Guruswamy

Sree Narayana Guru (Guruswamy) (1856 - 1928) was born into an Ezhava family. Ezhavas, because of their precarious position between the upper and lowest strata in the caste hierarchy, faced much social injustice. Gurudeva or Guruswamy, as he is fondly called today, revolted against casteism and transformed society in Kerala. His influence on present day Kerala society and politics is extensive.

Narayana Guru is revered for his Vedic knowledge, poetic proficiency, openness to the views of others, non-violent philosophy and his unrelenting resolve to set right social wrongs. Ideals that hold merit even today.

Narayana Guru was instrumental in setting the spiritual foundations for social reform in Kerala, constituting the erstwhile states of Travancore, Kochi and the Malabar districts of British India. He was among the most successful social reformers that tackled caste in India. Unlike the mainstream politics today, he demonstrated a path to social emancipation without invoking the dualism of the oppressed and the oppressor. These are ideals that we ought to follow. The fights are ideological, the memes are the ones that need fighting, not people.

In contrast to certain other reformers who criticized Brahmins and upper caste Hindus for the condition of the lower castes, Sree Narayana Guru stressed on the uplift of a community through its own efforts by the establishment of schools and temples. In the process he brushed aside the Hindu religious conventions based upon Chaturvarna. His transformation of the social face of Kerala relied on emphasizing the Advaita philosophy of Sankara?.

More of Guruswamy's work can be found at the SNDP site.

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