Poykayil Yohannan (17 February 1879, in

Eraviperoor Eraviperoor is a village in Thiruvalla Taluk,Pathanamthitta district in the state of Kerala . Eraviperoor is the part of Thiruvalla Taluk in east location and is part of the Aranmula legislative assembly constituency.It Comes Under Thiruvalla ...

– 1939), known as Poykayil Appachan or Poykayil Kumara Guru Devan, was a dalit activist, poet and the founder of the socio-religious movement Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha ("God's Society of Obvious Salvation"). His father was Kandan and mother Lachi. His original name was Kumaran.

Religious work

Yohannan joined the

Marthoma church The Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, often shortened to Mar Thoma Church, and known also as the Reformed Syrian ChurchS. N. Sadasivan. A Social History of India'. APH Publishing; 2000. . p. 442. and the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar ...

, a reformist sect among the Syrian Christians, but realised the church treated

Dalits Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming ...

as an inferior class, and so left it. He then joined a new sect called the Brethren Mission where he faced similar instances of caste based discrimination. Johannan concluded that

Indian Christian Christianity is India's third-largest religion with about 27.8 million adherents, making up 2.3 percent of the population as of the 2011 census. The written records of the Saint Thomas Christians state that Christianity was introduced to th ...

communities continued to discriminate based on caste, and felt this defied the basic tenets of Christianity. In 1909, Yohannan left Christianity and started his own religious protest movement named Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha. He was known as Poikayil Appachan or Kumara Gurudevan afterwards. Johannan advocated spiritual liberation, and sought to empower and consolidate the Dalits, promoting a creed in which the " dalit castes" would be free of discrimination. He was the first person to start an English medium school for the dalit community.

Work as a legislator

Yohannan was also a member of the Dalit advocacy group Sadhujana Paripalana Sangham which was founded in 1907 by another dalit leader of Kerala,

Ayyankali Ayyankali (28 August 1863 – 18 June 1941) was an Indian politician, prominent social reformer, educator, economist, lawmaker, and a revolutionary leader. He worked for the advancement of the oppressed people in the princely state of Travancor ...

. Yohannan was also twice nominated, in 1921 and 1931, to the Sree Moolam Praja Sabha, the legislative council of the

princely state A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Raj, British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, ...

Travancore The Kingdom of Travancore ( /ˈtrævənkɔːr/), also known as the Kingdom of Thiruvithamkoor, was an Indian kingdom from c. 1729 until 1949. It was ruled by the Travancore Royal Family from Padmanabhapuram, and later Thiruvananthapuram. At ...

Publications

* ''Unknown Subjects: Songs of Poykayil Appachan''. Translated from Malayalam by A.S. Sekher * ''Vadyakhoshangal Nadathunnavarum'' and ''Ente Vamshathepatti'' were featured in the Dalit Poem Collection named Kathal — published by DC Books

Media representations

* ''Mannikkale Maanikkyam'' - Drama by V. V. Santhakumar features Yohannan

Religious work

Work as a legislator

Publications

Media representations

References

Further reading