MB Manoj on Dalits, Onam and Malayali identity

Dalit Camera: Onam is celebrated as the state festival of Kerala. What are your views on Onam?

MB Manoj: Where Kerala is concerned, ever since the 10th century (A.D), the dominant classes have established many myths as history. The first myth is that Kerala was created by Parasuraman. This is a great myth in itself, a legend… a blind legend, a fable. They turned this fairy tale into history, so that the origin of Kerala is itself narrated as a fable.

The origin of Kerala is one the foundational myths of India, most of which were established by the upper Brahminical castes. According to this myth, Kerala was even then a nation state, with its own great festivals of which Onam is one.

There are two ways in which Dalits see Onam. For one, it is the day on which one of their kings, Mahabali, was murdered. Both in Dalit and tribal folklore, the Dravidian king known as Mahabali was their king. He was a good king, who strove for equality and fraternity among his people. For an Indian king to establish equality, fraternity and liberty… he could only have come from the Buddhist tradition. But as a consequence of Aryanization, in the struggle for Aryanization, many kings like Mahabali were slaughtered.

So you have this folk narrative among Dalits, among tribes,  the folk songs of the adivasis in Wayanad, for instance, that their king Mahabali was killed by Vamanan (a dwarf brahmin).

As far as Dalits and adivasis are concerned, Onam is a Black Day, the day their king was murdered, a day of mourning. But for the upper castes, it’s a happy day, a day to celebrate, the day their power was entrenched. With the murder of the most powerful king in the land, they had nothing left to fear.

Having killed the king, they brought the natives, the tribes, into the lowest level of their caste system. They introduced slavery. Onam marks the age when slavery and the caste system were introduced into Kerala, an age which began with the killing of Maveli (Mahabali).

The historicity is very evident. Mahabali is an Asura, Vamana is Vishnu. Mahabali, the Asura, treated all his subjects as equals but Vamana, the avatar of Vishnu, came and stamped Mahabali into the earth.

So the Dalit’s question is, how can we celebrate as a ‘festival’ the day our king was murdered? How do we celebrate the death of our forefather? For us, it is a day of mourning, not for festivities. But the Brahmins, using their power and influence, especially over the media, have suppressed the real history of Onam and turned it into a festival for all Keralites.

The Dalit movements from the 70s to the 90s, especially the Indian Dalit Federation and its founders like Kallara Sukumaran and Paul Chirakkarodu, observed Onam as a day of mourning, as the day on which one of our forefathers was murdered.

DC: What’s the response of Kerala’s Dalit movement to Onam? What’s their relationship with Onam?

MBM: Take a look at the folk songs of Kerala. There’s one that goes, “Little one, little one, Onam has come, little one / The swing, the swing! There’s a swing for Thiru Onam”, and the song ends, “Fish curry, fish curry, there’s fish curry for Thiru Onam.” Here’s a song that says, among other things, “We want pappadam, we want payasam…” and then goes on to mock the caste-ridden nature of Onam by saying, “We want koori (fish) curry”. Fish curry is never permitted in the Onam feast, which consists only of vegetarian food like pappadam, payasam, bananas etc. The folk song is critical of vegetarian food itself.

Folk songs belong to a very old tradition, and Dalits, it is clear, fall outside the Onam tradition. Another example which shows that Onam is not part of the Dalit tradition is the Temple Entry Proclamation. There’s another song that mocks the Temple Entry Proclamation. It’s about Dalits going to the temple – “Let’s go to the temple. We can touch the Lord and pray to him. There’s the Lord of the Wheel. The Lord smeared with holy ash. See the flower growing from the Lord’s navel.” There are many songs that are critical of Hindu gods like Vishnu, which say that temple entry is not what we need, songs that are critical of Hinduism.

These are not just folk songs. These are the lived experiences of Dalits, their cultural life.

There are many such myths about Onam, but these myths are not celebratory. Rather, they are about how our native king was deceived and killed. In fact, the older members of the Dalit community don’t say that Mahabali was pressed into the ground (by Vamana); they say he was killed and thrown into a mud pit. The traditional image is of Vamana placing his foot on Mahabali’s head and pushing him into the earth. Our Dalit elders say that when he (Mahabali) was sitting in prayer in his palace, his enemies took away his weapons, killed him and got rid of his body, burying it in some unknown place. That is likely to be the actual event on which the myth is based. We come across many such anti-brahminical events and stories.

The Dalit movements from the 70s to the 90s, especially the Indian Dalit Federation and its founders like Kallara Sukumaran and Paul Chirakkarodu, observed Onam as a day of mourning, as the day on which one of our forefathers was murdered. We sit in fast (hunger strike) on this day in town, with posters and banners. This is a fairly common occurrence in Kerala. When I was a pre-degree student in my native Cheruthoni, I too sat on a day’s fast organized by the Indian Dalit Federation and other Dalit groups. This is a major form of resistance to the idea of Onam.

In fact, Dalits and backward communities eat non-vegetarian food on Onam. Even today, 99% of Dalits, backward classes and tribe will eat fish, beef etc. I think it’s the middle and upper classes, the Nairs, the Nambuthiris (Kerala brahmins), who eat only vegetarian food during Onam. Everyone else eats non-vegetarian food. They don’t consider Onam a festival. At the same time, the government as well as political and cultural hegemony create many artificial festivals using tools like TV, films and magazines and, technically, they co-opt the others into it.

But for this, they (Dalits and backward classes) don’t give any importance to Onam. They don’t see Onam as their state festival, neither historically nor in practice.