.’ The reason for this attainment
of prominence for this hierarchy thesis is, according to
him, that ‘at any given time and place, the immediate
qualitative diversity of jatis can be ordered as a
quantitative ranking in a scale of hierarchy.’66 He further
observes the nature of relation within the system of caste
as follows:
…the immediate relation in the system of caste
will appear as relation between the whole and
22 Becoming Citizens
the parts. Only the parts have independent
being, but the relations between the parts are
the result of the contradictory unity of identity
and difference. The parts can be held together
only if they are mediated into self- relation
with the whole of system by force.67
He observes ‘dharma’ (religion) to be the ideological
force-as in Dumont’s treatment- of caste relations. He
says:
The question of identity or difference, one
dharma or many dharmas, then becomes not
so much a matter of judging the inherent
strength of the synthetic unification
proclaimed by the dominant religion. Any
Universalist religion, as we have argued, will
bear in its essence the contradictory marks of
identity and difference, the parts being held
together in a whole by an ideological force
that proclaims, with varying degrees of
effectiveness, its unity.68
Given the weights of the relationship between the caste
system (whole) and its parts (jatis), on force and religion
(dharma), Partha Chatterjee concentrates his attention
on the social and individual dimensions of caste system.
He observes that the body is the site of appropriation of
caste. He says:
Caste attaches to the body, not to the soul. It
is the biological reproduction of the human
species through procreation within
endogamous caste groups which ensures the
permanence of ascribed marks of caste purity
and pollution. It is also the physical contact of
the body with defiling substances or defiled
bodies that mark it with the temporary
conditions of pollution which can be removed
by observing the prescribed procedures of
physical cleansing. Further, if we have
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 23
grasped the essence of caste, it is the necessity
to protect the purity of his body that forbids
the Brahman from engaging in acts of labour
which involve contact with polluting material,
and which reciprocally, requires the unclean
castes to perform those services for the
Brahman. The essence of caste, we may then
say, requires that the laboring bodies of the
impure castes be reproduced in order that they
can be subordinated to the need to maintain
the bodies of pure castes in their state of purity.
All the injunctions of dharma must work to
this end.69
Uma Chakravarti has defined Jati as follows:
‘Jati’ refers to an endogamous unit within
which one must marry; members of a jati are
members of a descent group, traditionally
assigned to a specific occupation. Further each
jati also has its own cultural traditions with
its own food habits, rituals, dress codes and
even art forms and may thus ‘appear’ to be
merely functioning along an axis of difference,
evidence of the enormous variation in Hindu
society. Nevertheless the relationship to the
occupation and specific cultural traditions of
each caste functions within a broader
framework in which the localized hierarchy
is based on ritual status, control or lack of
control of productive resources and power.
This is the basis for the internal differences
within the caste system, making for the
division between upper or higher castes and
lower castes. It is jati which now provides the
framework for understanding the local
hierarchies within a given region. Broadly
there are three major divisions: the upper
castes… the middle castes… and other castes…
who are not polluting; and the low castes who
24 Becoming Citizens
are at the bottom of the hierarchy and whose
touch was often regarded as polluting.70
Proposing a general view on Jati, Uma Chakravarti
moves on to an argument which attempts to interlink
Class, Caste and Gender. She argues that these three
interact with and shape each other. She says:
…the structure of marriage, sexuality and
reproduction is the fundamental basis of the
caste system. It is also fundamental to the way
inequality is sustained: the structure of
marriage reproduces both class and caste
inequality and thus the entire production
system through its tightly controlled system
of reproduction.71
Let’s put in nutshell the arguments of the aforesaid
scholars for the sake of quick verification. (1) Dumont
relied on the hierarchical model of caste system in which
status is determined by the purity and impurity. It draws
a clear-cut dividing line when explaining the relations
of power to status and also of purity to power. This
model also draws on the dharma (religion) as binding
force. (2) M. N. Srinivas also relies on hierarchy as the
nature of jatis which is expressed in the idiom of purity
and impurity. He further observes that the ranking in
jati system is based on the ownership of land and states
the role of dominant castes in the caste society. He also
argues that a sort of mobility is seen within the jati
society which can be traced through the process of
Sanskritization. (3) Andre Beteille observes caste as a
hierarchical system. It is seen as a group of persons
characterized by endogamy, hereditary membership and
specific style of life which is determined mostly by
tradition of particular occupation. (4) Nicholas B Dirks
finds colonialism as the producer of the new forms of
society and observes caste as a term to systematize
diverse forms of social identity and organization in India.
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 25
He also challenged the Brahman centered hierarchical
system. (5) McKim Marriot views castes as ethnic groups
within a larger society. He has also stated that each of
these tend to occupy corporate ranks in relation to each
other and marry endogamously. He observes that the
caste has influenced the growth and development of
Indian civilization. He also observes that the salient
features inherent in transaction generate the social
differentiation and caste ranking. (6) Gloria Goodwin
Raheja , focusing on the caste- social dynamics of the
village of Pahansu has argued in favour of the centrality
of jajmans. She tries to understand caste in terms of
‘centrality’ and ‘nutrality’ and observes that the right of
jajmans to make prestations and the obligation of caste
groups including those of Brahmans to receive these
explain the nature of centrality. (7) Ronald B Inden is of
the opinion that the bodily substances define the features
of jati or kula. He has also attempted to tie up the ‘code
for conduct’ with the bodily substance. (8) Partha
Chatterjee tills the weight of relationship between caste
system and jatis on force and dharma (religion). He sees
jati as attached to body and finds biological reproduction
through endogamous caste lines which ensures caste
purity and pollution. Partha Chatterjee sees the essence
of the caste in the requirement of laboring bodies of
impure castes for the maintenance of the purity bodies
of upper castes. (9) Uma Chakravarti observes that the
class, caste and gender are linked with each other. Her
argument is that the structure of marriage, sexuality
and reproduction forms the basis of caste system which
is also the fundamental aspectof generating inequality.
It is also through the tightly controlled system of
reproduction that the entire production system is
controlled and inequality is maintained.
26 Becoming Citizens
References
1. The usage of the word caste generates deep confusions
between the categories as Varna and Jati, which are not
similar or identical in social or historical senses. In this
study, caste is used solely as the synonym of jati.
Whenever Varna is to be used, the term is used and not
the term caste is used. In the quotations, the term Caste
is used in the sense which the original authors had
assigned. While taking such a position on the terms of
caste, Jati and Varna as categories, the present scholar
is very much aware of the problems raised by Padmanabh
Samarendra in his article which says the caste is a new
category which was born in Colonial India through census
compulsions. He says: “Caste, hence, is an idea of recent
origin that emerged by displacing the text-based varna
order on the one hand and suppressing the
multifariousness of the jatis on the other. Though there
was no prior design shaping its production, a pan-Indian
caste system in its empirical avatar appeared initially
towards the close of the 19th century in the documents of
the state.”Padmanabh Samarendra, ‘Census in Colonial
India and the Birth of Caste’ in EPW, Vol XLVI, No. 33,
August 13, 2011.
2. Joan Pau- Rubies, Travel and Ethnology in Renaissance
South India through European Eyes- 1250- 1625,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 201-
202.
3. See for discussion on the process of hinduization, P. S
Manoj kumar, Formation of Hindu religious Identity in
Kerala: A Study of Socio- Religious Movements (1872-
1936), Kannur University, 2016 (Unpublished Ph D
Thesis)
4. Duarte Barbosa, (Transl. by Henrey. E. J. Stanley), A
Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar in
the Beginning of Sixteenth Century, London: Hakluyt
Society, (No Year), pp.103-104. Races of the kings and
gentiles Brahmans, Nayars, Barbers, Kusavan,
Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 27
Manatamar, Weavers, Tiyyas, Moguers, Kanian, Asari,
Mukkua, Vettuva, Panan, Pulayas, Iravalar , Parayas,
are the 18 groups referred.
5. Ibid., p.144.
6. Ibid., pp.144-147.
7. Abbe. J. A. Dubois, Character, Manners and Customs of
the People of India and of Their Institutions Religious
and Civil, Madras: Higginbotham & Co., 1879.
8. Ibid., p.1.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. A. Sankariah, Report on the Census of Native Cochin,
Madras: Graves, Cookson & Co., 1877, p.32.
12. B. R. Ambedkar, Castes in India: Their Mechanism,
Genesis and Development, Jullundur: Bheem Patrika
Publications, (No Date), pp.2-3.
13. Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus, OUP: New Delhi:
1999.
14. M. N. Srinivas, Social Change in Modern India, Bombay:
Orient Longman, 1972; Caste: Twentieth Century Avatar,
New Delhi: Penguin, 1997; Collected Essays, OUP, 2002;
M. N. Srinivas, ‘An Obituary on Caste as a System’ in
EPW, No. 38, No. 5 (Feb. 1- 17, 2003), pp. 455- 459.
15. Andre Beteille, Caste, Class and Power: Changing
Patterns of Social Stratification in a Tanjore Village,
Berkeley: California University Press, 1965.
16. Nicholas B Dirks, Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the
Making of Modern India, Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2001.
17. McKim Marriott, ‘Caste Ranking and Community
Structure in Five Regions of India and Pakistan’
(hereafter ‘Caste Ranking’) In Bulletin of the Deccan
College Research Institute, Vol. 19, No. 1/2 (1958), pp.
31-105; McKim Marriott, ‘Hindu Transactions: Diversity
without Dualism’ (hereafter ‘Hindu Transactions’) in
28 Becoming Citizens Views on ‘Caste’ – Making of a Spectrum 29
Bruce Kapferer(ed.), Transaction and Meaning: 38. Ibid., p. 60.
Directions in the Anthropology of Exchange and Symbolic 39. Ibid., p. 69.
Behaviour, Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of
Human Issues, pp. 109-42, 1976. 40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., p. 70.
18. Gloria Goodwin Raheja, The Poison in the Gift: Ritual,
Prestation and the Dominant Caste in a North Indian 42. Bernard. S. Cohn, ‘Notes on the History of the Study of
Village, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988. Indian Society and Culture’ in M. Singer & B. S. Cohn
(eds.) Structure and Change in Indian Society, Chicago:
19 Ronald B Inden, Marriage and Rank in Bengali Culture:
Aldine, 1968, pp. 15-16.
A History of Caste and Clan in Middle Period Bengal,
California: University of California Press, 1976. 43. McKim Marriott, ‘Caste Ranking’, p. 32.
20 Partha Chatterjee, ‘Caste and Subaltern Consciousness’, 44. Ibid., p. 95.
in Ranajith Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies VI: Writings 45. Ibid., pp. 95- 96.
on South Asian History and Society, New Delhi: OUP,
46. Ibid., p. 96.
1989 (2004).
47. McKim Marriott, ‘Hindu Transactions’, p. 50.
21. Uma Chakravarti, Gendering Caste through a Feminist
Lens, Calcutta: Stree, 2003, p.9. 48. Ibid., p. 112.
22. Louis Dumont, op. cit., p.43. 49. Ibid., p. 137.
23. Ibid. 50. Ibid., p. 110 ff.
24. Ibid., p. 74. 51. Gloria Goodwin Raheja, ‘Centrality. Mutuality and
Hierarchy: Shifting Aspects of Inter- caste Relationship
25. Ibid.
in North India’ in Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s)
26. Ibid., pp. 74-75. 23, 1, New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 1989, pp. 79-101.
27. Ibid., p. 77. 52. Ibid., p. 79.
28. M. N Srinivas, Collected Essays, pp.162-63. 53. Ibid., pp. 81-82.
29. Ibid., p. 163. 54. Ibid., p. 84.
30. M. N Srinivas, ‘An Obituary on Caste as a System’, p.455. 55. Ibid., pp. 92-93.
31. M. N Srinivas, Collected Essays, p.187. 56. Ronald. B. Inden, Marriage and Rank in Bengali Culture:
32. Ibid., p. 190. A History of Caste and Clan in Middle Period Bengal,
33. M. N Srinivas, Social Change in Modern India, p.6. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

34. Ibid., p. 13. 57. Ibid., p. 11.

58. Ibid.
35. Ibid., pp. 14-16.
36. Andre Beteille, op. cit., Berkeley: University of California 59. Ibid., pp. 15-16.
Press, 1971 60. Ibid., p. 17.
37. Nicholas B Dirks, op. cit., p.5. 61. Ibid., pp. 19-20.
30 Becoming Citizens
62. Ibid., p. 22.
63. Partha Chatterjee, op. cit.
64. Ibid., p. 178.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid., p. 179. 2
67. Ibid., p. 180.
68. Ibid., p. 192.
69. Ibid., p. 203.
70. Uma Chakravarti, op.cit, p.9.
Viewing Jati – Making of a Spectrum
71. Ibid., p. 27.

The attempt in the last chapter was to trace out certain

observations which gained the attention of the scholars
studying on caste/ jati/ Varna. These are selected from
multifarious views regarding Caste/ Varna/ Jati
combinations. The subjective element in the selection
and presentation of the views of these scholars is not
discarded. But the objective of the selection and
presentation of these views is not to analyze the views
of the afore mentioned scholars singularly or to present
a critique for each and every view, but to analyze the
nature of viewing of caste/ jati/ varna by these scholars
and scholars on caste generally. Afore mentioned
scholars who have studied on caste have invested their
labour and intellectual concentration on certain features
of the caste which they found/ understood as caste itself.
A close observation on the working of the jati society
from the lived histories and the knowledge base upon
which the jati constructs its ideological and historical
bases and footings it set for itself clearly shows that the
observations made by the aforesaid scholars are
applicable to jati. But the problem with those is, as
stated earlier, that these are features of jati and not the
jati itself as whole.
32 Becoming Citizens
Take for example the case of Dumont’s vision on
caste. He finds caste as hierarchy which is guided by
the notions of purity and impurity. When the caste is
observed, the indebtedness of the institution to the
notions of purity and impurity and the ideology sprouted
from those notions could never be minimized. Avoiding
the notions of purity and impurity the existence of jati
based society was unimaginable. So is the paradigm of
hierarchy. Hierarchy is latent to the jati system. Who is
in the upper strata and who is in the lower strata may
be debatable issue and the issue was decided mostly by
the power pressures of the locality and of course the
contexts in which the power is addressed and the
participants who foster the contexts. Similarly the views
of Srinivas, relying on the mobility within jati society-
which was termed by him as Sanskritization (though the
direction was not always as envisioned) - too is a fact.
So was the element of occupation, which was proposed
by Andre Beteille. The observations of Nicholas Dirks
that the castes occupy corporate ranks within them and
that the marriage systems they follow are endogamous
cannot be challenged. Similarly the right of the dominant
land owning castes to make presentations and the
obligation of caste groups including those of Brahmans
to receive these are also latent features of caste
structure. The ‘bodily substances’ defining the ‘jati’ and
‘kula’ and the ‘code for conduct’ entwined with ‘bodily
substances’ are the base of theoretical formulations of
varna/ jati universally. The propositions of Ronald B
Inden, in the circumstances, are relevant from the book
knowledge point of view on jati and varna. 1 The
observations of Partha Chatterjee on the body are very
much relevant when we think on of caste. The discussion
on caste was taken ahead by Uma Chakravarti by
incorporating into it the structure of marriage, sexuality
and reproduction forms as the basis of the caste system.
Viewing Jati – Making of a Spectrum 33
She also viewed it as the fundamental aspect of
generating inequality.
But as stated above, these all observations address
jati from the domains from where they view it. An
important element which is missing in these
observations is the intimate relationship caste structure
had with the State. Most of the observations regarding
caste- not those presented above only- maintain an
attitude which views caste merely as a social
phenomenon having no relations to State. It is because
of the maintenance of this view, discarding the political
aspect- ie., the association of the caste with State, that
the attentions are diverged to the components.
Let us take an example which happened in Keralam
in the initial decades of 20 th century to trace out the
nature of State- jati relations. The relation between state
and jati could be best traced in the context of the
Smartavichara of Thatrikkutty. The episode with respect
to the Smartavichara of Thatrikkutty had a direct
involvement of the King/ State. 2 But the attitudes of
intervention in jati matters were the same, at any level
of society. This is attested by the following incident
which happened during the course of caste reform
movements among the nambudiris of Keralam.
Kavalappara Mooppil Nair and Namboothiri
Reformers
On August 21st of 1930, Mr. Raman Nambudiri, the
younger brother of Kavalappara Somayajippad, and Mrs.
Kummini got married and proceeded to live in the
ancestral home of Raman Nambudiri. It was not a
legitimate marriage according to the then customs and
practices among the Nambudiris. It fell into the genre
of Parivedana (marriage by the younger brothers of a
Nambudiri Illam, where traditionally the elders only
were married from same jati).
34 Becoming Citizens
The marriage of Raman Nambudiri and Kummini
was in response to the call for parivedana marriages
from the progressive leaders of the Yogakshema Sabha
(the organization which worked for social reforms among
Nambudiris), like Poomulli Cheriya Vasudevan
Nambudirippad, Deshamangalath Narayanan
Nambudirippad and others who met at Koodallur. The
elders among the Nambudiris were against such social
reforms and retaliations to the reform movements too
were strong.
The fate of the newlywed Nambudiri couples too was
to meet the wrath of the anti- reformist traditional
elements of the society. The elder brother, with the
support of the local magnate Kavalappara Mooppil Nair
retaliated to the parivedana marriage. Somayajippad
left the Illam locking the store and kitchen. He ordered
the attendants of the family not to render any service to
the newlywed couples. Strict warning, that the violators
of the orders will have to face excommunication and exile
from Kavalappara, was also given. Kavalappara Mooppil
Nair too had given such diktats to the attendants. Raman
Nambudiri and Kummini were forced to hire the service
of the attendants sent for them by some friends.3 The
reformists among the Nambudiris were outraged by the
act of Kavalappara Mooppil Nair. Questions were raised
by them regarding the right of Kavalappara Mooppil
Nair who belonged to another jati - Nair jati - to interfere
in the matters of Nambudiri jati.4
Let us take this as an example of an incident with
respect to the jati tussles in which the dominant, land
owning and ruling local magnate confronted the
violators of the jati rules when objections/ complaints
were raised by the elders of the Nambudiri jati. The
elders of the jati were treating the reformist attempts
as acts against the jati rules and thus a violation of the
textual and traditional practices.
Viewing Jati – Making of a Spectrum 35
An analysis of the sequence of occurrences in this
incident reveals the fact that the Mooppil Nair was
functioning along with the Somayajippad and according
to the requests from him. It was not the interference of
a nair in the jati issues of Nambudiris as some of the
reformers stated then. Mooppil Nair, in his capacity, was
delivering the duties of a ruler who had the duty to
maintain the jati structure intact. Kavalappara Mooppil
Nair was acting according to the diktats from the anti-
reformist Brahman Elder. The Nair was opposing the
parivedana and kanishta marriage (marriage by the
younger brothers) and forcing the couples to flee from
his territory where he was dominant, because of the
instructions of the Brahman elders. Here too the
scriptures which stood against parivedana and kanishta
marriage were the guiding forces of Nair. That means
the member of the ‘dominant- land lord- hegemonic’ jati
of the region of Kavalappara was acting in tunes of the
dictates of the elders of the Brahmin caste of the region.
At this level he was functioning as a ruler – as the Rajahs
of Travancore and Cochin had performed in the
respective issues raised before them.
This deliverance of the protection of the autonomy
of the jatis, as sanctioned by the scriptures and accorded
by the elders and the protection of the internal dynamics
of the jati from the violations and hindrances was
performed from time to time by the Kings at the State
level and the dominant castes at local level. This was
not a prerogative of the Brahmins or the upper the jatis
alone. The practice was universal and the jatis which
were considered lower too enjoyed this right. Whenever
some sort of disputes arose with respect to the
functioning of the the jati, the elders of the jati were
summoned and attempts were made to find way outs.5
At this juncture, analyzing the examples cited
above, we are supposed to verify the salient features of
36 Becoming Citizens
the jatis in practice:
Firstly, that the jati structure was an
essentially patriarchal one. The matter is
attested by the fact that, who are deciding for
the whole. All the matters pertaining to the
jatis were discussed within the body/ council
of selected members of the jati and the
decisions were taken accordingly. None of the
discussions were public or with the
involvement of the total population. But, the
decisions which were taken within the council
of the limited male members were binding to
the entire jati. Never were the women
entertained with the membership in the jati
councils. This is in a way, the construction of
a hierarchy within the jati - a higher stratum
of the administrators of the population and a
lower stratum of the population who were at
the mercy of the decisions of this higher
stratum.6
Secondly, the elders and the prominent members of the
specific jatis are the decision makers with respect to
the specific jati. This inevitably gives an oligarchic
character to the jatis. Each jati thus functions as an
oligarchic autonomous unit under the guidance of these
elders.
Thirdly, the right of the jati council to decide on the
matter of membership of a person otherwise belonging
to the jati was an important feature. The membership
in a jati of a person is a birth right as per the jati norms.
The power to excommunicate a person who was found
guilty of violating jati norms was vested with the council
of the elders and prominent.
Fourthly, the right of the jati council to block the
erring members of the jati from earning the livelihood
was an important feature. It was so important for the
reason that the entire structure of subsistence was
Viewing Jati – Making of a Spectrum 37
integrated with the jatily sanctioned rights for
occupation and finding livelihoods. Thus when a person
was excommunicated or blocked from earning livelihood,
the very basis of her/ his subsistence was stalemated.
The third and the fourth categories are in essence a right
to impose jurisdictional powers over the members by
the elders and prominent members of the jati.
Fifthly, the members of jatis were vigilant to watch
the activities of the members and jatis respectively.
Sixthly, from every activity, it can be traced that
strict controls were laid over the sexuality of women.
Control over the body and sexuality and the procedures
of transactions of female sexuality were matters of jati
concerns. Tathri was tried and the partners who courted
her, along with her were excommunicated for the reason
of violating the rules regarding the ownership of her
sexuality. In the case of Mrs. Kummini she was punished
for violating the jati rules and for entering into a marital
relation undesirable to the existing jati norms. At any
level, the control over and the thirst for controlling the
feminine sexuality was an intimate theme as far as the
jatis were concerned. It is a matter upon which the
entire systems discussed above, worked with utmost
vigilance.
Finally, for the whole of the activities, functions and
the decisions taken by the jati councils pertaining to
the overall jati structure, including the punishments like
excommunication, blocking the livelihood etc., there
were sanctions from the King/ State. Or, the role of state
was explicit in all such activities.
The benefit of autonomy with respect to the jati
matters was strictly restricted to the matters related to
the specific jati. There too, autonomy was given in
specific matters. As is seen, the decisions pertaining to
the revisions, annulments, additions and departures
from existing norms were taken up by the jati councils
38 Becoming Citizens
as per the directives from the King/ State.
Autonomy was not restricted to the above
mentioned matters alone. There was liberty to all the
jatis in enjoying the rights over its own cultural
traditions viz.; its own food habits, rituals, dress codes
and art forms. There were no attempts to standardize
or induce standardization in any of the matters referred
above according to the cultural fancies and prejudices
of the rulers.
This matter is attested by the communications
between Office of Resident of Travancore and the office
of Diwan. Colonel Morisen, the Resident of Travancore
wrote remarks on the case came before him in February
1829, in which he asked the King to make ‘a regulation
prohibiting the killing of cows at Trivandrum by any
person whatsoever.’7
Even after the expiry of eight years Travanvore
Government did not formulate any regulations as
ordered by the Resident. In the Memo sent by the
Resident to the Diwan, the Resident states as follows:
“The Resident cannot learn whether a Regulation in this
effect was ever published or not, but supposing it to be
so, the manner in which it was to be expressed would
rather imply that whether not at Travancore, cows are
yet killed at other places.’8
This is a context in which the State of Travancore
had shown its attitude clearly on the matters of
recognition of the autonomy of the people on food. British
Resident, Col. Morisen was trying to curtail the age old
freedom of choice of beef as food, which was enjoyed by
many people. But the State of Travancore, as can be read
above, delayed the preparation and enactment of such a
regulation. This shows that the King/ State were not
willing to submit to the cultural prejudices and fancies
of the British curtailing the rights of many, in the
matters of food habits.
Viewing Jati – Making of a Spectrum 39
References
1. For example: Bhagavat Gita, Chapter IV
(Gyanakarmasanyasa Yoga) Sloka 14. (chathurvarnyam
mayasrushtam gunakarmavibhagasha)
2. The context of Smartavichara of Thatrikkutty, which
happened in the year 1905, is the best example for its
relevance as an issue which touched whole of Keralam.
No part of Keralam was put outside the purview of its
consideration. (It could also be treated as the first instance
when Malabar, Cochin and Travancore were integrated
during the colonial period).For a detailed analysis of the
State- jati tie ups focusing Smartavichara of Thatrikkutty
see, P. S. Manojkumar, Shaping of Rights: Jati and
Gender in Colonial Keralam, New Delhi, Meena Book
Publications, 2019, pp. 34-41.
3. Unninamboothiri,Vol. 12, No. 1, 1930 Sept. 19, pp.3-4.
4. Ibid., p.4.
5. B. No. 161, C.No.1160/1891- No. 65 of Trivandrum
Central Archives.
6. The caste councils mentioned in the above referred records
were male populated. None of these had women
membership. A curious incident which happened in June
1931 was the caste council of the Ezhavas to decide on
the abolition of the system of Illam among them which
always came in between the marriage bonds. In this caste
council held at Mankeezhu House, in which around
hundred persons attended, none were women.
7. Bundle No. 12, Cover File No: C.16386/ 1837 & No: 1059/
1837.
8. Ibid.

3 the Dewan of Travancore, by the Dewan Peishkar
Jati: The Way of Life, Unknown
to Rulers
Let us ask a pivotal question- what was the knowledge
of the state regarding the jatis, its operations etc?
Attempts to trace out the answers to this questions will
give us a clear vision not only on why autonomy was
given to the castes with respect to the matters of the
internal systems of the working of caste but will also
provide answers on the State- jati nexus and the very
nature of jati system itself.
The internal functioning of specific jatis within the
jati structure; the nature of internal relations
maintained within the jatis; the nature of succession,
individual rights, etc. were matters which were
shrouded in mystery for people who did not belong to
that jati. Even people belonging to same jatis were not
of unanimous opinions on the functioning of jatis.
Regarding the operation of the ‘jati - upajati’ structure,
one of the census reports has made the following
observation:
The operation of the caste system is to isolate
completely the members of each caste or sub-
castes and whatever native may know of the
customs of his own peculiar branch he is, as a
Jati: The Way of Life, Unknown to Rulers 41
rule, grossly ignorant of the habits and
customs or the origin of those outside the pale
of his own section of the community.1
The ambiguity is best shown by the letter submitted to
Reghunatha Row on 7th February 1891 on the question
of the right of succession to property among
Krishnavagakar/ Krishnamathakkar caste. It states:
… so far as my enquiries have up to the
present extended to ascertain the rule of
succession to propert among the
Krishnamathakkars, I have to submit that I
can find no written treatise prescribing the
rule nor do I find any “priests” among them
who can speak with some authority... The only
alternative seems to me open now, is to
summon some of the elderly persons of the
community and put them a series of questions
and record their answers and from these latter
to draw out a rule which may be reasonably
hoped to be prevailing rule. This is necessarily
a tardy method and seems to me at best of
very uncertain guide. The difficulty for a
definite opinion is enhanced by the majority
of the community having ranged themselves
on opposite sides of the question now pending
solution in the case of the Royal court of
appeal... I am summoning them to appear
before me and propose questioning them
generally to detail the law of inheritance on a
number of hypothetical cases. Their answers
with my view of what may appear to me as
the leading deductions from them, I shall
submit…2
The above quote portrays the ignorance of the state
officials on the matters related to the crucial issues
related to the functioning of the caste rules, which
42 Becoming Citizens Jati: The Way of Life, Unknown to Rulers 43
actually governed the public and private lives of the References
people. This clearly states that the dominant sections
of the traditional society, who wielded the political and 1. W. R. Cornish, Report on the Census of the Madras
social powers and who handled the state functions were Presidency, Madras, 1872, p.116.
totally ignorant of the matter how the people lived in 2. B. No. 161, C.No.1160/1891- No. 65 of Trivandrum
the society under their dominance and rule. This was Central Archives.
mainly because of the practice that the matters related 3. Kesari, June 17, 1931
to the people belonging to a particular caste were settled 4. B.No. 2; C No: 15166, of Trivandrum Central Archives.
by the elders or people having jurisdictional powers
within the caste.3
This was not particular to the castes which were
placed lower in ranks in the caste society. Such
questionnaires, to detect the nature of traditional power
structure, overlordship, nature of extraction of revenue
from cultivable lands, etc were extended to the upper
caste people also.4
The ignorance of the governing/ dominant sections
of the society on the matters regarding the life patterns
and social systems, of the people they governed is evident
from this document.
This gives an impression regarding the nature of
state and state craft which existed prior to the advent
of British and the establishment of the rule/ residency
of English East India Company in Keralam. The ruling
segments in Keralam were less knowledgeable on how
the people in its territory lived. This is because of the
peculiar nature of polity in which the society is
maintained by the rights and duties assigned to the jatis
which operated under the system of mandatory jati laws
established through traditions, customs and diktats from
the centrally placed jatis.

4 it. Thereafter as a result of series of clashes,
Jati Coercion: Political Tool of the State
It is to be noted that the autonomy sanctioned was
strictly restricted and limited to the jati practices and
the habits with respect to that of food, rituals, dress
codes, etc. ensuring that those are not violating any of
the existing jati codes or general rules regarding the
jati structure. Any attempts to violate the norms
governing the jati system were dealt with brutally.
It was not in Kavalappara region alone, as seen
above, that the acts of retaliations and repressions were
lodged against the violations of jati rules. There were
several instances of attempts to curb the violations with
brutal coercions. Let us focus on two important instances
among them in detail to have an overall survey of
representative incidents to internalize the nature of
oppression inflicted in the occasions of aberrations.
Let us first take the instance of Channar agitations
which happened in South Travancore region for over
three decades:
The agitations were results of attacks on the
Channar women who were converts to
Christianity under the encouragement of the
Missionaries. These Channar women who
accepted the Christian faith started wearing
Jati Coercion: Political Tool of the State 45
the upper cloths and breast cloths like the
upper jati women. The women, who were
converted to Christianity during the Resident-
Diwanship of Col. Munroe, were permitted to
wear breast cloth as the Suriyani women wore
in 1829, the Channar women were permitted
to wear cloths, but not to imitate the dresses
worn by the upper jatis. But, the wearing of
an additional cloth over it was seen by the
upper jatis as the violation of dress codes
prescribed to converted Channar women and
an infringement to the upper jati domains and
a disgrace to them. The upper jati people
resorted to violence and the Channar people
were brutally manhandled. Those women
wearing the cloths resembling the cloths of
upper jati women were trashed. The Christian
Channars retaliated. After violent clashes,
when the matter came before the Madras
Presidency for decisions, Sir Charles
Trevelyan took an adamant stand to revise
the positions of State on the issues regarding
the dress codes of Channar Women. The
Proclamation of 1865, on this matter, allowed
all classes to use the blouse but not the upper
cloth.1
Secondly, let us focus on the Kallumala Samaram:
It was customary that the Pulaya women had
to wear necklaces made of red glass pieces
(Kallumala). They were to wear as much as
they can carry on their neck. But the social
reformer among the Pulayas, Gopaladas
found it degrading and resorted to prompt the
women to stop wearing the Kallumalas.
Inspired by Gopaladas, many Pulaya women
at Perinad, Kollam abandoned the custom of
wearing Kallumala… the Nairs of the locality
46 Becoming Citizens
who saw the act as violation of jati rules…
attacked the people gathered and started
beating the Pulaya leaders. This enraged the
Pulayas and they… torched two- three houses
of Nairs…a joint meeting of Pulayas and Nairs
of the area were called by Ayyankali at the
ground near Kollam railway station. In the
meeting the social leader Chengannur
Parameshvaran Pillai attended and called for
abandoning the Kallumala.2
These two issues were examples taken from numerous
incidents of jati violence and atrocities that happened
in Keralam in the 19th and early decades of 20th century.
To show what the ground reality of the lives of people
were during the period under discussion, a bird’s eye
view may be taken on some more examples. The
intention of citing the examples of lived histories is to
picture the social scenario of Keralam in its reality which
will make us understand that nobody- whatever the jati
of the people be, were spared from the yoke of jati.
1. For ringing the bronze bell before worshiping, case was
filed against few Nair youngsters by the temple
management at Nadavaramba, near Iringalakuda. 3
2. For having taken meals with freedom fighter ‘Kuroor’
and his followers, some Nambudiris belonging to
Pariyarath and Changiliyott families were blocked from
having religious service. The block was removed after
performing some sacrament rituals at the Illam of
Thirunavay Vadhyar Nambudiri under the guidance of
Cherumukkil Vaidikan.4
3. For requesting to admit his brother in the School at
Chelannur, one Adidravida teacher was beaten by Nair
chiefs.5
4) Devaswom administrators had ordered the chief priest at
Nerukaithakkott temple that belonged to Zamorin, not
to allow one his relative to perform the temple rituals.
Jati Coercion: Political Tool of the State 47
The reason they pointed out was that the said Nambudiri
has connections with INC.6
5. The acting Diwan of Cochin, KIasthuri Rangayyar asked
the Pulayas not to resort to clecrical work; instead
thatshould perform agricultural works, the job prescribed
to them by God.7
6. Though decided by the prominent leaders of respective
jatis and sanctioned by the King/ State there were certain
outbursts in later years. One such incident was seen
reported in the year 1916. The report says an incident
happened at Perinad, Kollam itself. A man belonging to
Nair jati asked a Pulaya woman why she was not wearing
Kallumala, for which she answered that she abandoned
wearing it in the meeting. There upon, he picked a knife
and cut the ear of the woman.8
7. A Pothuvalsyar9 was married to a Nair and were living
together. One year after Rajah of Cochin ordered
restrictions in entering temples on the families of these
couples and their relatives who supported them.10
8. In the north Malabar a person belonging to Nambeeshan
jati was excommunicated on the grounds that he was
put in jail as a political prisoner.11
9. Adidravidas were appointed as teachers in the Vilayur
Board School. Due to these appointments the strength of
the students declined. Besides, the colleagues of these
teachers faced excommunication from their jatis for
working with them.
10. A Tiyya woman went for work in the fields of a Nair
landlord wearing breast cloth. She was permitted to work
only after she removed the cloth. The incident happened
at Ancharakkandi.12
11. Among the 50 Nair attendants in the Poomulli Illam,
those who did not have kudumma (hair knot) were
dismissed.13
12. Vengoor Parameshvaran Nambudiri, who had attended
the rituals in the temples in which harijans had entered,
participated in the pooram (festival) at Vengoor Temple.
48 Becoming Citizens
The Uralars (Management) of other temples like
Avanangott, Edanad, Manikyamangalam and Chengal
objected to this and declared bhrasht (excommunication)
upon Vengoor goddess. The Uralars of other temples
demanded two and a half chakrams as fine. Only after
paying this fine could the procession of goddess enter into
these temples. At Manikyamangalam, before permitting
the procession to enter, divinized water was sprinkled
upon the procession.14
13. Pulayas of Edakochi were not permitted to wear foot
wears. Those who wore sandals were compelled by the
Christians to remove those.15
14. Nair Brigade Personnel at Thripunithura beat a Pulaya
with his gun for entering the public roads near the
palace.16
15. For attending the meeting of Yogakshema Sabha, two
Brahmin Youth named Krishnan and Narayanan were
to perform repentance rituals before Thirunavaya
Vadhyan Nambudiri. 17
16. Harijan women at Amayur had abandoned wearing
Kallumala. It is reported that a man belonging to
Pisharody jati beat a woman among them for the matter.18
17. For being late to move out from the way, an Ezhava boy
who was on his way to school was beaten at Mupliyam
(Thrissur) by a Nair Youth.19
Attitude of Rulers towards the Jati Violence
If we go through these incidents of lived history, we
can easily find out the nature of working of jati structure
and the measures adopted to maintain the structure.
Incidents which are mentioned above and similar
incidents which can be delegated from each and every
parts of Keralam, substantiate and confirm the point
that any attempts to violate the norms governing the
jati structure were dealt with brutally.
Jati Coercion: Political Tool of the State 49
The incidents of coercions as retaliation to the jati
code violations in Keralam give us a feel that the
oppression and resorting to violence were the
sanctioned mechanisms to keep the sanctity of the jati
structure. Above mentioned incidents give us an insight
regarding the jati vigil existed in the society of Keralam
which immediately responded in rectifying the
aberration or violation at the earliest.20 Let’s see what
the attitude of the native rulers in the matters related
to the violence related to jati.
In many cases which were reported during the
colonial period, even though there were repeated
demands from the British administrators to take actions
against the brutal acts on the part of superior jatis
against low jati people, the rulers of princely states
usually maintained a dull attitude. Many a times such
demands and letters were kept in abeyance. There were
also incidents when the State maintained silence
claiming ‘there were no complainants and complaints
to take actions against the jati oppressions and violence
on the part of superior jatis’. This concession was given
to the upper jati people. Whenever there were small
scale retaliations from lower jati people, force was used
to rush into curb such acts.21
This clearly demonstrates that the coercion and
violence on the part of the upper jati people were
permitted by the State. This was practiced stringently
at local levels without any mercy or considerations. State
had kept perfect vigil only in matters where violence
would spread beyond the places where it was bred.22
Other side of this phenomenon, which can be
observed from the examples shown above, was that the
moment the State intervened in such situations and
declared decisions, the violence and social tensions was
released. The incidents associated with Kallumala
Samaram at Perinad are a classical example. Though
50 Becoming Citizens
violence was at its zenith, once the state mediated with
the violent sections through the prominent persons of
those jatis, like Changanacchery Parameswaran Pillai
and Ayyankali, the violence started abating.23 An analysis
on the incidents related to Kallumala Samaram would
demonstrate this attitude vividly:
The decision that the Pulaya women would be
relaxed from wearing Kallumalas, when communicated,
was never challenged by the Nairs as a community. It
was before those Nairs, who resorted to violence to curb
the aberrations on the part of Pulaya women that
Parameswaran Pillai called for pulling out the glass
necklaces and to free them from the age old burden of
wearing Kallumalas. It was in front of those Nairs of
the locality that the Pulaya women pulled out the
necklaces and heaped it before the dais. Nobody who
attended the meeting resisted or went violent. In the
case of breast cloth agitations too, the jati groups were
following the directions of the State/ King. They were
resorting to violence whenever the excesses were found.
Finally, when the final decisions were taken and the
orders were issued, the jati groups which were haunting
the Christian Channar people in the name of dress codes
withdrew and the violence was settled. All other
incidents reveal that the same process was at work.24
Thus a close watch of the working of the jati
structure in Keralam- irrespective of regions- gives us
an insight that the coercion and resorting to violence
were handy tools at the hands of the State, over which
the State had full control and which were through the
agency of jati structure- be it within a specific jati or
among the jatis.
References
1. P S Manojkumar, Shaping of Rights: Jati and Gender in
Colonial Keralam, New Delhi: Meena Book Publications,
Jati Coercion: Political Tool of the State 51
2019, p. iii. .
2. Ibid., pp. iii-iv.
3. Kesari, Vol.2, Issue 23, 1932 March 23.
4. Kesari, Vol. 2, Issue 26, 1932 April 27.
5. Kesari, Vol. 2, Issue 28, 1932 May 11.
6. Kesari, Vol. 2, Issue 30, 1932 June 1.
7. Kesari, Vol. 3, Issue 17, 1933 February 1.
8. Mithavadi, Volume 4, Issue 2, February 1916.
9. Woman of Pothuval caste. Poduval is an Ambalavasi
caste.
10. Kesari, Vol. 3, Issue 2, 1932 September 28.
11. Kesari, Vol. 2, Issue 2, 1931 October 7.
12. Kesari, Vol. 2, Issue3, 1932 October 17.
13. Kesari, Vol. 2, Issue 9, 1931 December 2.
14. Mathrubhumi Weekly, Vol 15, Issue W2, !937 March 29.
15.Mathrubhumi Weekly, Vol 10, Issue W25, 1932
September 12.
16.Mathrubhumi Weekly, Vol 10, Issue W33, 1932 November
7.
17. Mathrubhumi Weekly, Vol 10, Issue W45, 1933 January
30.
18. Mathrubhumi Weekly, Vol 10, Issue W47, 1933 February
20.
19. Mathrubhumi Weekly, Vol 11, Issue W27, 1933
September 25.
20. P S Manojkumar, op.cit.,pp. iv-v.
21. Ibid., p. v.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., p. v- vi.

5 fifteen per cent of the Hindu population. Until
Jati as Sophisticated Tool of
Surveillance
In the light of the observations in the last chapters, let a
crucial question be asked- What was jati to State? Jati
was basically an instrument in the hands of the State to
maintain socio- political and economic orders. As was
the practice of Keralam, jati rules were followed with
strict vigilance. The central theme of jati rules was the
diktats of unapproachability. The lower jatis were never
permitted to cross the prescribed limits assigned for
them. In any case this distance was crossed; the lower
jati person would have surely faced torture. This is
attested by the example incidents number 1 and 17
mentioned in the previous chapter. Eric. J. Miller has
observed the site of pollution and the jatis which were
termed as polluting as follows:
… Almost two thirds of the Hindus are
members of the polluting jatis. High among
these and larger than any other Hindu jati
(about thirty-five per cent of the total) are the
matrilineal Tiyyans of North Malabar and the
patrilineal Tiyyans and Iravans of South
Malabar and Cochin. Some of them are small
tenant cultivators; many are laborers. The
artisan jatis (blacksmiths, carpenters, etc.) are
Jati as Sophisticated Tool of Surveillance 53
roughly equal in rank to this group, and
several others, including astrologers,
physicians, and launderers, fall into this same
category of “upper polluting jatis.” Below them
are the Depressed Jatis, who form about
the end of the last century, many were serfs,
tied to the land they worked; they were
debarred from using the public roads…1
Pollution: Understanding the Jati Structure
Jati system was maintained by the stringent rules
of restrictions on interdining and marriage among the
people belonging to different jatis. 2 Along with both
these, pollution which was maintained by the norms of
distance was to be followed in social spaces.3 Let us have
a look on how the pollution was practiced maintaining
the distance in the social spaces between the persons
belonging to different jatis.
Pollution is an important element for jati
differentiation, and there are some features of it which
are peculiar to Malabar. A Namburi is polluted by the
touch of any one below him in the social scale, while
Kammalans and the jatis below them pollute him if they
approach within a prescribed radius. Similarly, the
members of any other jatis are polluted by the touch or
approach, as the case may be, of the jatis below them.
Kammalans, Izhuvans and Panans cause atmospheric
pollution within a radius of 24 Malabar feet (about 19
English feet). The distance of the people belonging to
other jatis are as follows: Valans and Arayans 32 feet,
Kanakkans and Kutans 48 feet, Cherumans 64 feet,
Parayans, Nayadis and the hill tribes 72 feet. Some jatis
low in the social scale, like the Parayans and Nayadis
cause mutual pollution by approaching each other.4
54 Becoming Citizens
Some rules of pollution were too severe and had jati
specificity. Take the example of a Nambudiri and
Nayadi. It has been noted as follows:
…they are the chandalas of the plains, and
as such they cannot approach the habitations
and the members of other jatis. With much
difficulty they cross public roads. They pollute
a Brahman by approaching him within a
distance of three hundred feet, and he has to
bathe, renew his sacred thread, and take
panchagavyam (The five products from cow-
milk, curd, butter, urine and dung).5
Apart from this social distancing, as mentioned earlier,
strict rules were maintained on the groups who could
enter into the marriage/ connubial relationships and
dining.
The meals prepared by persons belonging to the
higher jatis can be partaken by those belonging to the
lower ones, but the converse is strictly prohibited
especially in the case of females. A high class Namburi
male may eat the food cooked by the low class Namburis
and even by Tirumulpads, but their females cannot.
Similarly, Nayair males can partake of the meals
prepared by any Nayar without distinction of sub- jati,
but a female belonging to a higher sub-jati cannot eat
the food prepared by one belonging to a lower one. All
Nayar females can eat together in the same room, but
those of higher sub- jatis may not sit in the same row for
the purpose with those of a lower one. Inter- marriage
also is generally governed by the same rules as those of
inter- dining. A Namburi female can of course be married
only in her own class, but a Namburi male can form
sambandham on any jati below his, but not below that of
the Nayars. As a rule, woman belonging to the Nayar
and the intermediate jatis may marry only where they
eat, that is, with equals and superiors…6
Jati as Sophisticated Tool of Surveillance 55
Imagining the Structure of Jati
The above quotes give us an idea on the imaging of
jati structure. As a general rule, considering their ritual
status the Adyan Nambudiris were placed at the center.
The distance that was to be maintained by other jatis
from Nambudiri was what is defined above. But, that is
the general diktat which was issued to the low jati
people. It is the distance which the people belonging to
the jatis of outer circles were to maintain from the
Nambudiris. Thus when thought of how the jati
structure was imagined, we can see that it was imagined
as layers of circles at prescribed distances- say 24 feet,
32 feet, 48 feet, 64 feet, 72 feet, 300 feet etc.- to which
the people belonging the Nambudiri jati were the center.
This distance to be maintained was not particular
to Nambudiris alone. The inner jati people- who ever
those be- in question, at every level, formed the center.
The outer jatis were to maintain prescribed distance
from the inner jatis, in question.
Thus in this structure, there were no individuals,
as such. Each body is a body subscribed to one or another
jati. Jati is represented in/ by a body. Thus a person who
is a jatiised body, maintained their position in the social
spaces, as prescribed by the jati to which that person is
a member. The proposition that among the outer circle
jatis too, they maintained pollution- say the farthest
placed jatis Parayas and Nayadis caused mutual
pollution- is noteworthy. Thus pollution is observed at
every layer forming circles around each jati, placing
them at center as high, and others whom jati structure
denoted as lower jatis, at the peripheral circles.
This was a sophisticated structure of maintaining
social difference in which the people placed in the inner
circles close to the centre- the Nambudiris and the
dominant- discarding the volume of inner circles of jatis
56 Becoming Citizens
within their jati circle, eagerly sees none of the jatis
placed in the outer circles surpass them. This vigil can
be seen even at the times of struggles on the part of
jatis placed in farthest rugs with aspirations to lift them
to inner circles. Each circle was seen as a circle of honour
placed in the contexts of mutuality. Thus the inequality,
which denies the very basics of the honour to all and
keeps it as a privilege, was the intrinsic information
through which the jati structure was conceptualized,
constructed and maintained. Thus the jati structure as
a social construct promulgated honour as a matter of
preferences.
Honour was concentrated at the center and
distribution of honour to the periphery of the orbit was
in the depreciating proportion that the people forced to
stay in the peripheral circle were the most defiled
population. The internally built concentration and
outwardly built vulnerability of the honour was what
structured the gradation of inequality among the jatis.
Illustrating the Gradation of Inequality
This can be illustrated with two incidents which
happened during the course of Guruvayur Satyagraha
which was staged at the Guruvayur temple premises
during the years from 1931 (started on 1st November,
1931) to 1932 for getting temple entry for all Hindus.7
Processions were conducted for popularizing the
message of the satyagraha and to seek support from the
public. During such processions, the volunteers used to
arrange programmes which questioned the jati norms
and pollution themes.
In the state of Cochin, while the processions passed
Chalakkudy, the volunteers managed the entry of
Nayadis into the colonies of Pulayas and into the
temples of Pulayas. K. P. Vallon- social reformer among
Jati as Sophisticated Tool of Surveillance 57
Pulayas; who was also a legislator in the Cochin
Legistative Assembly- took the act as excess on the part
of volunteers and complained before the Rajah of
Cochin. 8 Another incident happened at Payyannur
(Kandoth) on 30 th September 1931. A procession was
passing through Kandoth raising slogans for temple
entry. Around 200 Thiyyas appeared before the
procession and pulled out the volunteers belonging to
Pulaya jati and started beating them. The leaders of the
procession, A. K. Gopalan and Kunhappan Nambiyar
rushed to rescue the Pulaya volunteers for which they
too were beaten. It was because of the intervention of
the local Muslims that the leaders and the volunteers
saved the life. The provocation was that the pulayas
demanded temple entry and that they entered public
space without maintaining the jati rules.
The incidents illustrate the mentality of jatiised
people. It is to be noted that the people belonging to
outer layer jatis were presenting their aspirations to
surpass the jati stigmas and were resorting to social
protests. Guruvayur Satyagraha was one of such protest
struggle launched by the INC to grab the rights for the
‘lower jatis’ to enter the temple. Though Thiyyas,
Pulayas and Nayadis were not allowed to enter the
temple, and the Satyagraha was for affirming of the
rights to all the people belonging to outer layer jati who
were protesting under the leadership of INC, the jatiist
mentality of vigil against the aspirations of the people
of these jatis and the observation of pollution did not
change.
K. P. Vallon, himself a social reformer; advocate
against jati violence and claimant for progressive
programmes, became a petitioner when the Nayadis
entered the temple of Pulayas, it shows the depth of
jatiism.9 The Thiyyas too were exhibiting the same vigil
when they resorted to violence against the Pulayas at
Kandoth.
58 Becoming Citizens
Food and Sexual Relations- Checks and Balances
This vigil acted as checks and balances against the
social anarchy which could have happened in the
contexts of uprising of aspirant low jatis. This system,
places one jati against other in the orders of outer circles.
The norms of pollution and atmospheres of strict vigil
were maintained to see whether any of these jatis were
showing any form of aspirations to push them to the
inner circles. In such occassions free hand was given to
the jatis of inner circles to curb such pushes from the
aspirant jatis. These sanctions gave the people of those
jatis who maintained their central position of the entire
structure of jati system. The norms of pollution also
played a pivotal role in ensuring the jatis which were at
the center to be free of any fears regarding the
consolidations or joint moves among the people at outer
circles as the norms of pollution and its strict observance
did not give the jatis at outer circles a space and
opportunity to communicate among them.
But certain relationships were maintained among
the jatis which had placed themselves at the centre of
jati circles. This relationship was attested through the
circulation of food and women as sexual partners. Strict
rules laid on the exchanges of both women and food
indicates the nature of relations. There were separate
rules in dining for women and men. Women were not
permitted to eat from everywhere, where men ate. Men
were permitted to eat food cooked by people who were
considered low in jati status. Take for the example of
Nairs.
Nair males were permitted to eat food prepared by
any Nairs, irrespective of sub- jatis. But the females
among the Nairs were to observe the sub- jati rules and
were not permitted to eat food prepared by people
belonging to inferior sub- jatis. This indicates that the
Jati as Sophisticated Tool of Surveillance 59
permission for eating and permission for marriage/
connubial relationships with women were interlinked.
While a Nambudiri male can have connubial
relationships with women down the orders up to Nairs,
a Nambudiri woman was permitted to marry within the
class- ie., a Nambudiri woman belonging to Adyan
category were given in marriage to an Adyan male only.
Thus the women members of Kshatriya (Tirumulpad,
Samanta, Nambidi, etc.), Ambalavasis (temple
functionaries) and Nair jatis though they kept connubial
relationships with men of their jatis and those belonging
to the superior jatis/ sub- jatis, were not permitted to
maintain relations with men of inferior orders. Thus one
thing is evident- women were exchanged in marriages
and for connubial relationships through the circles of
jati structure, where they were permitted to eat. This
gives an added dimension to the circular nature of jati
structure. Each circle maintained its status to be what
it was through the strict observance of dining rules and
rules on exchange of women in marriages and for
connubial relationships. Thus, by observing strict
pollution rules among the females barring them from
inter- dining with members of outer circles and
maintaining their reproductive capacity within the
control of jati- sub- jati circles and submitting the female
sexuality to the needy male members of inner circles, a
peculiar form of tie- up was worked out among the jatis
claiming high status- which fixed themselves within the
inner circles of the jati structure. Similar tie- ups were
seen working among some other jatis placed in the outer
circles. Take for example of the Koodan jati and Pulaya
jati. The Koodans were permitted to have connubial
relationships with Pulaya women. Though Koodans
were permitted to take connubial partners from the
Pulaya jati, the reciprocal process was not permitted
and the higher status of Koodans over the Pulayas was
60 Becoming Citizens
attested by the fact that the Koodan man who had
entered into connubial relationships with a Pulaya
woman had to bathe before he returned to his hut.10
The tie- ups which was mentioned above was not a
universal phenomenon. It was maintained among the
inner circles in which the socio- political and economic
powers were vested. That is to say, within the jati and
sub- jatis from the Nambudiris to Nairs and some rare
cases as those of Koodans and Pulayas. Mostly, other
jatis observed strict rules of endogamy.
The supply of cooked food was through jati circles
and there were restrictions in taking food from mutually
polluting jatis. Take for the example of case of
Eravallans. They were considered as the lowest among
the jati order and were placed at the farthest circle in
the jati structure. But irrespective of their jati
inferiority, they too had obstacles in accepting cooked
food from certain jatis. L. K. Ananthakrishna Iyer has
noted this as follows: “They eat from the hand of
Brahmans, Nairs, Kammalans, and Izhuvans, but refuse
to take anything cooked by Mannans, Panans, Parayans,
and Cherumans.”11 Similarly the Panas ate at the hands
of Brahmans, Nairs, Kammalans, and Izhuvans and
abstain from taking the food of all jati-men below them.12
So were the case of Mannans and Velans13; Pulluvans14;
etc. This suggests that there was a tendency to keep the
jati status through not accepting the cooked food from
jatis which were considered mutually polluting.15 This
situation of maintaining taboos on food and marriage
would be revealed in detail and more clearly if we
observe the patterns of dining and marriage/ connubial
relations that existed among the Ambalavasi
communities which shared common platform of temple
for work and subsistence.
The restrictions on the dining among the
Ambalavasis were so strong even in the post-
Jati as Sophisticated Tool of Surveillance 61
Independence era. Interviews conducted focusing on the
subject has brought into light an archive which
pronounces the deep rooted norms which restrict the
eating across the jatis. As a site of study, the author had
sought to inquire into the eating and marriage patterns
of the Ambalavasi communities and other communities
associated with temple functions. Sixtyseven people
belonging to these jatis were met for answers and
interviews were taken. Out of these, fourteen interviews
are used16 to arrive at an idea regarding the dining
patterns that existed among these jatis. The logic of the
selection of these communities was that these groups,
unlike other jatis, shared common space as the domain
of their work and had no restrictions in entering the
temples at any stage in the history of Keralam. But the
interviews with the members of these jatis revealed the
strength of jati diktats on taboos on dining and the logic
which prevented such inter-dining. Most of the
interviewees started talking on the issue stating, “Now
these ‘rules’ are not observed strictly, but in our younger
days the situation was different.”
Vasudevan Empranthiri stated that the
Empranthiris, traditionally will not dine with and from
the Ambalavasi jatis. They would not take food
prepared by these people as these people were having
low jati status compared to the Empranthiris. It would
not restrict them from partaking food at their premises
in the occasion of any ritual provided the food is cooked
by members belonging to their jatis. But on the occasions
of rituals and feasts at the houses of the families of
Tirumulppads, the members among the Brahmins who
are attending the functions would dine but sit separately
and would take food before others are served.17 He said
that their women in no circumstances would attend the
functions at the houses of the Tirumulppads nor would
they take food cooked by them.
62 Becoming Citizens
K. C. Keralam Varma attested the words of
Vasudevan Empranthiri about the dining of the
Empranthiris at their houses. He also stated that there
were people who were so proficient among the
Empranthiris and Tirumulppads in preparing feasts on
the occasions of celebrations and rituals. He also shared
the view that though there were no dictates barring the
serving of food prepared by the women among them to
Brahmins, the practice was that the food cooked by male
members was served.18 But Ravi Varma pointed out that
there were cases in which the Empranthiris and
Nambudiris used to eat at their houses, the food cooked
by their women. There were instances of sambandham
of their women by these Brahmin males and that they
used to settle in the Madoms of these women. In such
circumstances the Brahmin males did dine on the food
prepared by the women with whom they had connubial
relations or by the relatives of the woman who resided
with them.19 K. C. Keralam Varma also said that they
usually would not dine with and from the houses of
Ambalavasis and Nairs. But there were instances when
they would have to eat at their homes for the sake of
courtesy. He explained the situations- if in case, they
were having sambandham in these houses and that there
was any functions in the families where they had
connubial relations, these people would attend the
function and would eat at their houses. But as in the
cases of Brahmins at their houses, these people would
be served separately and before serving to others. He
also pointed out that in no cases, they would attend the
rituals associated with death and attainment of puberty
by the girls of those houses- even if the girl is the
daughter of the person concerned.20 Ravi Varma cited
another instance of their eating at the houses of
dominant land owning families. During the occasions of
parayedupp21 there used to be feasts at the houses of
wealthy landlords both at noon and in the night. The
Jati as Sophisticated Tool of Surveillance 63
people belonging to their jatis used to accompany the
group, who without hesitation would have food from
these families. But here too, they would be served
separately though not before others. He also opined that
even though they ate at the houses of the women with
whom they maintained connubial relationships and
would eat at their houses on occasions of special
functions, they would not eat from these houses on daily
basis.22
Though the Ambalavasis were people sharing a
common space- the temples- as work place, the social
interactions among them through interdining and
intermarriages were non- existent categories. Sarojini
Marassiar, Sathidevi and Sarala Pisharasyar stated that
though the people belonging to their jatis- Marar, Varier
and Pisharodi respectively and so many other categories
as Nambeeshan, Kurup, Poduval etc. are temple servant
jatis and that they share common work place, they do
not dine from each other’s’ home. Even when some special
rituals or functions were happening in the families of
any of these jatis, members of other jatis usually were
abstained from going to such functions.23
Sarojini Marassiar told that both the male and female
members of the Marar jati used to have food from the
houses of the jatis superior to them- i.e., Nambudiris,
Empranthiris, Thirumulppads, Nambidis, etc.- on
occasions of ritual importance or some functions at their
houses. They could take meals from the houses of these
jatis even if there were no special occasions of rituals or
some functions. But traditionally, they would not take
food from the houses of other jatis who performed temple
functions or the jatis that were placed with inferior
status. The relaxation was during the occasion of
parayedupp.24 Marars, as a jati to which the drummers
belonged to, were the main component of the
parayedupp. The feast associated with parayedupp was
64 Becoming Citizens
meant mainly to feed the temple functionaries coming
from the respective temples to collect the revenue. As
part of the team they were to eat the meals provided by
the land lord who conducts the feast. But in no case, the
women of the jati will have food cooked and served by
the inferior jatis- no matter who they were.25
Varier jatis too maintained same eating rules. They
would not dine from the houses of other Ambalavasis
but had no restrictions in having food from the houses
of superior jatis and on occasions of parayedupp from
the houses of wealthy Nair families. But as in the case
of the women belonging to Marar community, Varier
women too kept out from dining at the houses of inferior
jatis.26 So was the response of Sarala Pisharasyar.27
Regarding the dining practices of the members of
Elayath jati, Kunjikuttan Elayath told that they- both
male and female- would dine at the houses of
Nambudiris, Empranthiris and other Brahmin jatis and
also at the houses of Tirumulppad or other jatis
belonging to Kshatriya group. But they won’t take food
cooked by the Ambalavasis and Nairs. Though they
performed as the official priests on the occasions of death
rituals, among various jatis of Ambalavasis and of the
Nairs, they stayed out of the consumption of food cooked
or served by these jatis. Even on the occasions when
they stay at the houses of inferior jatis for officiating
rituals, they would not take food cooked by the family
members or their relatives, but would cook food for their
consumption. 28
Regarding sambandham too, there were taboos.
There were no instances of a Namboodiri/ Embranthiri
woman engaged in sambandham with any men of jatis
of outer circles. There were strict rules of marriage and
the marriages were solemnized through rituals which
were well defined. There were strict ‘rules’ on the
marriages which prevented the marriages of women
Jati as Sophisticated Tool of Surveillance 65
down in the lines of jati and even among the jatis among
the Brahmins. For example, a Nambudiri woman would
be married to a Nambudiri male only; not to an
Embrandiri, Bhattathiri, etc. There were occasions of
Brahmin men keeping connubial relations with women
of other jatis. But the hypogamy of women were never
permitted. The exchange of Brahmin women in marital
relations were maintained strictly within jatis and jati
rules related to these exchanges were maintained
strictly.29
The Ambalavasi women did maintain connubial
relations with the Nambudiris, Embranthiris, Nambidis
etc., and were married to the men of same jatis. But
they were never permitted to marry or maintain
connubial relations with men of other Ambalavasi jatis
and from inferior jatis.30 The Ambalavasis considered
them not as a common category but each jatis as
individual jatis having separate identity, traditions and
history to be maintained. These, they tried to maintain,
through abstaining from interdining and intermarriages
among them. The logic behind these practices of
preventing interdining and intermarriage with the
members of the jatis floored on same plains should be
seen in the light of the fear of losing the jati status of
one before other. The acceptance of food, cooked by the
members of one jati, by the members of other jati would
lead to the loss of jati status of the accepting jatis before
the donor jatis. Similarly, giving the women of a peculiar
jati in marriage to or allowing them to maintain
connubial relations with the men of another jati among
Ambalavasis would lead to the status inferiority of the
permitting jatis before the other jatis which engaged in
such relations. Ambalavasis among them were
competing jatis who claimed superiority of one over
other proclaiming their nearness to the superior jati of
Nambudiris or even through popularizing the myths
66 Becoming Citizens
which established their branching out or fall from the
status of Nambudiri jatis.31 The fear of losing jati status
of once Nambudiris to the competiting jatis functioning
on the same plain can be traced in such practices of non-
dining and barring intermarriages. But it is to be noted
that the status in terms of superior and inferior were
not identical in all parts of Keralam. The superiority of
all the Ambalavasis over other communities all over
Keralam itself is a misnomer. For example, in the
regions of Kollam and Pathanamthitta, some of the
Ambalavasi jatis- which were placed in the inner circles
of the jati structure in central Keralam - though these
people were closely associated with temples were
treated as inferior jatis.32
Thus a comparison of the statuses assigned to and
maintained by different jatis in different regions reveals
the following features: (1) the jati structure varies from
locality to locality leaving the name of the jati a
misnomer in identifying the placements within the
structure; (2) jati names were thus not indicators of the
universality of status nor does it convey the circle in
which they are fixed within the jati structure, but of the
profession and where the professional groups are located
within the premises of the deliverance of their duties
and fulfillment of their rights within the orbits of jati
structure (3) the status and the placement within the
orbit of jati structure is purely a matter of local concern,
decided by the social dynamics of the region (4) every
jati seeks their domain and status within the structure
(In that sense every jatis are independent from other
jatis and preserve a domain of their own within the jati
orbit which is informed and manipulated by the social
dynamics of the local) (5) every jati working on similar
plain would contest each other claiming their superiority
over other and by distancing from each other through
the observance of taboo on dining and marriage.
Jati as Sophisticated Tool of Surveillance 67
The strict observance of the exchange of women
through the jati lines as prescribed; the women were
treated as possession of the husbands or of the families.
The excommunication of erring members which were
common among the Nambudiris is attested by the
example of Smarthavicharam. Similarly there were
methods of excommunicating the women who were
considered as burden to the jatis of inner circles,
especially among the Nairs. Pulappedi and Mannappedi
were such practices which were used to excommunicate
the women who were considered as burden to the family.
Referring the Pulappedi and Mannappedi it is observed
that the strictness of the patriarchal norms were rigid
among the Nairs, when compared to the Nambudiris. 33
Though, excommunication was not seen as a common
feature among the jatis which was in outer circles of the
orbit of jati structure, there were practices of divorce
among certain jatis when the husband of a woman finds
that she has extramarital relations. See for example of
the practice among Pulluvas. “A Pulluvan can repudiate
his wife for adultery, sterility, immodesty, disobedience
and loquacity. He must in that case leave her in charge
of her parents explaining them the circumstances under
which he has been forced to do so.”34 Among the Valan
community, though men were permitted to marry more
than one woman, “no woman may enter into conjugal
relations with more than one man. A widow may, with
the consent of her parents, enter into wedlock with any
member of her jati except her brothers-in-law”.35 Thus
the exchange of women and the custodianship of the
female sexuality and reproductive capacity were strictly
monitored. Though the men were permitted to have
connubial relationships with the women of jatis placed
in outer circles, no women were permitted to do so. The
exchange/ distribution of feminine sexuality were an
inward policy- within permitted limits- where the male
68 Becoming Citizens
members of the same jatis or of the inner jatis could be
the possessors.
Segmentation of Society
The autonomy provided in the matters of the inner
dynamics of the jatis; the parcelization of powers to the
jati assemblies/ council of elders or prominent members
including the judicial authority over the matters of the
population belonging to the jati; the constant vigilance
kept over the jatis of outer circles preventing them from
violating the jati codes and keeping them in the positions
assigned to them thus by maintaining the jati structure
intact; the permission granted to the superior jatis to
resort to violence and coercion whenever they found
excess of aspirations on the part of jatis of outer circles;
the active participation by the state machinery to curb
the ‘violence’ whenever the jatis of the outer circles
retaliated to oppression; the strict maintenance of the
jati rules through the ideology of pollution which were
enacted through the twin tracts of consumption of food
and the conjugal rights thus by making every jati as a
single block denied with the occasions to intermingle,
communicate and know each other; the jati structure
maintained a rigid pattern of compartmentalization.
This pattern was very much helpful to maintain- rather
easily- strict vigilance over the functioning of the jati
structure.
Moreover, we have seen that the state functioned
without any knowledge regarding the functioning of the
people. The autonomy given to the jati assembles should
be viewed in the light of this knowledgelessness. The
Princely States in Keralam functioned with a basic
knowledge on the jatis which was dictated by the texts
like Sankarasmrithi. There too, strict scriptural
affiliation was out of question. The subscription to the
texts was determined by the situation. Whenever there
Jati as Sophisticated Tool of Surveillance 69
were demands for scriptural answers, the State/ King
used to call knowledgeable persons for providing
answers and their function was to find an answer from
an ‘authority’ text. The authority texts used to vary from
time to time and situation to situation ranging
from Manusmrithi to Keralamahathmyam and
Sankarasmrithi to Tanthrasamuchayam. For the
matters related to jati functioning, jati councils were
called for ascertaining the traditions and decisions were
taken as per their advice.
All these give us an idea regarding the working of
jati structure. The fact that the duties of state to the
people were delivered through the jati structure made
it an integral part of the state. The internal dynamics of
the jati which knitted the lives of its members into it
and the local nature integral to jati’s operations gave
full authority and access to the patriarchal jati councils
over the lives of its members. For familial bondages,
community life, personal needs as subsistence,
occupation, marriages etc., families and persons had to
seek the support and assistance of the jati council.
Further, as we have noted, each person was identified
in the society as jatiised body, which means that each
and every members in the society were identified in the
name of their jati. Thus the persons and families were
thoroughly integrated to jati authorities. No one could
escape the clutches of the domineering jati, which
decided the lives of its members. Within the jati
structure too, as we have noted, strict vigilance was
imparted regarding the status and limits of the jatis and
no jatis were allowed to shift from its orbit- violations
of which, as we have seen were dealt with coercion and
violence. Thus the jati structure – which was orbital and
segmented- functioned as sophisticated tool of
surveillance at the hands of the State. Not a single
person could deliver herself / himself and escape from
the surveillance of jati structure.
Another random document with
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embryological process as an abridged repetition of the various states
through which the species has passed in its evolutionary career must
be definitively abandoned, and that, as a general law of organic
development, the biogenetic principle has been thoroughly
discredited. “This law,” says Karl Vogt of Geneva, “which I long held
as well-founded, is absolutely and radically false. Attentive study of
embryology shows us, in fact, that embryos have their own
conditions suitable to themselves, and very different from those of
adults.” (Quoted by Quatrefages De Breau, in his “Les Emules de
Darwin,” vol. II, p. 13.) “There can no longer be question,” says Prof.
M. Caullery of the Sorbonne, “of systematically regarding individual
development as a repetition of the history of the stock. This
conclusion results from the very progress made under the inspiration
received from this imaginary law, the law of biogenesis.” (Smithson.
Inst. Rpt. for 1916, p. 325.)
This collapse of the biogenetic law has tumbled into ruins the
elaborate superstructure of genealogy which Haeckel had reared
upon it. His series of thirty stages extending from the fictitious
“cytodes” up to man, inclusively, is even more worthless today than it
was when Du Bois-Reymond made his ironic comment: “Man’s
pedigree, as drawn up by Haeckel, is worth about as much as is that
of Homer’s heroes for critical historians.” (Revue Scientifique, 1877,
I, p. 1101.) Haeckel tried in vain to save his discredited law by
means of the expedient of cænogenesis, that is, “the falsification of
the ancestral record (palingenesis).” That Nature should be guilty of
“falsification” is an hypothesis not to be lightly entertained, and it is
more credible, as Wasmann remarks, to assume that Haeckel, and
not Nature, is the real falsifier, inasmuch as he has misrepresented
Nature in his “fundamental biogenetic law.” Cænogenesis is a very
convenient device. One can alternate at will between cænogenesis
and palingenesis, just as, in comparative anatomy, one can alternate
capriciously between convergence and homology, on the general
understanding of its being a case of: “Heads, I win; tails, you lose”—
certainly, there is no objective consideration to restrain us in such
procedure. “Such weapons as Cænogenesis and Convergence,”
says Kohlbrugge (in his “Die Morphologische Abstammung des
Menschen,” 1908) “are unfortunately so shaped that anyone can use
them when they suit him, or throw them aside when they do not.
They show, therefore, in the prettiest way the uncertainty even now
of the construction of the theory of descent. As soon as we go into
details it leaves us in the lurch; it was only while our knowledge was
small that everything seemed to fit together in most beautiful order.”
(Quoted by Dwight in “Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist,” p. 187.)
It is undeniable, indeed, that in many cases the young of higher
animals pass through stages in which they bear at least a superficial
resemblance to adult stages in inferior and less complex organisms.
Obviously, however, there cannot be any direct derivation of the
embryonic features of one organism from the adult characters of
another organism. This preposterous implication of the Müller-
Haeckel Law must, as Morgan points out, be entirely eliminated,
before it can merit serious consideration. Referring to the spiral
cleavage exhibited by annelid, planarian and molluscan eggs,
Morgan says: “It has been found that the cleavage pattern has the
same general arrangement in the early stages of flat worms,
annelids and molluscs. Obviously these stages have never been
adult ancestors, and obviously if their resemblance has any meaning
at all, it is that each group has retained the same general plan of
cleavage possessed by their common ancestor.... Perhaps someone
will say, ‘Well! is not this all that we have contended for! Have you
not reached the old conclusion in a roundabout way?’ I think not. To
my mind there is a wide difference between the old statement that
the higher animals living today have the original adult stages
telescoped into their embryos, and the statement that the
resemblance between certain characters in the embryos of higher
animals and corresponding stages in the embryos of lower animals
is most plausibly explained by the assumption that they have
descended from the same ancestors, and that their common
structures are embryonic survivals.” (Op. cit., pp. 22, 23.)
After this admission, however, nothing remains of the law of
“recapitulation” except simple embryological homology comparable,
in every sense, to adult homology, and adding nothing essentially
new to the latter argument for evolution. It is, therefore, ridiculous for
evolutionists to speak of branchial (gill) arches and clefts in man.
The visceral or pharyngeal arches and grooves appearing in the
human embryo are unquestionably homologous with the genuine
branchial arches and clefts in a fish embryo. In the latter, however,
the grooves become real clefts through perforation, while the arches
become the lamellæ of the permanent gills, thus adapting the animal
to aquatic respiration. It is, accordingly, perfectly legitimate to refer to
these embryonic structures in the young fish as gill arches and gill
clefts. In man, however, the corresponding embryonic structures
develop into the oral cavity, auditory meatus, ossicles of the ear, the
mandible, the lower lip, the tongue, the cheek, the hyoid bone, the
styloid process, the thymus, the thyroid and tracheal cartilages, etc.
There is no perforation of the grooves, and the arches develop into
something quite different than branchial lamellæ. Hence the correct
name for these structures in the human embryo is pharyngeal
(visceral) arches and grooves, their superficial resemblance to the
embryonic structures in the fish embryo being no justification for
calling them branchial. In short, the mere fact that certain embryonic
structures in the young fish (homologous to the pharyngeal arches
and grooves in the human embryo) develop into the permanent gills
of the adult fish, is no more significant than the association of
homology with divergent preadaptations, which is of quite general
occurrence among adult vertebrate types. In all such cases, we have
instances of fundamentally identical structures, diverted, as it were,
to entirely different purposes or functions (e.g. the arm of a man and
the flipper of a whale). Hence the argument drawn from
embryological homology is no more cogent than the argument drawn
from the homologies of comparative anatomy, which we have
already discussed in a previous chapter. The misuse of the term
branchial, to prejudge matters in their own favor, is in keeping with
the customary policy of evolutionists. It is intended, naturally, to
convey the impression that man, in the course of his evolution, has
passed through a fish-like stage. At bottom, however, it is nothing
more than a verbal subterfuge, that need not detain us further.
The theory of embryological recapitulation is often applied to man,
with a view to establishing the doctrine of his bestial ancestry. We
have seen one instance of this application, and we shall consider
one other, for the purpose of illustrating more fully the principles
involved. The claim is made by evolutionists, that man must have
passed through a fish or amphibian stage, because, in common with
all other mammals, he exhibits, during his embryological
development, a typical fish (or, if you prefer, amphibian) kidney,
which subsequently atrophies, only to be replaced by the
characteristic mammalian kidney. The human embryo, therefore,
repeats the history of our race, which must have passed through a
fish-like stage in the remote past. In consequence of this
phenomenon, therefore, it is inferred that man must have had fish-
like ancestors. Let us pause, however, to analyze the facts upon
which this inference is based.
In annelids, like the earthworm, the nephridia or excretory tubules
are arranged segmentally, one pair to each somite. In vertebrates,
however, the nephridial tubules, instead of developing in regular
sequence from before backwards, develop in three batches, one
behind the other, the anterior batch being called the pronephros, the
middle one, the mesonephros and the posterior one, the
metanephros. This, according to J. Graham Kerr, holds true not only
of the amniotic vertebrates (reptiles, birds, and mammals) but also,
with a certain reservation, of the anamniotic vertebrates (fishes and
amphibians). “In many of the lower Vertebrates,” says this author,
“there is no separation between the mesonephros and metanephros,
the two forming one continuous structure which acts as the
functional kidney. Such a type of renal organ consisting of the series
of tubules corresponding to mesonephros together with metanephros
may conveniently be termed the opisthonephros.” (“Textbook of
Embryology,” II—Vertebrata, p. 221.) If we accept this view, it is not
quite accurate to regard the mesonephros in man as a homologue of
the opisthonephros of a fish, seeing that the latter is composed not
only of mesonephridia (mesonephric tubules), but also of
metanephridia (metanephric tubules). A brief description of the three
nephridial systems of vertebrate embryos will serve to further clarify
their interrelationship.
 (1) The pronephric system: This consists of a collection of tubules
called the pronephros, and a pronephric duct leading to the cloaca,
or terminal portion of the alimentary canal. The pronephros is a
functional organ in the frog tadpole and other larval amphibia. It is
also found in a few teleosts, where it is said to persist as a functional
organ in the adult. In other fishes, however, and in all higher forms
the pronephros atrophies and becomes reduced to a few
rudiments.[17]
(2) The mesonephric system: This consists of a collection of
nephridial tubules called the mesonephros (Wolffian body). The
tubules of the mesonephros do not develop any duct of their own,
but utilize the posterior portion of the pronephric duct, the said
tubules becoming secondarily connected with this duct in a region
posterior to the pronephridia (tubules of the pronephros). The
pronephric tubules together with the anterior portion of the
pronephric duct then atrophy, while the persisting posterior portion of
this duct receives the name of mesonephric or Wolffian duct. The
duct in question still terminates in the cloaca, and serves, in the
male, the combined function of a urinary and spermatic duct; but, in
the female, a special oviduct (the Müllerian duct) is superadded
because of the large size of the eggs to be transmitted, the Wolffian
or mesonephric duct subserving only the urinary function. The
mesonephros is functional in mammalian embryos, but atrophies and
disappears coincidently with the development of the permanent
kidney. The same is true of amniotic vertebrates generally, except
that in the case of reptiles the mesonephros persists for a few
months after hatching in the adult, the definitive kidney of the adult
being reinforced during that interval by the still functional
mesonephros. In anamniotic vertebrates, however, no separation
exists between the mesonephros and the metanephros, the two
forming one continuous structure, the opisthonephros, which acts as
the functional kidney of the adult.
(3) The metanephric system: In the amniotic vertebrates the
mesonephros and metanephros are distinct, the former being
functional in embryos and in adult reptiles (for a few months after
hatching), while the metanephros becomes the definitive kidney of
the adult. The metanephros is a collection of nephridial tubules
provided with a special urinary duct called the ureter, which empties
into the bladder (not the cloaca). The Wolffian or mesonephric duct is
retained as a sperm duct in the male (of amniotic vertebrates), but
becomes vestigial in the female. Only a certain number of the
nephridial tubules of the embryonic metanephros are taken over to
form part of the permanent or adult kidney (in mammals, birds, and
reptiles).
If, then, as we have previously observed, we follow Kerr in
regarding the fish kidney, not as a simple mesonephros, but as an
opisthonephros (i.e. a combination of mesonephros and
metanephros), there is no warrant for interpreting the embryonic
mesonephros of man and mammals generally as the fish-kidney
stage. But waiving this consideration, and assuming, for the sake of
argument, that the fish kidney is a perfect homologue of the human
mesonephros, the mere fact of the adoption by the human embryo of
a temporary solution of its excretory problem similar to the
permanent solution of that problem adopted by the fish, would not, of
itself, imply the common ancestry of men and fishes. Such a
coincidence would be fully explicable as a case of convergent
adaptation occurring in the interest of embryonic economy.
It is, indeed, a well-known fact that larval and embryonic
organisms are often obliged to defer temporarily the construction of
the more complex structures of adult life, and to improvise simpler
substitutes for use until such a time as they have accumulated a
sufficient reserve of energy and materials to complete the work of
their more elaborate adult organization. The young starfish, for
example, arising as it does from an egg but scantily supplied with
yolk, is forced, from the very outset, to shift for itself, in coping with
the food-getting problem. Under stress of this necessity, it
economizes its slender resources by constructing the extremely
simple digestive and motor apparatus characteristic of the larva in its
bilaterally-symmetrical Bipinnaria stage, and postponing the
development of the radially-symmetrical structure characteristic of
the adult stage, until it has stored up the wherewithal to complete its
metamorphosis.
 From this viewpoint, there is no difficulty in understanding why
temporary solutions of the excretory problem should precede the
definitive solution of this problem in mammalian embryos. The
problem of excretion is urgent from the outset, and its demands
increase with the growth of the embryo. It is only natural, then, that a
series of improvised structures should be resorted to, in a case of
this kind; and, since these temporary solutions of the excretory
problem must, of necessity, be as simple as possible, it should not
be in the least surprising to find them coinciding with the permanent
solutions adopted by inferior organisms less complexly organized
than the mammals. Hence the bare fact of resemblance between the
transitory embryonic kidney of a mammal and the permanent adult
kidney of a fish would have no atavistic significance. We know of
innumerable cases in which an identical adaptation occurs in
genetically unrelated organisms. The cephalopod mollusc Nautilus,
for example, solves the problem of light-perception in the identical
manner in which it is solved by the vertebrates. This mollusc has the
perfect vertebrate type of eye, including the lens and all other parts
down to the minutest detail. The fact, however, that the mollusc
solves its problem by using the stereotyped solution found in
vertebrates rather than by developing a compound eye analogous to
the type found among arthropods, is wholly destitute of genetic
significance. In fact, the genetic interpretation is positively rejected
by the evolutionists, who interpret the occurrence of similar eyes in
molluscs and vertebrates as an instance of “accidental
convergence.” Even assuming, then, what Kerr denies, namely, a
perfect parallelism between the mesonephros of the human embryo
and the permanent kidney of an adult fish, the alleged fact that the
human embryo temporarily adopts the same type of solution for its
excretory problem as the one permanently employed by the fish
would not in itself be a proof of our descent from a fish-like ancestor.
In fact, not only is embryological homology of no greater value
than adult homology as an argument for evolution, but it is, on the
contrary, considerably inferior to the latter, as regards cogency.
Differentiation pertains to the final or adult stage of organisms.
Embryonic structures, inasmuch as they are undeveloped and
undifferentiated, present for that very reason an appearance of crude
and superficial similarity. “Most of what is generally ascribed to the
action of the so-called biogenetic law,” says T. Garbowski, “is
erroneously ascribed to it, since all things that are undeveloped and
incomplete must be more or less alike.” (“Morphogenetische
Studien,” Jena, 1903.) When we consider the fact that the metazoa
have all a similar unicellular origin, are subject to uniform
morphogenetic laws, and are frequently exposed to analogous
environmental conditions demanding similar adaptations, it is not at
all surprising that they should present many points of resemblance
(both in their embryonic and their adult morphology) which are not
referable to any particular line of descent. At all events, these
resemblances are far too general in their extension to enable us to
specify the type of ancestor responsible therefor. More especially is
this true of embryological homologies, which are practically valueless
as basis for reconstructing the phylogeny of any type. “That certain
phenomena,” says Oskar Hertwig, “recur with great regularity and
uniformity in the development of different species of animals, is due
chiefly to the fact that under all circumstances they supply the
necessary condition under which alone the next higher stage in
ontogeny (embryological development) can be produced.”
(“Allgemeine Biologie,” 1906, p. 595.) The same author, therefore,
proposes to revamp Haeckel’s “biogenetisches Grundgesetz” as
follows: “We must leave out the words ‘recapitulation of forms of
extinct ancestors’ and substitute for them ‘repetition of forms
regularly occurring in organic development, and advancing from the
simple to the more complex.’” (Op. cit., p. 593.)
Finally, when applied to the problem of man’s alleged genetic
connection with the ape, the biogenetic principle proves the exact
reverse of what the Darwinians desire; for as a matter of fact the
young apes resemble man much more closely in the shape of the
skull and facial features than do the adult animals. Inasmuch,
therefore, as the ape, in its earlier development, reveals a more
marked resemblance to man than is present in its later stages, it
follows, according to the “biogenetic law,” that man is the ancestor of
the ape. This, however, is inadmissible, seeing that the ape is by no
means a more recent type than man. Consequently, as applied to
man, the Haeckelian principle leads to a preposterous conclusion,
and thereby manifests its worthlessness as a clue to phylogeny.
Julius Kollmann, it is true, gives serious attention to this likeness
between young apes and men, and makes it the basis of his scheme
of human evolution. “Kollmann,” says Dwight, “starts from the fact
that the head of a young ape is very much more like that of a child
than the head of an old ape is like that of a man. He holds that the
likeness of the skull of a very young ape is so great that there must
be a family relationship. He believes that some differentiation, some
favorable variation, must occur in the body of the mother and so a
somewhat higher skull is transmitted to the offspring and is
perpetuated. Concerning which Kohlbrugge remarks that ‘thus the
first men were developed, not from the adult, but from the embryonic
forms of the anthropoids whose more favorable form of skull they
managed to preserve in further growth.’ ... Schwalbe makes the
telling criticism of these views of Kollmann that much the same thing
might be said of the heads of embryonic animals in general that is
said of those of apes, and that thus mammals might be said to have
come from a more man-like ancestor.” (Op. cit., pp. 186, 187.) All of
which goes to show that the “biogenetic law” is more misleading than
helpful in settling the question of human phylogeny.

§ 3. Rudimentary Organs
Darwin attached great importance to the existence in man of so-
called rudimentary organs, which he regarded as convincing
evidence of man’s descent from the lower forms of animal life.
Nineteenth century science, being ignorant of the functional purpose
served by many organs, arbitrarily pronounced them to be useless
organs, and chose, in consequence, to regard them all as the
atrophied and (wholly or partially) functionless remnants of organs
that were formerly developed and fully functional in remote ancestors
of the race. Darwin borrowed this argument from Lamarck. It may be
stated thus: Undeveloped and functionless organs are atrophied
organs. But atrophy is the result of disuse. Now disuse presupposes
former use. Consequently, rudimentary organs were at one time
developed and functioning, viz. in the remote ancestors of the race.
Since, therefore, these selfsame organs are developed and
functional in the lower forms of life, it follows that the higher forms, in
which these organs are reduced and functionless, are descended
from forms similar to those in which said organs are developed and
fully functional.
This argument, however, fairly bristles with assumptions that are
not only wholly unwarranted, but utterly at variance with actual facts.
In the first place, it wrongly assumes that all reduced organs are
functionless, and, conversely, that all functionless organs are
atrophied or reduced. Facts, however, prove the contrary; for we find
frequent instances of reduced organs which function, and, vice
versa, of well-developed organs which are functionless. The tail, for
example, in cats, dogs, and certain Catarrhine monkeys, though it
discharges neither the prehensile function that makes it useful in the
Platyrrhine monkey, nor the protective function that makes it useful
to horses and cattle in warding off flies, is, nevertheless, despite its
inutility or absence of function, a quite fully developed organ.
Conversely, the reduced or undeveloped fin-like wings of the
penguin are by no means functionless, since they enable this bird to
swim through the water with great facility.
To save his argument from this antagonism of the facts, Darwin
resorts to the ingenious expedient of distinguishing between
rudimentary organs and nascent organs. Rudimentary organs are
undeveloped organs, which are wholly, or partially, useless. They
have had a past, but have no future. Nascent organs, on the
contrary, are undeveloped organs, which “are of high service to their
possessors” (“Descent of Man,” ch. I, p. 28, 2nd ed.). They “are
capable of further development” (ibidem), and have, therefore, a
future before them. He gives the following examples of rudimentary
organs: “Rudimentary organs ... are either quite useless, such as
teeth which never cut through the gums, or almost useless, such as
the wings of an ostrich, which serve merely as sails.” (“Origin of
Species,” 6th ed., ch. XIV, p. 469.) As an example of a nascent
organ, he gives the mammary glands of the oviparous Duckbill: “The
mammary glands of the Ornithorhynchus may be considered, in
comparison with the udders of a cow, as in a nascent condition.”
(Op. cit., ch. XIV, p. 470.)
Darwin admits that it is hard to apply this distinction in the
concrete: “It is, however, often difficult to distinguish between
rudimentary and nascent organs; for we can judge only by analogy
whether a part is capable of further development, in which case
alone it deserves to be called nascent.” (Op. cit., ch. XIV, p. 469.) For
Darwin “judging by analogy” meant judging on the assumption that
evolution has really taken place; for he describes rudimentary organs
as being “of such slight service that we can hardly suppose that they
were developed under the conditions which now exist.” (“Descent of
Man,” ch. I, p. 29.)
He is somewhat perplexed about applying this distinction to the
penguin: “The wing of the penguin,” he admits, “is of high service,
acting as a fin; it may, therefore, represent the nascent state: not that
I believe this to be the case; it is more probably a reduced organ,
modified for a new function.” (“Origin of Species,” 6th ed., ch. XIV,
pp. 469, 470.) In other words, there is scarcely any objective
consideration by which the validity of this distinction can be checked
up in practice. Like homology and convergence, like palingenesis
and cænogensis, the distinction between rudimentary and nascent
organs is a convenient device, which can be arbitrarily manipulated
according to the necessities of a preconceived theory. It is “scientific”
sanction for the privilege of blowing hot and cold with the same
breath.
The assumption that atrophy and reduction are the inevitable
consequence of disuse, or diminution of use, in so far as this
decreases the flow of nourishing blood to unexercised parts, is
certainly erroneous. Yet Darwin made it the premise of his argument
from so-called rudimentary organs. “The term ‘disuse’ does not
relate,” he informs us, “merely to lessened action of muscles, but
includes a diminished flow of blood to the part or organ, from being
subjected to fewer alternations of pressure, or from being in any way
less habitually active.” (“Origin of Species,” 6th ed., p. 469.) As a
matter of fact, however, we have many instances in which use has
failed to develop and disuse to reduce organs in certain types of
animals. As an example in point, we may cite the case of right-
handedness among human beings. From time immemorial, the
generality of mankind have consistently used the right hand in
preference to the left, without any atrophy or reduction of the left
hand, or over-development of the right hand, resulting from this
racial practice. “The superiority of one hand,” says G. Elliot Smith, “is
as old as mankind.” (Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 570.) It is true
that only about 6,000 years of human existence are known to history,
but, if one accepts the most conservative estimates of glaciologists,
man has had a much longer prehistory, the lowest estimates for the
age of man being approximately 30,000 years. Thus W. J. Sollas
tells us that the Glacial period, in which man first appeared, came to
an end about 7,000 years ago, and that the men buried at Chapelle-
aux-Saints in France lived about 25,000 years ago. His figures agree
with those of C. F. Wright, who bases his calculations on the Niagara
Gorge. The Niagara River is one of the postglacial streams, and the
time required to cut its gorge has been calculated as 7,000 years.
Gerard De Geer, the Swedish scientist, gives 20,000 years ago as
the end of glacial and the commencement of recent or postglacial
time. He bases his estimates on the sediments of the Yoldia Sea in
Sweden. His method consists in the actual counting of certain
seasonally-laminated clay layers, presumably left behind by the
receding ice sheet of the continental glacier. The melting is
registered by annual deposition, in which the thinner layers of finer
sand from the winter flows alternate with thicker layers of coarser
material from the summer flows. In warm years, the layers are
thicker, in colder years they are thinner, so that these laminated
Pleistocene clays constitute a thermographic as well as a
chronological record. De Geer began his study of Pleistocene clays
in 1878, and in 1920 he led an expedition to the United States, for
the purpose of extending his researches. (Cf. Science, Sept. 24,
1920, pp. 284-286.) At that time, he claimed to have worked out the
chronology of the past 12,000 years. His figure of 20,000 years for
postglacial time, while very displeasing to that reckless foe of
scientific caution and conservatism, Henry Fairfield Osborn, tallies
very well with the estimates of Sollas and Wright. H. Obermaier,
basing his computation on Croll’s theory that glaciation is caused by
variations in the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit about the sun, which
would bring about protracted winters in the hemisphere having
winter, when the earth was farthest from the sun (with consequent
accumulation of ice), gives 30,000 years ago as the date of the first
appearance of man on earth. Father Hugues Obermaier, it may be
noted, like Abbé Henri Breuil, is one of the foremost authorities on
the subject of prehistoric Man. Both are Catholic priests.
All such computations of the age of man are, of course, uncertain
and theoretical. Evolutionists calculate it in hundreds of thousands,
and even millions, of years. After giving such a table of recklessly
tremendous figures, Osborn has the hypocritical meticulosity to add
that, for the sake of precision (save the mark!) the nineteen hundred
and some odd years of the Christian era should be added to his
figures. But, even according to the most conservative scientific
estimates, as we have seen, man is said to have been in existence
for 30,000 years, and the prevalence of right-handedness among
men is as old as the human race. One would expect, then, to find
modern man equipped with a gigantic right arm and a dwarfed left
arm. In other words, man should exhibit a condition comparable to
that of a lobster, which has one large and one small chela. Yet, in
spite of the fact that the comparative inaction of the human left hand
is supposed to have endured throughout a period of, at least, 30,000
years, this state of affairs has not resulted in the faintest trace of
atrophy or retrogression. Bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments,
nerves, blood vessels, and all parts are of equal size in both arms
and both hands. Excessive exercise may overdevelop the
musculature of the right arm, but this is an individual and acquired
adaptation, which is never transmitted to the offspring, e.g. the child
of a blacksmith does not inherit the muscular hypertrophy of his
father. Disuse, therefore, has not the efficacy which Lamarck and
Darwin ascribed to it.
In fine, it must be recognized, once for all, that organisms are not-
molded on a Lamarckian basis of use, nor yet on a Darwinian basis
of selected utility. Expediency, in other words, is not the sole
governing principle of the organic world. Neither instinctive habitude
nor the struggle for existence succeeds in forcing structural
adaptation of a predictable nature. Animals with different organic
structure have the same instincts, e.g. monkeys with, and without,
prehensile tails alike dwell in trees; while animals having the same
organic structure may have different instincts, e.g. the rabbit, which
burrows, and the hare, which does not, are practically identical in
anatomical structure. Again, some animals are highly specialized for
a function, which other animals perform without specialized organs,
as is instanced in the case of moles, which possess a special
burrowing apparatus, and prairie-dogs, which burrow without a
specialized apparatus. Any system of evolution, which ignores the
internal or hereditary factors of organic life and strives to explain all
in terms of the environmental factors, encounters an insuperable
obstacle in this remorseless resistance of conflicting facts.
Another flaw in the Darwinian argument from rudimentary organs
is that it confounds, in many cases, apparent, with real inutility (or
absence of function). Darwin and his followers frequently argued out
of their ignorance, and falsely concluded that an organ was destitute
of a function, merely because they had failed to discover its utility.
Large numbers, accordingly, of highly serviceable organs were
catalogued as vestigial or rudimentary, simply because nineteenth
century science did not comprehend their indubitable utility. With the
advance of present-day physiology, this list of “useless organs” is
being rapidly depleted, so that the scientific days of the rudimentary
organ appear to be numbered. At any rate, in arbitrarily pronouncing
many important and functioning organs to be useless vestiges of a
former stage in the history of the race, the Darwinians were not the
friends of Science, but rather its reactionary enemies, inasmuch as
they sought to discourage further investigation by their dogmatic
decision that there was no function to be found. In so doing,
however, they were merely exploiting the ignorance of their times in
the interest of a preconceived theory, which whetted their appetite for
discovering, at all costs, the presence in man of functionless organs.
Their anxiety in this direction led them to consider the whole group
of organs constituting a most important regulatory and coördinative
system in man and other vertebrates as so many useless vestigial
organs. This system is called the cryptorhetic system and is made of
internally-secreting, ductless glands, now called endocrine glands.
These glands generate and instill into the blood stream certain
chemical substances called hormones, which, diffusing in the blood,
produce immediate stimulatory, and remote metabolic effects on
special organs distant from the endocrine gland, in which the
particular hormone is elaborated. As examples of such endocrine
glands, we may mention the pineal gland (epiphysis), the pituitary
body (hypophysis), the thyroid glands, the parathyroids, the islelets
of Langerhans, the adrenal bodies (suprarenal capsules), and the
interstitial cells of the gonads. The importance of these alleged
useless organs is now known to be paramount. Death, for instance,
will immediately ensue in man and other animals, upon extirpation of
the adrenal bodies.
The late Robert Wiedersheim, it will be remembered, declared the
pineal gland or epiphysis to be the surviving vestige of a “third eye”
inherited from a former ancestor, in whom it opened between the
parietal bones of the skull, like the median or pineal eye of certain
lizards, the socket of which is the parietal foramen formed in the
interparietal suture. If the argument is based on homology alone,
then the coincidence in position between the human epiphysis and
the median optic nerve of the lizards in question has the ordinary
force of the evolutionary argument from homology. But when one
attempts to reduce the epiphysis to the status of a useless vestigial
rudiment, he is in open conflict with facts; for the pineal body is, in
reality, an endocrine gland generating and dispersing a hormone,
which is very important for the regulation of growth in general and of
sexual development in particular. Hence this tiny organ in the
diencephalic roof, no larger than a grain of wheat, is not a
functionless rudiment, but an important functioning organ of the
cryptorhetic system. We have no ground, therefore, on this score for
inferring that our pineal gland functioned in former ancestors as a
median eye comparable to that of the cyclops Polyphemus of
Homeric fame.
 In like manner, the pituitary body or hypophysis, which in man is a
small organ about the size of a cherry, situated at the base of the
brain, buried in the floor of the skull, and lying just behind the optic
chiasma, was formerly rated as a rudimentary organ. It was, in fact,
regarded as the vestigial remnant of a former connection between
the neural and alimentary canals, reminiscent of the invertebrate
stage. “The phylogenetic explanation of this organ generally
accepted,” says Albert P. Mathews, “is that formerly the neural canal
connected at this point with the alimentary canal. A probable and
almost the only explanation of this, though an explanation almost
universally rejected by zoölogists, is that of Gaskell, who has
maintained that the vertebrate alimentary canal is a new structure,
and that the old invertebrate canal is the present neural canal. The
infundibulum, on this view, would correspond to the old invertebrate
œsophagus, the ventricle of the thalamus to the invertebrate
stomach, and the canal originally connected posteriorly with the
anus. The anterior lobe of the pituitary body could then correspond
to some glandular adjunct of the invertebrate canal, and the nervous
part to a portion of the original circumœsophageal nervous ring of
the invertebrates.” (“Physiological Chemistry,” 2nd ed., 1916, pp.
641, 642.)
This elaborate piece of evolutionary contortion calls for no
comment here. We are only interested in the fact that this wild and
weird speculation was originally inspired by the false assumption that
the hypophysis was a functionless organ. As a matter of fact, it is the
source of two important hormones. The one generated in its anterior
lobe is tethelin, a metabolic hormone, which promotes the growth of
the body in general and of the bony tissue in particular. Hypertrophy
and overfunction of this gland produces giantism, or acromegaly
(enlargement of hands, feet, and skull), while atrophy and
underfunction of the anterior lobe results in infantilism, acromikria
(diminution of extremities, i. e. hands, feet, head), obesity, and
genital dystrophy (i. e. suppression of secondary sexual characters).
The posterior lobe of the pituitary body constitutes, with the pars
intermedia, a second endocrine gland, which generates a stimulatory
hormone called pituitrin. This hormone stimulates unstriated muscle
to contract, and thereby regulates the discharge of secretions from
various glands of the body, e. g. the mammary glands, bladder, etc.
Hence the hypophysis, far from being a useless organ, is an
indispensable one. Moreover, it is an integral and important part of
the cryptorhetic system.
The same story may be repeated of the thyroid glands. These
consist of two lobes located on either side of the windpipe, just below
the larynx (Adam’s apple), and joined together across the windpipe
by a narrow band or isthmus of their own substance. Gaskell
homologized them with a gland in scorpions, and Mathew says that,
if his surmise is correct, “the thyroid represents an accessory sexual
organ of the invertebrate.” (Op. cit., p. 654.) They are, however,
endocrine glands, that generate a hormone known as thyroxin, which
regulates the body-temperature, growth of the body in general, and
of the nervous system in particular, etc., etc. Atrophy or extirpation of
these glands causes cretinism in the young and myxoedema in
adults. Without a sufficient supply of this hormone, the normal
exercise of mental powers in human beings is impossible. The
organ, therefore, is far from being a useless vestige of what was
formerly useful.
George Howard Parker, the Zoölogist of Harvard, sums up the
case against the Darwinian interpretation of the endocrine glands as
follows: “The extent to which hormones control the body is only just
beginning to be appreciated. For a long time anatomists have
recognized in the higher animals, including man, a number of so-
called ductless glands, such as the thyroid gland, the pineal gland,
the hypophysis, the adrenal bodies, and so forth. These have often
been passed over as unimportant functionless organs whose
presence was to be explained as an inheritance from some remote
ancestor. But such a conception is far from correct. If the thyroids are
removed from a dog, death follows in from one to four weeks. If the
adrenal bodies are excised, the animal dies in from two to three
days. Such results show beyond doubt that at least some of these
organs are of vital importance, and more recent studies have
demonstrated that most of them produce substances which have all
the properties of hormones.” (“Biology and Social Problems,” 1914,
pp. 43, 44.)
Even the vermiform appendix of the cæcum, which since Darwin’s
time has served as a classic example of a rudimentary organ in man,
is, in reality, not a functionless organ. Darwin, however, was of
opinion that it was not only useless, but positively harmful. “With
respect to the alimentary canal,” he says, “I have met with an
account of only a single rudiment, namely, the vermiform appendage
of the cæcum. ... Not only is it useless, but it is sometimes the cause
of death, of which fact I have lately heard two instances. This is due
to small hard bodies, such as seeds, entering the passage and
causing inflammation.” (“Descent of Man,” 2nd ed., ch. I, pp. 39, 40.)
The idea that seeds cause appendicitis is, of course, an exploded
superstition, the hard bodies sometimes found in the appendix being
fecal concretions and not seeds—“The old idea,” says Dr. John B.
Deaver, “that foreign bodies, such as grape seeds, are the cause of
the disease, has been disproved.” (Encycl. Americana, vol. 2, p. 76.)
What is more germane to the point at issue, however, is that Darwin
erred in denying the utility of the vermiform appendix. For, although
this organ does not discharge in man the important function which its
homologue discharges in grain-eating birds and also in herbivorous
mammals, it subserves the secondary function of lubricating the
intestines by means of a secretion from its muciparous glands.
Darwin gives the semilunar fold as another instance of a vestigial
organ, claiming that it is a persistent rudiment of a former third eyelid
or membrana nictitans, such as we find in birds. “The nictitating
membrane, or third eyelid,” he says, “with its accessory muscles and
other structures, is especially well developed in birds, and is of much
functional importance to them, as it can be rapidly drawn across the
whole eyeball. It is found in some reptiles and amphibians, and in
certain fishes as in sharks. It is fairly well developed in the two lower
divisions of the mammalian series, namely, in the monotremata and
marsupials, and in some higher mammals, as in the walrus. But in
man, the quadrumana, and most other mammals, it exists, as is
admitted by all anatomists, as a mere rudiment, called the semilunar
fold.” (Op. cit., ch. I, pp. 35, 36.) Here Darwin is certainly wrong
about his facts; for the so-called third eyelid is not well developed in
the two lower divisions of the mammalian series (i.e. the
monotremes and the marsupials) nor in any other mammalian type.
“With but few exceptions,” says Remy Perrier, “the third eyelid is not
so complete as among the birds; (in the mammals) it never covers
the entire eye. For the rest, it is not really perceptible except in
certain types, like the dog, the ruminants, and, still more so, the
horse. In the rest (of the mammals) it is less developed.” (“Elements
d’anatomie comparée,” Paris, 1893, p. 1137.) Moreover, Darwin’s
suggestion leaves us at sea as to the ancestor, from whom our
“rudimentary third eyelid” has been inherited. His mention of birds as
having a well developed third eyelid is not very helpful, because all
evolutionists agree in excluding the birds from our line of descent.
The reptiles are more promising candidates for the position of
ancestors, but, as no trace of a third eyelid could possibly be left
behind in the imperfect record of the fossiliferous rocks (soft parts
like this having but slight chance of preservation), we do not really
know whether the palæozoic reptiles possessed this particular
feature, or not. Nor can we argue from analogy and induction,
because not all modern reptiles are equipped with third eyelids.
Hence the particular group of palæozoic reptiles, which are
supposed to have been our progenitors, may not have possessed
any third eyelid to bequeath to us in the reduced and rudimentary
form of the plica semilunaris. If it be replied, that they must have had
this feature, because otherwise we would have no ancestor from
whom we could inherit our semilunar fold, it is obvious that such
argumentation assumes the very point which it ought to prove,
namely: the actuality of evolution. Rudiments are supposed to be a
proof for evolution, and not, vice versa, evolution a proof for
rudiments.
Finally, the basic assumption of Darwin that the semilunar fold is
destitute of function is incorrect; for this crescent-shaped fold
situated in the inner or nasal corner of the eye of man and other
mammals serves to regulate the flow of the lubricating lacrimal fluid
(which we call tears). True this function is secondary compared with
the more important function discharged by the nictitating membrane
in birds. In the latter, the third eyelid is a pearly-white (sometimes
transparent) membrane placed internal to the real eyelids, on the
inner side of the eye, over whose surface it can be drawn like a
curtain to shield the organ from excessive light, or irritating dust;
nevertheless, the regulation of the flow of lacrimal humor is a real
function, and it is therefore entirely false to speak of the semilunar
fold as a functionless rudiment.
The coccyx is likewise cited by Darwin as an example of an
inherited rudiment in man. “In man,” he says, “the os coccyx,
together with certain other vertebræ hereafter to be described,
though functionless as a tail, plainly represents this part in other
vertebrate animals.” (Op. cit., ch. I, p. 42.) That it serves no purpose
as a tail, may be readily admitted, but that it serves no purpose
whatever, is quite another matter. As a matter of fact, it serves for the
attachment of several small muscles, whose functioning would be
impossible in the absence of this bone. Darwin himself concedes
this; for he confesses that the four vertebræ of the coccyx “are
furnished with some small muscles.” (Ibidem.) We may, therefore,
admit the homology between the human coccyx and the tails of other
vertebrates, without being forced to regard the latter as a useless
vestigial organ. It may be objected that the attachment of these
muscles might have been provided for in a manner more in harmony
with our ideas of symmetry. To this we reply that Helmholtz criticized
the human eye for similar reasons, when he said that he would
remand to his workshop for correction an optical instrument so
flawed with defects as the human eye. But, after all, it was by the
use of these selfsame imperfect eyes that Helmholtz was enabled to
detect the flaws of which he complained. When man shall have fully
fathomed the difficulties and obstructions with which organic
morphogeny has to contend in performing its wonderful work, and
shall have arrived at an elementary knowledge of the general laws of
morphogenetic mechanics, he will be more inclined to admire than to
criticize. It is a mistake to imagine that the finite works of the Creator
must be perfect from every viewpoint. It suffices that they are perfect
with respect to the particular purpose which they serve, and this
purpose must not be narrowly estimated from the standpoint of the