Developmental Modernity In Kerala

This study of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP Yogam), one of the earliest social reform movements in Kerala, investigates the relationship of social reform, religion, and caste. The Yogam drew inspiration from the ideas of Narayana Guru, which suited the aspirations of the upwardly mobile Ezhava middle class, who were the main benefactors of the movement. In both religious and social matters, the Guru was a traditionalist who strove to create a modern outlook among the masses. He conceived of the temple as a social space where everybody could meet and exchange ideas. While pursuing his spiritual mission, he advocated education, industrialization, and abolition of caste as necessary prerequisites for social regeneration. This work demonstrates that the SNDP was an organization of an emerging Ezhava middle class, which worked as both its strength and weakness. It focused on such issues as education, employment in government service, industrialization, abolition of cyclical rituals and caste, anti-alcoholism and the demand for a new law of inheritance. However, some disjunction between principles and practice led to the decline of the SNDP movement. Ironically, since the movement was largely focused on the interests of the privileged section of the Ezhava community, it achieved Ezhava solidarity only around caste. This study is a significant example of how a social reform movement turned into a caste solidarity movement.

Papers presented at the International Conference on Kerala's Development Experience organized in New Delhi from 8 to 11 December 1996.

Filippo and Caroline Osella, anthropologists who spent three years in rural Kerala, south India, write about the modern search for upward social mobility: the processes involved, the ideologies that support or thwart it, and what happens to the people involved. They focus on the caste called Izhavas, a group that in the mid-19th century consisted of a small land-owning and titled elite and a large mass of landless and small tenants who were largely illiterate and considered untouchable, and who eked out a living by manual labor and petty trade. In the 20th century, Izhavas pursued mobility in many social arenas, both as a newly united caste and as families. The work considers how successful the mobility has been and looks at the effects on their society of an ethos of progress. Distributed by Stylus. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

The southwest coast of India has always been a significant site within the global network of relations through trade and exchange of ideas, commodities, technologies, skills and labour. The much longer history of colonial experience makes Kerala's engagement with modernity polyvalent and complex. Without understanding the multiple space-times of this region, it is impossible to make sense of the complexities of Kerala modernity beyond its general description as 'Malayalee modernity'.

This volume studies the concept and relevance of HISTEM (History of Science, Technology, Environment, and Medicine) in shaping the histories of colonial and postcolonial South Asia. Tracing its evolution from the establishment of the East India Company through to the early decades after the Independence of India, it highlights the ways in which the discipline has changed over the years and examines the various influences that have shaped it. Drawing on extensive case studies, the book offers valuable insights into diverse themes such as the East–West encounter, appropriation of new knowledge, science in translation and communication, electricity and urbanization, the colonial context of engineering education, science of hydrology, oil and imperialism, epidemic and empire, vernacular medicine, gender and medicine, as well as environment and sustainable development in the colonial and postcolonial milieu. An indispensable text on South Asia’s experience of modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of modern South Asian studies, modern Indian history, sociology, history of science, cultural studies, colonialism, as well as studies on Science, Technology, and Society (STS).

The book, the third volume to emerge from the enterprise known as 'The Backwaters Collective on Metaphysics and Politics', attempts to further the collective's ambition to put into question the certitudes of conventional social science discourse, decolonize the dominant knowledge frameworks, and understand how the intellectual and cultural resources of Indian civilization may be deployed to think both, about some problems in contemporary politics and culture, and to introduce greater plurality into the world of modern knowledge systems. Some of the collective's members remain deeply committed to reinitiating metaphysics into politics, and similarly, the collective's enduring interest in Narayana Guru is reflected in at least three chapters. Although engagement with Gandhi and Ambedkar is a familiar part of the Indian intellectual landscape, other chapters on offer pivot around histories of power, performative traditions, and modes of worship. Unlike the scholarship that is now the norm, organized around a distinct theme, this volume exhibits a more daring approach to India's intellectual traditions, traversing the world of Kannada intellectuals, the Kashmir Shaiva tradition, a Marathi Bhakti poet, and a contemporary Indian philosopher, as much as conceptual ideas drawn from a wide array of Indian texts and experiences.