Literature as a Vehicle for Ideas: Indulekha and the Victorianization of Kerala Society

Abstract

O. Chandumenon's Indulekha, published in 1889, is generally considered to be the first Malayalam novel. The book was a complete success. The first edition sold out within three months and the English translation was published within a year. By 1989, the 100^th anniversary of the novel's publication, 72 reprints of Indulekha had been made. In 1889, the Malayalam-speaking region of India was divided into Malabar, ruled directly by the British under the Madras Presidency, and the princely states of Cochin and Travancore. Indulekha sold spectacularly in all three regions. The state of Kerala was only founded in 1956, but the concept of Kerala is at least as old as the Raghuvamsha of Kalidasa, where it is mentioned. My article attempts to analyze and evaluate Indulekha as a vehicle for Victorian ideas. The Kerala of 1889 in which the novel appeared was ripe for a socio-cultural revolution and Indulekha was both a product and a catalyst of this revolution. Queen Victoria's reign lasted from 1837 to 1901. She was proclaimed Empress of India on January 1, 1877  at the imperial Durbar festival in Delhi. My article argues that Indulekha acted as a vehicle for transporting Victorian ideas to Kerala. First of all, the novel can be seen as a piece of propaganda for English classes. Madhavan, the hero of the novel, is passionate about English education. The novel presents a contrast between the sambandam marriage, which was then almost universal among the Nayars of Kerala, and the monogamous marriage, which was the ideal of Victorian society, and valorizes the latter. Indulekha, the novel's titular heroine, escapes a sambandam relationship to marry Madhavan. As the narrative comes to an end, we learn that Madhavan has been appointed to the civil service. Instead of being an unemployed parasite in his tharavad, Madhavan decides to make a living. He marries Indulekha and goes to Madras, and one can read the trajectory of Madhavan's life as a movement from the joint family of tharavad in a village in Kerala to a nuclear family in Madras, the seat of the British presidential government.