Diwan of Travancore
Raghavaiah was appointed Diwan of Travancore in 1920,replacing M. Krishnan Nair. Ragahvaiah's administration is considered to be a mixture of progress as well as discontent. He is credited with having reformed the electoral system in Travancore. However,Raghavaiah's diwanship is remembered as a period of turbulence and discontent. In 1920,he raised the tuition fees for students in government colleges. This was followed by protests all over the state.
Untouchables had been prohibited from entering the Vaikom temple since time immemorial. In the early 1920s,however,though the efforts of politician T. K. Madhavan,the Indian nationalist Indian National Congress resolved to put an end to the practice. Madhavan petitioned Raghavaiah,the then Diwan in 1924,to introduce a legislation enabling untouchables to enter the Vaikom temple and other temples in the kingdom. But Raghavaiah being a staunch,orthodox,upper-caste Hindu,refused. This led to widespread agitations throughout and made the administration highly unpopular.
The Kingdom of Travancore, also known as the Kingdom of Thiruvithamkoor, was an Indian kingdom from c. 1729 until 1949. It was ruled by the Travancore Royal Family from Padmanabhapuram, and later Thiruvananthapuram. At its zenith, the kingdom covered most of the south of modern-day Kerala and the southernmost part of modern-day Tamil Nadu with the Thachudaya Kaimal's enclave of Irinjalakuda Koodalmanikyam temple in the neighbouring Kingdom of Cochin. However Tangasseri area of Kollam city and Anchuthengu near Attingal in Thiruvananthapuram were parts of British India.
Sree Padmanabhadasa Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, popularly known as Sree Chithira Thirunal, was the last ruling Maharaja of the Indian princely state of Travancore, in southern India until 1949 and later the Titular Maharajah of Travancore until 1991. His reign is known for several notable reforms that have indelible impact on the society and culture of Kerala.
The Madras Presidency or Madras Province, officially called the Presidency of Fort St. George until 1935, was an administrative subdivision (province) of India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including all of Andhra Pradesh, almost all of Tamil Nadu and some parts of Kerala, Karnataka, Odisha and Telangana in the modern day. The city of Madras was the winter capital of the presidency and Ooty was the summer capital.
Koyapalli Kelappan was an Indian politician, independence activist, educationist and journalist. During the Indian independence movement, he was the lead figure of Indian National Congress in Kerala and was popularly known as Kerala Gandhi. After Indian independence, he held various seats in Gandhian organisations. He was the co-founder and the first president of the Nair Service Society and was also the founder of Kerala Kshetra Samrakshana Samiti.
Mannathu Padmanabhan was an Indian social reformer and freedom fighter from the south-western state of Kerala. He is recognised as the founder of the Nair Service Society (NSS), which represents the Nair community that constitutes 15.5% of the population of the state. Padmanabhan is considered as a visionary reformer who organised the Nair community under the NSS.
The Temple Entry Proclamation was issued by Maharaja Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma on November 12, 1936. The Proclamation abolished the ban on the so-called 'low caste people' or avarnas from entering Hindu temples in the Princely State of Travancore, now part of Kerala, India.
Dewan Bahadur Sachivottama SirChetput Pattabhiraman Ramaswami Iyer, popularly known as Sir C. P., was an Indian lawyer, administrator and politician who served as the Advocate-General of Madras Presidency from 1920 to 1923, Law member of the Executive council of the Governor of Madras from 1923 to 1928, Law member of the Executive Council of the Viceroy of India from 1931 to 1936 and the Diwan of Travancore from 1936 to 1947. Ramaswami Iyer was born in 1879 in Madras city and studied at Wesley College High School and Presidency College, Madras before qualifying as a lawyer from the Madras Law College. He practised as a lawyer in Madras and succeeded S. Srinivasa Iyengar as the Advocate-General of the Madras Presidency. He subsequently served as the Law member of the Governor of Madras and of the Viceroy of India before being appointed Diwan of Travancore in 1936.
The Justice Party, officially the South Indian Liberal Federation, was a political party in the Madras Presidency of British India. It was established on 20 November 1916 in Victoria Public Hall in Madras by Dr C. Natesa Mudaliar and co-founded by T. M. Nair, P. Theagaraya Chetty and Alamelu Mangai Thayarammal as a result of a series of non-Brahmin conferences and meetings in the presidency. Communal division between Brahmins and non-Brahmins began in the presidency during the late-19th and early-20th century, mainly due to caste prejudices and disproportionate Brahminical representation in government jobs. The Justice Party's foundation marked the culmination of several efforts to establish an organisation to represent the non-Brahmins in Madras and is seen as the start of the Dravidian Movement.
Pooradam Thirunal Sethu Lakshmi Bayi CI was the monarch, though designated as the Regent due to British policy, of the Kingdom of Travancore in southern India between 1924 and 1931. She, along with her younger cousin, Moolam Thirunal Sethu Parvathi Bayi, were adopted into the Travancore royal family and were the granddaughters of the celebrated painter, Raja Ravi Varma.
The Ezhavas are a community with origins in the region of India presently known as Kerala, where in the 2010s they constituted about 23% of the population and were reported to be the largest Hindu community. The Malabar Ezhava group have claimed a higher ranking in the Hindu caste system than do the others, although from the perspective of the colonial and subsequent administrations they were treated as being of similar rank.
T. K. Madhavan was an Indian social reformer, journalist and revolutionary, who was involved with the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam. He hailed from Kerala and led the struggle against untouchability which was known as Vaikom Satyagraha.
Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy, revered by his followers as Periyar or Thanthai Periyar, was an Indian social activist and politician who started the Self-Respect Movement and Dravidar Kazhagam. He is known as the 'Father of the Dravidian movement'. He rebelled against Brahminical dominance and gender and caste inequality in Tamil Nadu. Since 2021, the Indian state of Tamil Nadu celebrates his birth anniversary as 'Social Justice Day'.
Diwan Bahadur Sir Perungavur Rajagopalachari, KCSI, CIE, also spelt in contemporary records as Sir P. Rajagopala Achariyar, was an Indian administrator. He was the Diwan of Cochin State from December 1896 to August 1901 and of Travancore from 1906 to 1914.
Pudukkottai was a kingdom and later a princely state in British India, which existed from 1680 until 1948.
Khan Bahadur Sir Muhammad Habibullah KCSI KCIE was an Indian politician and administrator who served as the Diwan of Travancore from 1934 to 1936.
Vaikom Satyagraha, from 30 March 1924 to 23 November 1925, was a nonviolent agitation for access to the prohibited public environs of the Vaikom Temple in the Kingdom of Travancore. Kingdom of Travancore was known for its rigid and oppressive caste system. The campaign, led by Congress leaders T. K. Madhavan, K. Kelappan K. P. Kesava Menon, George Joseph, E. V. Ramasamy "Periyar" and was noted for the active support and participation offered by different communities and a variety of activists.
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee is the state unit of the Indian National Congress in Kerala. It is responsible for organizing and coordinating the party's activities and campaigns within the state, as well as selecting candidates for local, state, and national elections. The Indian National Congress currently leads the United Democratic Front alliance, the Opposition in the Kerala Legislative Assembly.
Diwan Bahadur V. S. Subrahmanya Iyer was an Indian administrator who served as the Diwan of the princely state of Travancore from 1929 to 1932.
Diwan Bahadur Sir Veeraraghavapuram Nagam Aiya was an Indian pioneer, historian, civil servant, and chronicler who served as the Dewan in the erstwhile princely state of Travancore.
Diwan Bahadur Sir Mannath Krishnan NairKCIE (1870–1938) was an Indian politician from the Indian National Congress and later, Justice Party who served as a member of the Madras Legislative Council and later, executive council of the Governor of Madras. He also served as the Chief Justice of Travancore High Court and later Diwan of Travancore from 1914 to 1920(?)
