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Vakkom Maulavi - The man who wielded words for freedom

With Vakkom Maulavi as its founder, Swadeshabhimani swept across Travancore and Kochi like a tornado with its uninhibitedness

A written clerical test paper of the Kerala Public Service Commission had a question about the founder of Swadeshabhimani, to which 95 per cent of the candidates answered Ramakrishna Pillai. That was two years ago. Many still have no clue of the historical statuses that led to the establishment of Swadeshabhimani, nor of the man who had sweated it out and exhausted his entire material wealth to bring out this publication. Would one call this preposterous narrative a historical incongruity?

A newspaper that began publication 114 years ago (1905), and remained in circulation for only for five eventful years - was Swadeshabhimani. On January 17, 1905, the first issue of Swadeshabhimani came out from Anchu Thengu (Land of the Five Palms), which was the only location close to Vakkom Maulavi's home where a post office operated. A year later when a post office was opened in Vakkom, the printing press was relocated. In July 1907 the press was shifted a second time to Trivandrum. On September 26, 1910, the journal was forcefully shut down. This is the history of Swadeshabhimani in a nutshell.

With its uninhibitedness Swadeshabhimani swept across Travancore and Kochi like a tornado. At that time, Malabar districts beyond Palghat were governed by either the Madras state or British India. However, Kochi and Travancore remained independent princely states. While Kochi was ruled by a populist ruler, it was not the case with Travancore. Bigotry and corruption were rampant throughout the Palace administration. Close associates of the Palace rode the herd. To cap it all, the delinquent Diwan Rajagopalachari was an infamous womaniser. Notwithstanding all these iniquities, no one dared to challenge the authority of the Palace and its accomplices. When he was hardly 32, Maulavi chose the media, expressly journalism, as his armour in the crusade against the clandestine alacrities in the society.

Most other parts of India were already under British rule. Nationalism and the perception of freedom had not entered mainstream politics. Fifteen years before even Gandhiji and the Congress were in the fray, Vakkom Maulavi stuck his neck out by encouraging his editor to tear off the clock of propriety of the Raj administration, fully aware that this would adversely affect the survival of his news journal. Editorials in Swadeshabhimani exposed Diwan Rajagopalachari's misdeeds that turned the tide of popular opinion against him. "Being born in a dynasty does not earn rights for some over the others. The ruler is only the representative of the state and its people. Integrity and reverence towards the ruler mean integrity and reverence towards the state," read a Swadeshabhimani editorial. The Diwan first tried to buy Maulavi over, failing which he began to unleash threats. When all his attempts to wet the tea leaves failed, the Diwan unleashed his ultimate weapon. On September 26, 1910, Maharaja Srimulam Thirunal issued a decree exiling editor Ramakrishna Pillai from Travancore and confiscating the Swadeshabhimani press.

Time and tide are strange bedfellows. With the exile from the kingdom, Ramakrishna Pillai became a 'martyr'. In the following years, his name became synonymous with the newspaper he edited. Oddly enough, the saga of Vakkom Maulavi went unsung.

Vakkom Maulavi - the unsung hero who had envisaged the very adage of Swadeshabhimani (The Patriot). The unsung hero who imported an automatic flatbed printing press through Pierce Leslie from England precisely 113 years ago at a cost of Rs12,000 - when an acre of land in the capital city of Kerala could be acquired for a paltry Rs 100. The unsung hero who conceived the vision statement of Swadeshabhimani, "trepidation, deceit and greed will not let a state thrive". The unsung hero who had hired Ramakrishna Pillai as Swadeshabhimani's editor only during the second year after its commissioning.

One of the reasons why Maulavi had to hire an editor for Swadeshabhimani, rather than himself leading from the front, was because of his commitment to the reformation of his community in Travancore and Kochi that held a distorted view of its religion. This appalling condition could be attributed to the selfish clerics who displayed an extremely medieval mindset, unable to unshackle themselves from the chains of antiquated ethos. Children, especially girls, were forbidden to attend public schools. Learning English was considered a sin. The inequality between men and women was striking. Women were expected to be mere housekeepers, giving birth to and raising offspring. The curriculum in religious educational centres known as Madrasas at best-taught children only Arabic alphabets and calligraphy.

Maulavi travelled across Travancore and Kochi addressing gatherings and encouraged people to educate themselves and discard un-Islamic practices. He spread awareness about the misleading role of the First Estate, quoting the Holy Book and the authentic sayings of the Prophet and inspired people to return to the basic tenets of their religion.

In addition to Swadeshabhimani, Maulavi published three more journals all of which he himself edited: Muslim (1906), Al-Islam (1918) and Deepika (1931). The first two mainly addressed the maladies affecting his community and encouraged its followers to embrace modern education to better fit in the contemporary world.

A section of the Muslim community did not approve of women attending congregations in prayer halls because of the male-dominant social order promoted by some of its members. Al-Islam largely targeted women and was printed in Arabic but read as Malayalam, because women of the community attended only those Madrasas that taught Arabic scripture, and not their mother tongue.

Deepika (The Torch) was primarily a cosmopolitan periodical covering social, political, literary and scientific topics. It was through the columns of Deepika that the expression 'women empowerment' found its way into the Malayalam lexicon. The insight that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link forced Maulavi into the social reformer's mantle. He neither tried to Islamise the modern world, nor modernise Islam. What he aimed for was to liberate the modern man through religion. However, very few of his generation were able to relate to this paradigm because he lived far ahead of his time.