From the biography: Meet constitutional lawyer MK Nambyar as an academically gifted schoolboy

MK Nambyar, born in the year 1898, grew up in the midst of tremendous social churn. It is likely that the Echikkanom house too faced some measure of tenant unrest. It is not known as to whether the heads of the house feared for their safety during the Mappila outbreaks or not, but being one of the wealthiest and most powerful houses, it is unlikely that they emerged from this period unscathed. What is known is that the Echikkanom clan was by no means saintly: Nambyar’s stepbrother K Madhavan recollects an incident that he says left a deep scar on him:

Once my Valiachan went to the pathaayapurra at Pilicode. On his return to the tharuvadu three or four days later, he found that the box in which he kept money for sundry expenses was missing. When a thorough search failed to yield results, an astrologer was summoned. His calculations pointed an accusing finger at Panakool Kelu, the man in charge of the cattle of the tharuvadu. But Kelu did not admit his guilt. He was immediately tied to a coconut tree and then the torture session began. Finally, unable to endure the pain any longer, he confessed to having sunk the box in a river. He was then asked to retrieve it. As the river was deep, a few others joined him in the search but to no avail. Kelu was tied to a coconut tree again and this time the gravy of pickles was poured into his eyes. That poor man screamed in agony but it had no effect on the landlord or his managers. In the end, only when Kelu fell down unconscious did the torture come to an end . . . A month later, Valiachan discovered the box inside a locked cupboard. It was then that he remembered keeping it there himself . . .  

Madhavan says that in his childhood he witnessed countless such incidents and though Kelu survived and lived to a ripe old age, many others died. Given that Madhavan was about 17 years younger than Nambyar and lived at a time when reform was already underway, it is almost certain that Nambyar too must have borne witness to these and other horrors. It is, therefore, very likely that the Echikkanom house too faced some of the inevitable tenant backlash in those years.

Looking, therefore, at the lives of MK Nambyar and K Madhavan – both from the same family, born a few decades apart – we find that one would go on to choose the conventional life of a barrister and espouse his liberal ideas in the courts, while the other would fling himself into the nationalist movement, embracing the Gandhian struggle. Though their methods were different, at the root, their ideas were similar – both were aware of the deep inequities in society, yet, their inherent personalities coupled with the period of time in which they were born led them to make very different choices.

Nambyar was no social revolutionary: the quiet boy who Unnanga Amma remembered adopted a more calculated and understated approach to his life. Yet, beneath the unassuming exterior, it is evident that considerable intelligence brewed, an intelligence which could not countenance the life of the tharuvaad, and perhaps could not countenance the social practices followed there.

It was fortunate for Nambyar that at the time he was growing up, as a consequence of colonialism – for all its negativities – the Nairs were beginning to realize the value of a formal English education. Though the Nambudris were initially regarded as the most influential members of Kerala society, historians suggest that by the third quarter of the 19th century, it was the Nairs who had become . . .

. . . the best educated and most advanced of all the Hindu communities of the Malabar region . . . At the end of the 19th century the majority of the graduates, undergraduates and matriculates, as well as officials of the government, were Nairs. The nature of the taravad organisation of the Nairs made the junior members of the taravad free to go up for education as well as to take up government jobs without bothering about the management of the joint property of their matriarchal families, which was duly attended by the karanavars or heads of the taravads.  

British rule had run its course for the first 100 years, and the early decades of the 20th century saw facilities starting to emerge, rare and far between though, towards collegiate education for at least the eldest of the young sons and nephews of the karanavar. The work of the Christian missionaries had already laid the foundation for English education. The leading Nair tharuvaads of the region were the first to seize the emerging opportunities. A doctor, engineer or a lawyer in the family was no longer an unattainable dream but a goal right within reach for many a landowning house. The Meloth house was no exception. Nor for that matter, the Kodoth or Echikkanom houses.

Nambyar was a younger son of the tharuvaad and an academically gifted one at that. His eldest brother Kunhi Raman Nambyar was brought up to look after his mother’s inheritance after her time. Only Kunhambu Nambyar, younger than Kunhi Raman Nambyar, studied up to intermediate, which in those days was on par with the pre-degree of later years. That was sufficient for him to get a good government job in the agricultural department in far-off Kumbakonam at a starting salary of Rs 20 per month.

Kunhambu recognised Nambyar’s academic talent and took a special interest in the boy. It was Kunhambu who impressed upon their father, AC Raman Nair, that Krishnan Nambyar be enrolled in St Aloysius High School at Mangalore, along with the other similarly inclined boys of the tharuvaad. At the instance of AC Raman Nair, a house was specially rented out for the Echikkanom boys and an entourage of servants was retained to meet their everyday needs.

If Krishnan Nambyar’s early years were spent in the confines of his Echikkanom house, surrounded by the traditions and customs of a Nair family, his years in high school and later at St Aloysius College pursuing an intermediate degree was spent in a far more cosmopolitan environment. It was an environment that Nambyar took full advantage of, and with every passing year, he found himself less in sync with the traditional ways. It was clear to Nambyar that he had to move beyond his upbringing and he threw himself into his studies with dedication.

Excerpted with permission from MK Nambyar: A Constitutional Visionary, KK Venugopal with Suhrith Parthasarathy and Suhasini Sen, Penguin India.