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Nationalism, Modernity, Keralaness

Dr. Pradeepan Pambirikunnu critiques the intersection of nationalism, modernity, and caste in Kerala, highlighting how elite narratives overshadow Dalit contributions to social reform. He argues that the societal progressiveness in Kerala often ignores the harsh realities of caste discrimination and the historical neglect of Dalit leaders. The document emphasizes the need for a shift in literary and cultural representation to include the voices and experiences of marginalized communities.

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16 views2 pages

Nationalism, Modernity, Keralaness

Dr. Pradeepan Pambirikunnu critiques the intersection of nationalism, modernity, and caste in Kerala, highlighting how elite narratives overshadow Dalit contributions to social reform. He argues that the societal progressiveness in Kerala often ignores the harsh realities of caste discrimination and the historical neglect of Dalit leaders. The document emphasizes the need for a shift in literary and cultural representation to include the voices and experiences of marginalized communities.

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christnagarcollegeniva
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NATIONALISM, MODERNITY, KERALANESS: A SUBALTERN CRITIQUE

Dr.Pradeepan Pambirikunnu was a prominent critic in Malayalam who focused on Dalit


aesthetics , culture and much more. He ”as an accomplished social critic whose attention wasn’t
limited to literary articles alone. Pradeepan was a well-known orator and a teacher. He focused
his attention to often neglected realities of the sensibilities of Kerala , like the elitism in film
music. Apart from writing many articles , Dr. Pradeepan penned a novel titled “ Eri” as well. His
prime concern in writing was the epistemology and its relationship with society.
Nationalism, Modernity , Keralaness : A Subaltern Critique subtly narrates how the so-called
progressiveness of the Kerala society has connived at harsh realities interconnected with caste
and its applications. Pradeepan quotes the historian A.L. Basham to get to his focus area. Basham
says that the salvation in the Indian context was too individualistic. From this cue, Pradeepan
says that, it is not just democracy but caste also gets established thus. The writer says that, there
used to be a hierarchy that worked strictly on the basis of caste. Kerala faced some crisis in
relation to production as the so-called lower caste folks acquired better education and jobs.
Pradeepan aims at an often-neglected state of appropriation. Often, someone from the higher
caste would be lauded as a reformist or renaissance hero, whereas if it was someone from a Dalit
Community, the same attention would never be received at all. The author takes the instances of
Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Jyotirao Phule and how they are perceived in the social renaissance in
India. The scenario in Kerala is not different at all; Mahatma Ayyankali is still called a “Dalit”
leader not a renaissance leader as such. This difference is what Pradeepan calls out.
Along with these notions, Kerala’s general conscience also nurtured a strange thought that, in
order to thwart the caste system , caste doesn’t have to be abolished but one has to be a global
citizen altogether. The author finds this Eurocentric notion to be not effective at all. The history
of Kerala never lauded the leaders like Poykayil Appachan, Krishnadi Aashan or even Ayyankali
because it was easy to replace them with the Savarna/ Elite leaders. In other words, the elite
names were more accepted than the Dalit leaders.
Another sea change that took place was the emergence of a common caste. Many sub castes
were integrated into a common caste called Nair. Instead of sub castes, community emerged
which became stronger gradually. This community started to spread through many institutions.
Gradually, caste became something of a standard or basis in Kerala as even electoral politics
used caste for selecting candidates. Putting a caste surname became fashionable among the
Keralites. This even extends food items being sold in the name of upper caste names, whereas
the so-called lower caste names never have even this privilege. The very cultural sphere of
Kerala has produced even adages reeking with casteism. For example, jaathyalullath thoothal
maarilla suggests one is born with qualities associated with caste and they can never be changed.
Most often, the target of such remarks were the downtrodden, subaltern people in the society.
One of the prominent novelists of Malayalam, M.T. Vasudevan Nair, gets criticized by Dr.
Pradeepan for his portrayals of elite class characters alone. The term called Tharavadu has a
savarna lelite connotation since the downtrodden / Dalit classes never had such a term to denote
even their houses. In other words, the very equivalent term for the word House in Malayalam
became veedu. The appropriation never came from terms like Pura , Chala , or Cheri.
Some of the staunch advocates of Modernism in Malayalam never had to do anything with caste
in Kerala since they were in a way a diasporic. The writers like Anand , O.V. Vijayan , and M.
Mukundan stayed outside Kerala though they prolifically wrote in Malayalam. Hence, the very
characters they created didn’t have the baggage of caste with them. Many of the protagonists the
Modernist fiction in Malayalam contained were rather “global citizens” who could just feel that
caste didn’t even exist.
Even when the Dalit characters with bone and marrow existed in the works of P.Valsala , M.
Sukumaran , or C.V. Sreeraman , they rather felt like part of some generosity , rather than reality.
Slowly, language , style and the very aesthetics of writing changed as Dalit writers started
writing. The style shed its elitism. Pradeepan concludes by saying these are the new movements
one should look forward to, since they will decide how the new wave in Malayalam literature
will be.

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