Exactly 100 years ago, in Vaikom in present-day central Kerala, 15 volunteers from the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) established a langar, or community kitchen, and started making soft and fluffy chapatis, perhaps the first time some in the community were being exposed to North India’s ubiquitous bread.
The motive of the volunteers, under the leadership of Lala Lal Singh and Kripal Singh, was political and social — they were there to express their solidarity with an ongoing anti-caste movement — but the langar marked the beginning of Kerala’s love affair with the flatbread.
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Back then, the historic Mahadeva temple of Vaikom was the epicentre of a historic non-violent movement against untouchability and caste discrimination. The Vaikom Satyagraha, which lasted for 604 days (20 months) from March 30, 1924, to November 23, 1925, marked the dawn of temple entry movements across India, and it won national attention with the involvement of leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Periyar EV Ramasamy.
At the time, the four roads surrounding the temple administered by the then-princely state of Travancore, were off-limits to members of the oppressed classes, particularly the Ezhavas.
According to official records available with the Vaikom Satyagraha Memorial Gandhi Museum under the Kerala Government’s Department of Culture, the Punjabi volunteers reached Vaikom on April 28, 1924, after a long journey by train and road via Chennai.
On May 1, the langar became functional, and it started distributing chapatis and dal to the participating agitators. The volunteers continued the distribution until June 25; the total cost then was ₹4,000.
But by then, the simple and delicious bread had become a hit among the local community, with many locals visiting the langar to learn the simple but unique preparation method. By the time the Satyagraha ended, the agitators had taken the formula of chapati to British Malabar and the princely state of Kochi.
While Kerala is celebrating the centenary of the Vaikom Satyagraha (events started in March), there has also been an effort to celebrate the state’s association with the chapati.
A land of vast expanses of paddy fields, Kerala never cultivated wheat, and most people had not heard of it until the Akali volunteers introduced it in Vaikom.
Havildar Major Rajvinder Singh of the NCC Kerala-8 battalion, who hails from Ludhiana in Punjab, told Hindustan Times that he was the chief guest at a centenary celebration of the chapati’s arrival in the state, which was organised on Sunday, April 28, at Mavelikkara, the birthplace of freedom fighter TK Madhavan, one of the central pillars of the Vaikom Satyagraha.
According to local historian PKK Harikumar, who has written on the Vaikom Satyagraha, the enthusiasm for the protest spread across India and a contingent of Akalis, adorned with turbans, journeyed from Punjab to Kerala to extend their assistance.
“The Akali community consistently advocated caste reforms at gurdwaras and other worship centres in their region. Consequently, they were thrilled to discover that people in Travancore were actively protesting for the right to walk on the roads surrounding an ancient temple. Food was prepared and distributed to the protesters and others who requested it at the langar. The practice of operating langars for the greater public interest is part of the Sikh tradition,” said Dr TT Sreekumar, writer, researcher, and activist.
Interestingly, Mahatma Gandhi opposed the idea of Sikhs providing meals to the protesters. He believed that it was wrong for an individual capable of providing for his own sustenance to accept charity and partake in meals at a community kitchen.
During his visit to Vaikom, Gandhiji expressed dissatisfaction over the running of the langar openly and said that accepting meals free of charge from the Akali community kitchen would affect the self-respect of agitators.
But the SGPC did not explicitly order the volunteers to stop operating their kitchen in Vaikom, so they continued to operate it. Eventually, Sardar KM Panicker, the then Diwan of the Princely State of Patiala in Punjab, informed the volunteers by telegram of the committee’s approval to wind up the operation in Vaikom.
Though the Akali volunteers returned to Punjab, the people of Kerala continued to remember the chapati. And it found its way into the state’s cuisine.
“That was when people in the state consumed rice porridge three times a day. Despite Gandhiji’s objection, the Akalis had brought about a significant transformation in Kerala’s food preferences,’’ said KK Kochu, a Dalit scholar and writer based in Kottayam.
The Vaikom Satyagraha was officially withdrawn on November 30, 1925, after consultations between Gandhi and WH Pitt, the then-police commissioner of Travancore.
A compromise was reached following the release of all prisoners and the grant of access to three of the four roads.
The Maharaja of Travancore signed the historic Temple Entry Proclamation in November 1936, almost 10 years after the Satyagraha ended, lifting the long-standing prohibition on the entry of marginalised castes into all the temples of Travancore.
