A Kerala Studies Blog
The ‘pooja room’ seems to be a universal fact of Hindu life in Kerala, but is in fact a very modern invention. Drawing on observations of his own milieu, Gautham examines the history and implications of how the ‘pooja room’ became a standard part of modern dominant-caste homes.
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From separate tumblers to inaccessible dining tables, Silpa Anirudhan examines how Malayalam cinema archives the everyday life of caste in Kerala’s domestic spaces. By reading culinary practices across films from different decades, she reveals how untouchability survives not as spectacle but as an ordinary, intimate, and enduring social order.
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ജീവിച്ചിരിക്കുന്ന പരമ്പാരാഗത മോഹിനിയാട്ട നർത്തകിമാരുടെ ഓർമ്മകളും അവർ നേരിട്ട വിവേചനവും കൈചൂണ്ടുന്നത് സങ്കീർണ്ണമായ ഒരു ചരിത്രത്തിലേക്കാണ്. ഒരു കലാരൂപം എന്നതിനുപരി, നർത്തകിമാരുടെ സാമൂഹിക–ജാതിപദവികളുടെ പശ്ചാത്തലത്തിൽ മനസ്സിലാക്കേണ്ടതാണ് ഈ ചരിത്രം എന്ന് അമിത്ത് എഴുതുന്നു.
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Naveen Prasad Alex writes about Poikayil Appachan’s radical vision of caste abolition, memory, and unity—revealing the revolutionary potential of PRDS in reshaping Kerala’s subaltern history.
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Popular readings of modern history in Kerala tend to focus on the many male leaders who led struggles for social justice. Naveen brings to light less-known incidents from these struggles to shine a light on the leadership of women in the struggles for caste and gender justice.
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‘Nadodi nruttham’ is an omnipresent cultural form in Kerala’s arts festival spaces. Drawing from her ongoing research into youth festivals in Kerala, Rajashree Raju delves into the caste dynamics behind a form that represents itself as ‘folk’.
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Editorials about women in public theatre in The Svadeshabhimani give us important clues about am emerging caste-gender order.
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The idea that education should be free in Kerala was in circulation as early as 1904. Although a significant majority were in agreement with this proposal, the excerpt below shows how the idea of free education in State-owned schools was identified as a hindrance to the vision of good education. The prefatory note below is a reading of the editorial published on December 10, 1909.
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Ala speaks to Ruchi Chaturvedi, whose book, Violence of Democracy, published this year, draws on years of engagement with political violence in north Kerala to think about the forms of violence produced by the very practice of democracy.
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We wrap up this season of our podcasts with Malavika Binny and Rekha Raj. In this episode, we explore how clothing, and by extension, the body itself, have been both sites of violence and protest in Kerala, and closely tied to questions of class and caste.
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