Heart of Mathrubhumi, K Madhavan Nair

An image from an article written by Shashi Tharoor in Mathrubhumi

K. Madhavan Nair the “Heart” of Mathrubhumi

Founder, first Managing Director of Mathrubhumi, first and foremost president of Kerala Provincial Congress Committee (KPCC), accomplished lawyer, social reformer, dynamic leader who attracted and invigorated thousands of people to the freedom movement. These are a few of the achievements of my grandfather K. Madhavan Nair.

A time when the British were brutally suppressing the Freedom movement…..

A time when public meetings were the only platform to disseminate the policies and ideas of Gandhiji and other national leaders…..

A time when the aftermath of the Moplah riots created confusion and misunderstanding amongst people and steered them away from the lofty goal of Indian Independence…..

A time when Malayalam newspapers were in short supply…..

The leaders of KPCC convened and concluded that a newspaper is necessary to disseminate truthful information and views of the national freedom struggle to the people. Mathrubhumi which is celebrating 100 years now is a result of that united effort.

A year after my grandfather’s passing in 1934 Gandhiji arrived in Calicut to unveil two of his portraits one each at the Townhall and at the Mathrubhumi office. While addressing the gathering at the Mathribhumi office he said “you told me that K Madhavan Nair was the heart of Mathrubhumi and you want to follow his path. If you intend to follow his path you must nurture and cultivate the virtues that he left behind. This is an institution that represents K Madhavan Nair’s ideologies and aspirations”.

The great freedom fighter Mr. Moidu Moulavi wrote in K Madhavan Nair Janma Shathabdhi Smaranika “ Even though K P Kesava Menon was the first editor of Mathrubhumi, Madhavan Nair was it's all in all. Besides being the Founder, first Managing Director, and Manager, he helped Mathrubhumi financially multiple times. In the beginning years, Mathrubhumi had suffered many financial crises. The current employees are unaware of all the hardships the paper had to go through in the early days”

What was the reason for calling Madhavan Nair the “heart” of Mathrubhumi? What were the crises Mathrubhumi endured in the formative years?

Who is K. Madhavan Nair? Well, he was conspicuously absent from our history curriculum - both at schools and colleges!

There is an obscure phase in the early history of Mathrubhumi that people are not aware of.

When Mathrubhumi first started they needed Rs. 20,000 for buying a building and all the necessary equipment to start the newspaper. The congress leaders could only raise Rs. 12,000 in 1923. Rest of the money, Rs. 7500 was provided by Madhavan Nair from his savings and acquired the building and other accessories. Apart from that, he paid Rs. 900 again and bought the cylinder printing press from Vidya Vilasam power press. To start a newspaper without debts was Madhavan Nair’s ultimate aim.

However, Mathrubhumi incurred only losses in the first five years and accumulated a debt of Rs. 13,000.  A situation arose where they had to sell the building and the press.

In K Madhavan Nair’s Janmashathabdi Smaranika the author Mr. John Ochanthurath writes “ Even though K P Kesava Menon was present at the inception of Mathrubhumi, when faced with growing pains no one was with K Madhavan Nair. K P Kesava Menon proceeded to Madras and then on to Singapore to resume his legal practice (between 1925 and 1947, away for 22 years according to his autobiography). Even though he was one of the founding fathers of Mathrubhumi, he had to leave the scene right after the birth of the infant. Unequivocally, survival of Mathrubhumi solely depended on K Madhavan Nair”.

Mr. V R Menon recounts in “Mathrubhumiyude Charithram” (Mathrubhumi’s history) Volume one:

After the paper’s registration, the debt increased annually. To keep from selling the building and the press, an amount of 13,000 had to be paid to repay the debt.  Madhavan Nair rescued Mathrubhumi and paid back the loan surrendering all his savings and pawning his possessions to come up with the amount. The remainder was collected from his friends who had trust and faith in him.   While giving the check to the then manager Krishnan Nair, he said “please pay the interest every year sans I cannot pay my children’s school fees”. Mr. Menon then mentions that my grandmother K Kalyani Kutty Amma and my uncle (K Kumaran Nair, age 9), as well as my father (K Ramanunni Nair, age 8), were present when he said this and my grandmother was wiping her tears.

In spite of encountering many difficulties he fondly nurtured and steadied the newspaper. The late Managing director Mr. Virendra Kumar had quoted this incident in many of his speeches.

Mr. Madhavan Nair persevered for the growth of the newspaper till his demise. Needless to say, he rightly deserves the adjectives – “Heart of Mathrubhumi”, “Mathrubhumi’s all in all” conferred by people, and Mr. Moidu Moulavi respectively.

Had not been for Madhavan Nair’s timely assistance, one can only imagine what the state of the newspaper would be!!!

My grandfather passed away on September 28^th, 1933. So, I have only heard about him from my family. Since his name is not mentioned in any of our history books, I learned about my grandfather and his selfless contributions to our country through the books that Mathrubhumi published, 4 plus years of scouring various online documents in English about freedom struggle in Kerala, and letters provided by Sabarmati ashram. I understood that he had sacrificed his life, career, family, and finances for the sake of the country. My father mentioned many times that Achachan used to forgo meals and sleep and travel all over Kerala constantly to spread the message of a free India and would travel by bullock carts and foot to the remote areas. Thus, he sacrificed his health too.

The great poet Vallathol, feeling sorrowful of Achachan’s passing wrote an article in the 1934 Mathrubhumi magazine titled “ Karuthu kuruthaya Vapussu, veluthu neduthaya manassu” (dark short stature, pure magnanimous mind).

To find out why Achachan deserved such outstanding praise was my next quest.

Karuthodi Madhavan Nair was born to an ordinary family in Malappuram on December 2^nd, 1882. After taking a law degree from Trivandrum in 1909, he started practicing in Manjeri and moved his practice to Calicut in 1915. He was married to Karumathil Kalyanikutty  Amma in 1911 and had 5 children - 3 boys and 2 girls. Two sons Mr. K Kumaran Nair and Mr. Mohandas Radhakrishnan were directors in Mathrubhumi and his granddaughter Sindhu still works there.

He started getting active in the freedom struggle in about 1915. Gandhiji became the leader of the Indian National Congress in 1919. A Malabar district political conference was held at Manjeri on 28 April 1920. Madhavan Nair was the leader of the congress for the Malabar area then. Madhavan Nair knew to achieve freedom it is necessary to unite all communities and they must invite all communities for the conference. Thousands of people took part in the conference. This meeting was extremely successful to launch a strong foundation for the freedom struggle in Malabar.

The next year in 1920, Madhavan Nair along with other leaders attended the Nagpur session of the All India Congress Committee. He was the chief representative for Malabar at that meeting. In the Nagpur session, using his lawyer skills he presented a resolution arguing that Malabar, Cochin, and Trivandrum provinces should be brought together as one state and to be known as Kerala and that a Kerala provincial congress should be formed not a Malabar Provincial congress. The resolution was accepted with a unanimous vote.

After the successful trip to the Nagpur session, Madhavan Nair and his fellow leaders held a meeting in Calicut at his residence on January 30, 1921 and in that meeting, Kerala Provincial Congress Committee came into existence. As Calicut was the headquarters 5 districts were formed. Tellicherry, Calicut, Palakkad, Kochi, and Travancore with 100 members. He stated that a congress committee should be established in every taluk. He proposed the idea “United Kerala”(aikya keralam) which was received well by the people. He was unanimously selected as its first secretary and U Gopala Menon as joint secretary. Without any hesitation he opened up his house in Chalapuram, Calicut to be used as the headquarters for KPCC  (Note: there was no President position then. The president position was only introduced in 1925 and he again was unanimously elected to be the first president and K Kelappan as the secretary). Till his death in 1933, his house in Chalappuram, Calicut was the nerve center for all the congress activities.

He was arrested in February 1921 for the noncooperation movement in Calicut, one of the first leaders in India to be arrested for the Freedom struggle.

6 months later in August, he returned from jail along with other congress leaders like U Gopala Menon, Yakub Hassan and Moideen Koya. K P Keshava Menon writes:

“Till they reached Calicut they were greeted and honored by throngs of people in every railway station. In Calicut, while they walked through the well-decorated roads many garlanded them. During the meeting in the beach that evening, thousands came to see them and participated in the function. The crescendo of Hindu Muslim Unity could be seen there. The city dwellers observed this day like a great celebration”.

While he was in jail the Moplah Riots broke out in Ernad Taluk and other areas. On his return from jail, he could not spend any time with his wife or children even though he had not seen them for 6 months.  He went to various areas in Eranad Taluk to plead with the leaders to stop their violence risking his own life. He also met with and consoled the members of families who suffered the painful and devastating effects of the violence. At the same time, refugees from the riot-inflicted areas started pouring into Calicut seeking help from Madhavan Nair and other leaders. He did not hesitate to immerse himself in rehabilitating the refugees. A congress relief committee was established under his leadership. His house which was the Congress office became the relief committee office and all the operations of the committee were directed from there. Accommodation, food, healthcare, clothing, and essentials for the 30,000 odd refugees were provided from this location.

Madhavan Nair with other congress 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. He with others, worked tirelessly to let lower-caste students into Zamorin’s College, Calicut; organized scores of events to encourage inter-dining upper and lower castes; and fought for accessibility for lower castes to public places including temples. The roads in front of the Tali temple in Calicut were the first venue for their first protest.

On March 15, 1924 Madhavan Nair was selected as the Director of Kerala untouchability Committee. On March 30^th Vaikyom Satyagraha began. As the people who were protesting were facing many hurdles, a delegation which included 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 Neelakantan Namboodiripad was handed over to Gandhiji. Sabarmati Ashram has sent a copy of the memorandum to me. Gandhiji gave his full support and visited Vaikom the same year.

After the success of Vaikom Satyagraha, they turned their attention to Guruvayoor. A similar satyagraha was arranged in the Guruvayoor temple to let the lower castes into the temple. Even though Mr. Kelappan, one of the congress leaders went on a hunger strike for 12 days, the Zamorin who owned the temple did not concede to their demands. Gandhiji then stepped in to handle the matters. A referendum committee was formed. Rajagopalachari, Kasturba Gandhi, and Urmila Devi came to assist with the referendum. Madhavan Nair was made the Director of Referendum. In spite of being sick after his arrest for Salt Satyagraha and a jail term, he still took up the job without any hesitation.

After the referendum was drawn, he proceeded to Pune along with Mr.Kelappan to meet Gandhiji. There were many correspondences between him and Gandhiji during Guruvayoor Satyagraha. Gandhiji talked about the Guruvayoor referendum and its success to the press under the leadership of K Madhavan Nair.

On November 6, 1926 Madhavan Nair was elected to the Madras legislative council. The Madras government offered him the position of a minister.  Madhavan Nair declined stating that he wanted to focus his attention on discharging duties of the President of KPCC as the freedom movement was gaining momentum. He knew he could do not do full justice to both the roles as the congress president and as a minister for the Madras Government.  Nonetheless, while in Madras assembly as the representative from Malabar, he fought to alter the Janmi Kudiyan Niyamam (Landlord- Tenant law). Due to his untiring work, a bill supporting the Kudiyans (Tenants) was passed on October 15, 1929.

Mr. Moidu Moulavi a great freedom struggle leader states that even though K. Kelappan was the leader heading the Salt Satyagraha, all help including financial contributions to the cause were extended by Madhavan Nair. K. Kelappan in an Mathrubhumi article written in 1934 states it was the speech Madhavan Nair delivered that motivated the youth to march with vigor and enthusiasm. Even though Madhavan Nair had health issues he walked with them to Payyannur with great fervor. When K. Kelappan was arrested on May 12^th and sent to jail, Madhavan Nair was made the leader of Salt Satyagraha on May 17^th in the KPCC meeting held in Payyanur and he included many other protests along with the banning of salt; like burning of foreign clothes, picketing shops that sell foreign goods, make people sign a document stating that they will buy only goods made in India, encourage everyone to weave and wear Khadar clothes, banning liquor etc. He even inspired women and children to take part in these projects.  On July 9^th he was arrested along with a few others and sent to jail for his involvement in these activities.

Madhavan Nair being an extremely talented and capable lawyer, was elected as president of Calicut Bar Association in 1931. He was a prolific writer too. He wrote poetry in many magazines, contributed articles regularly to Mathrubhumi and also wrote the book Malabar Kalapam, an eye witness information about the Moplah Riot that happened in 1921. During Gandhiji's visits to Kerala, he used to translate all of Gandhiji's speeches instantaneously. He even translated Gandhiji's autobiography " My experiments with truth". Mathrubhumi published his translated version on May 24th 1928.

Madhavan Nair passed away at the young age of 51 on September 28^th 1933 due to cancer without realizing his dream of an independent India and united Kerala come true.

The grandchildren are proud of our grandfather who sacrificed his life for the sake of the national freedom struggle and social reform in Kerala.

Why wasn’t such a dynamic leader who sacrificed his life for the country denied a befitting mention in our history books is regrettable.

Sincere gratitude to Mathrubhumi who let us honor our grandfather with respect who was the heart, the founder and the first managing director of Mathrubhumi. Many thanks to Mathrubhumi on behalf of his grandchildren.