Sahodaran portrait at SMHS Cherayi
“All
human beings are equal by birth. All communities too are equal. They
all have the right to live, to grow and to seek welfare and greater
good. This is truth. This is ethics. Everything against it is untruth,
non-ethics and injustice.”
- Sahodaran Ayyappan
The
new fraternity movement which is christened Sahodarya Prasthanam that
came to existence in Cherayi in the birth place of the social
revolutionary, renaissance thinker and writer Sahodaran K Ayyappan, on
20th February 2011 is a unique social formation that proclaims to
include the socio-politically and culturally challenged sections of
Kerala society. It is a greater fraternity of dalits, backward
communities, women and minorities of various denominations including
religion, language and sexuality. It is important to mark that it was
here in Cherayi that Sahodaran launched his anti-caste agitations
through the 1917 inter-caste dining that startled the orthodoxies and
initiated social change.
People at the Fraternity Meet, SMHS Cherayi, Ernakulam
It
is floated by some of the leading social activists and fighters for
justice in contemporary Kerala like K K Kochu, Sunny Kapikkadu, Adv. K S
Madhusudanan, P K Abdul Razak, K D Martin, K S Abdul Karim and others.
It is a democratic alliance and fraternity between the marginalized and
excluded sections of Kerala society. It is all the more significant in
the contexts of the alienation and demonization of the minor subjects
and contested sections of the Kerala society under the hegemonic
discourses of the patriotic and militant cultural nationalism and its
various regional avatars.
Tamil dalit writer Charu Nivedita inaugurating Fraternity Meet. From Right: K K Kochu, Adv. Madhusudanan, Sunny Kapikadu...
According
to the spokesmen it is also vital for the people at the bottom as a
platform for affirming and articulating their fraternity when the
monopoly ruling classes/castes try to divide them in terms of religion,
caste, gender, class and sexual orientation and usurp their rightful
share in political power. The victims of the divide and rule strategy
adopted by the internal imperialism of Brahmanism are getting aligned
themselves under the banner of human brotherhood or sisterhood or cross
gender fraternity here. This kind of radical realization of the
subaltern is all the more important in the contexts of hate propaganda
models like “love-jihad’ and ‘talibanisation’ that split the people at
the grass root level.
Sunny Kapikkadu presenting the declaration of fraternity
An
installation at the venue (Sahodaran Memorial High School, Cherayi) by
leading young artists Jayalal M T, Benoy P J, Baiju Neendoor and the
rest enacted the spirit of Kerala renaissance and the working culture of
the basic communities of Kerala. It visually installed the philosophy
and praxis of love and fraternity invoked by the life and works of
Sahodaran. An Ayyappanist in many respects like me reads the ideology
of Sahodaranism in this simple, seductive and enagaging visual narrative
which is spatially de-centered and aesthetically and politically plural
in its signification. The work titled “Smell of Salt” is a profound
artistic critique and tribute to the people or subaltern in Kerala,
their historic struggles for liberty and their organic and human
instincts of equality and fraternity.
Artist Jayalal M T before the installation "Smell of Salt" at SMHS Cherai
I
salute the artists and organizers and appeal them to document and
preserve this political and public art which is a rare manifestation in
the cultural politics of Kerala. It again enlivens the historic
memories of the burning of the caste monster by Ayyappan at the very
heart of Cherayi more than a century ago which initiated the whole
repertoire of symbolic protest in the public sphere of Kerala. That
kind of radical intervention in and renewal of visual sensibility of the
people is involved in the present installation work as well. It links
this contemporary art/political practice to the historic installation
at Aruvipuram by Narayana Guru himself (1888) that distinctly and
poetically marked the subject formation and voice consciousness of the
subaltern in Kerala through its unprecedented challenge and critique of
caste and Brahmanism.
K K Kochu delivering the key-note address at the public meeting, Gauriswara temple premise, Cherayi
The
very meeting for the declaration of fraternity at SMHS Cherayi was
conceived after Sahodaran’s historic Declaration of Human Rights(1945)
at Ernakulam. The meet was marked for its mass participation of people
from all walks of life. Women and children from minority communities
were present in large numbers. There were representatives from all
sections of the society on the platform. Even dalit feminists and
lesbian feminist activists addressed the mixed gathering and shared
their concerns for the development of the idea and practice of
fraternity in a diverse and heterogeneous society where difference is
the key word. But the fraternity meet proved that co-existence of
differences is the democratic way of life in a diverse and plural
society like us in the coming days.
K
K Kochu speaking in the public meeting at Gauriswara temple. From
right: Rev. Fr. Vincent Kundukulam, Holy Imam of Palayam, Adv.
Madhusudanan...
The fraternity meet at SMHS and the public
meet at Gauriswara temple premise (historic site of Narayana Guru’s own
installation) prove that the movement ensures inclusion and
representation in the true egalitarian and ethical spirit of democracy.
In its greater spirit of tolerance, co-existence and inclusion the
movement is more close to the teacher of Sahodaran rather than to the
rationalist himself. While Sahodaran critiqued the religious for its
anti-human aspects his guru upheld the humanitarian and ethical role of
religions across cultures and societies. The Sahodarya movement has to
address such profounder, epistemological and historic issues in its
further acts and articulations. The beginning is artful and ethical in
its multiple significations.
Lesbian/Gay/Trans-gender Rights activist Deepa V of Sahayatrika articulating her concerns on fraternity
Dalit feminist Rekha Raj addressing the gathering
No comments:
Post a Comment