Context: A recently-released Malayalam film Pathonpatham Noottandu (‘Nineteenth Century’) is based on the life of Arattupuzha Velayudha Panicker, a social reformer from the Ezhava community in Kerala who lived in the 19th century.

About Arattupuzha Velayudha Panicker

• Panicker was one of the most influential figures in the reformation movement in the state. He challenged the domination of upper castes or ‘Savarnas’ and brought about changes in the lives of both men and women.

His Contributions

• Achippudava Samaram strike – to earn women belonging to oppressed groups the right to wear a lower garment that extended beyond the knees.

• Ethappu Samaram – the struggle for the right to wear an upper body cloth by women belonging to backward castes.

• Mukkuthi Samaram – for the rights of lower-caste women to wear ‘mukkuthi’ or nose-ring, and other gold ornaments.

• These struggles played an important role in challenging the social order and in raising the dignity of women belonging to the lower strata of society in public life.

Other contributions

• He also established the first Kathakali Yogam (area-based schools for the classical dance form Kathakali) for the Ezhava community in 1861, which led to a Kathakali performance by Ezhavas and other backward communities, another first for them.

• He was given the title of ‘Panicker’ by the then-king of Travancore in 1869.

• In 2005, the Kerala government inaugurated the Arattupuzha Velayudha Panicker Research Foundation and Cultural Centre in Thiruvananthapuram.