Guruvayoor temple entry and abolishment of untouchability in Kerala:

In the late 1920's K. Madhavan Nair, K P Kesava Menon, Kurur Unni Namboodiripad, U Gopala Menon, and other leaders fought hard to remove the caste system and untouchability in Kerala. They formed the Kerala anti-untouchability committee to eradicate this bane of the Hindu community. 

K Madhavan Nair was the president of the Kerala Province Congress committee at that time and a dynamic leader who took upper hand in all matters related to its work. He worked tirelessly with others to let lower-caste students into Zamorin’s college, Kozhikode; organized scores of events to encourage inter-dining upper and lower castes; and fought for accessibility for lower castes to public places including temples. 

Tali Temple

The roads in front of Tali temple in Kozhikode were closed for lower castes until Madhavan Nair along with other leaders decided to walk in front of the temple with a close friend, Mr. C. Krishnan, a successful thiyya lawyer at the Madras high court and other members of lower castes and removed a decree from the bulletin board prohibiting lower castes from walking on the road in front of the temple. This incident encouraged the lower castes to walk on Tali Temple road from then on. More on Tali Temple (click on blue for site and press no to read the pdf document. Tali incident is on page 235)

K. Madhavan Nair along with other leaders sought Gandhiji’s help to eradicate the communal problem of caste division plaguing the hindu community from the rest of (present-day) Kerala.

Vaikom Satyagraha (a policy of passive political resistance) was next. Vaikom temple a prominent temple in Kerala, had a similar stance prohibiting members of lower castes from entering the temple or walking on the road next to it.  In 1924 March 15^th, K Madhavan Nair was selected as the director of the Kerala untouchability Committee. On March 30^th Vaikyom Satyagraha began. As the people who were protesting were facing many hurdles, a delegation which included Kurur Unni Namboodiripad and K Madhavan Nair was sent to meet Gandhiji in Juhu, Bombay to ask for assistance. A 20-page memorandum titled Vaikom struggle signed by K Madhavan Nair and Kurur Namboodiripad was handed over to Gandhiji. They invited Gandhiji to come for a visit to Vaikom to support the endeavor. Gandhiji agreed and gave his full support and it was following the meeting with him that an upper-caste pedestrian walk (Savarna Jatha) was arranged from Vaikom to Trivandrum. They met the Princess of Travancore and submitted a petition to open the temple to the public. Gandhiji visited Vaikom on March 8th 1925.

(First and last pages from the letter he wrote to Gandhiji along with Kurur Namboodiripad is below)

Read more about  Vaikom Satyagraha (click on blue) on Page 244.

Guruvayoor Referundum

(Image text translation: Shri K. Madhavan Nair with Guruvayoor Referendum associates - Shr. K. Damodara Menon, K. Achuthan, K. Madhavan Nair, Ambalakkat Karunakara Menon, A. C. Raman, C. K. Govindan Nair, C. H. Govindan Nambiar, M. Kunhikannan Nambiar can be seen in this picture)  

Next, a satyagraha was held at the famous temple of Guruvayoor.  Even though Kelappan, one of the congress leaders went on a hunger strike for 12 days the temple authorities still did not concede to their demands. Gandhiji then stepped in to handle the matters.

Quoting text from the speech  Page 269-270 (click on blue)

“Gandhiji was of the opinion that the temple entry question at Guruvayur should be settled through a referendum. He instructed C. Rajagopalachari and Karnard Sadasiva Rao to take the initiative of the referendum. C. Rajagopalachari, Karnard Sadasiva Rao and Kasturbha Gandhi reached Guruvayur and met the leaders of the Kerala Provincial Congress Committee. `The KPCC formed a committee to conduct a referendum among the caste Hindus of Ponnani taluk where the Guruvayur temple was situated to ascertain their views on the question of temple entry to the untouchables.

K. Madhavan Nair was made the Director of Referendum to be assisted by U. Gopala Menon, the president of the Kerala Anti-untouchability committee (then).

The referendum was organized with village as the unit and all the adult caste Hindus in the Ponnani taluk with the right to record their views on the issue of temple entry107. The taluk was divided into two sections. K.A. Damodara Menon was put in charge of the northern section and A.C. Raman in charge of the southern section. The work was started on 3 December 1932. The national leaders like C. Rajagopalachari, Kasthurba Gandhi, Smt. Urmila Devi and Mrs. Lakshmi with the provincial leaders like T.S. Tirumumb, Mannath Padmanabhan, and M. Karthiayani Amma traveled in various parts of Ponnani taluk and addressed many meetings held as part of the referendum propaganda work. P. Krishna Panikkar, P.C. Kuttikrishnan, Edasseri Govindan Nair, A.C. Narayanan Vaidyer, K.V. Raman Menon etc like many other Congress workers went on foot and visited the houses to assess the public opinion.

The result of the referendum was a moral victory for Congress. About 20,000 persons recorded their opinion of which 77% voted in favor of temple entry, 13% against, and 10% remained neutral. A significant feature of the referendum was that more than 8000 women expressed their choice in favor of temple entry. The result of the referendum helped to dispel the wrong impression that the (upper) caste Hindus in Malabar were opposed to temple entry. The Zamorin raised technical obstacles and refused to open the temple to the untouchables. The sanatanists gave full support to the Zamorin. They met at Guruvayur on 29 December 1932 and appealed to Zamorin to stick to his guns. They even conferred the title of 'Dharma Dhira Mahavira' on him. Dr. Subbarayan, a member of the Madras Legislative Council took note of the sentiment in favor of temple entry and moved a bill for temple entry in the Madras Legislative Council on January 8, 1933. Guruvayur Day was celebrated throughout Kerala on 8th January in support of Dr. Subbrarayan's proposed bill"

In August 1939, the Madras Hindu Temple Entry Disabilities Removal Act was passed. Unfortunately, K. Madhavan Nair was not alive to see his dream come true. He passed away from Lymphosarcoma at the age of 51 in 1933. 

Gandhiji's speech to the press after the success of the referundum:

December 30, 1932 

I had a full consultation with Mr. C. Rajagopalachari, Mr. K. Madhavan Nair and Mr. Kelappan, who have come to Poona to confer with me. They have placed the results of the Guruvayur referendum before me. The referendum was taken of the Ponnani Taluk where the temple is situated. Never perhaps was a referendum taken with such scrupulous care or with such scientific precision before this. Rarely to my knowledge, have 73 percent of the eligible voters voted. 

In order to find out the truth, voting was confined only to those who were actual temple-goers, that is to say, those who were not entitled to enter the Guruvayur Temple and those who would not, such as the Arya Samajists, were excluded from the voters’ list. I had intended without thinking of all implications actually to find out by some method of examination, who were actual temple-goers, but I have found it to be utterly impracticable. It was enough to announce that only those should vote who believed in temple-going, who had faith in temple-worship as an integral part of the Hindu religion and who were entitled to enter the Guruvayur Temple. The total population entitled to the temple-entry being approximately 65,000, the outside estimate of adults may be taken as 30,000.completed successfully. 

https://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-literature/mahatma-gandhi-collected-works-volume-58.pdf   Page 308. (you can also add Madhavan Nair (in search) to see more letters between Gandhiji and him)

Draft of Vaikom Struggle memorandum presented to Mahatma Gandhi

Source: Sabarmati Ashram Archives.

(Here is the draft of the 20 page document. Adding just the first and last page here)

(In the letter below, the word  "untouchable" is being explained to Gandhiji in the first paragraph. However, ironically it is actually referred here to a person who is of a higher caste. Just the opposite of how we refer now. This is the first time in Indian history that such an issue was addressed and somewhere along the road the word took the opposite meaning)