Palakkad Iyers and Mysore Iyengars had fluctuating fortunes, says study
A contrasting story of Brahmin migration
M R Venkatesh, Coimbatore, June 27, DHNS:
''Palakkad Iyers'' are as well known as ''Mysore Iyengars'' as two
prominent Tamil Brahmin groups migrated under similar circumstances.
But the two communities had to encounter contrasting situations, a
research into the communities presented at the World Classical Tamil
Conference here on Sunday revealed.
While "Palakkad Iyers" had to face the vicissitudes of history until
their absorption in modern times into mainstream Kerala society,
adaptation of the "Tamil Iyengar" families from Srirangam—"invited" to
the erstwhile princely State of Mysore when the Wodeyars consolidated
their kingdom — with the local community was smoother, said Dr
Lakshman Singh, Bharathiyar University's former head of sociology
department, who presented his findings on the communities at the
sociological session of the WCTC.
In his paper on "Plight of the Palakkad Iyers" in the migration's
aftermath, Singh said they were originally a group of Brahmins mainly
from Kumbakonam in the heart of Cauvery delta.
They (the "Iyers") in good numbers migrated possibly from the early
part of the 18th century to Palakkad in Kerala and set up "agraharams"
there under encouragement by the local "Nair chieftains," Dr Singh
said.
The Nair chieftains had a reason to welcome them to Palakkad, as the
dominant land-owning "Namboodhri Brahmins" there refused to "cooperate
in the coronation of Nair chieftains on the ascendant then," Dr Singh
said.
The immigrant Brahmins from Thanjavur district set up over 75
"agraharams" (traditional residential area) in and around Palakkad
though the "Namboodris" resented their entry and their mode of temple
worship.
Shedding their age-old Brahmin self-image, the "Palakkad Iyers" took
to all kinds of works; such as domestic servants, cooks in "Namboodri
illams" and even entering into marital relations with Nair women "to
sustain their prolonged stay," he said.
"These migrant Brahmins thus readjusted to the new situation and yet
took care of their kith and kin in the agraharams of Palakkad," Dr
Singh who studied the sociological history of 120 families of
"Palakkad Iyers" over three generations, highlighted.
Of those families surveyed in his field research, Dr Singh found that
36 of them had produced an IAS officer each. One of them was the
inimitable former chief election commissioner TN Seshan's family, he
noted.
The Wodeyar Kings of Mysore ,too, facing "resistance to their
coronation" from the local Brahmins at one time, encouraged a group of
"Tamil Brahmins" from the Vaishnavite bastion of Srirangam, to migrate
to Mysore.
AIADMK leader and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa
traces her ancestry to one such migrant "Iyengar" family, he said.
Nonetheless, the "Mysore Iyengars" did not face the same level of
hostility as the "Palakkad Iyers," as the political transition of the
erstwhile princely state of Mysore to British control and then into
independent India was relatively smooth, Dr Singh added.
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