Malabar History journal

Major Contributions

C Krishnan was famously known as Mithavadi Krishnan, after the newspaper he took control from Moorkoth Kumaran. In 1913, C Krishnan brought both the press and the then struggling journal Mithavadi. He was in charge of the newspaper from 1913 till his death in 1938. The publication of Mithavadi was a milestone in Kerala’s press history. It campaigned for reforms, and gave news coverage of the first world war. The newspaper Mithavadi was considered to be the bible of the oppressed and downtrodden. It was under C Krishnan that Mithavadi became a weekly. Mithavadi is considered to be the first newspaper in Kerala that was devoted to social cause and fight for social justice.

C Krishnan was also an active member of the SNDP in North Kerala and was part of the team who invited Sree Narayana Guru to Malabar. In 1919, Sree Narayana Guru appointed him the legal and ethical authority of the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam’s property and institutions. His belief that social injustices need to be fought made him a huge detractor of Gandhi and the leadership of the Indian National Congress. On the other hand, he supported British rule to the extent that he believed that freedom from rule without freedom from serfdom is meaningless. However, he opposed draconian policies such as the Rowlett Act, 1919.

In November 1917, C Krishnan also drove his horse carriage along with other reformers near the Tali temple which was previously not allowed for untouchables. Along with his friend and other social reformer, Manjeri Rammayyar triumphantly entered the roads, thus inspiring many people from the untouchable community to remove boards that marked a ban on entry into the temple premises and the temple ponds. He also brought out an article the next day on Mithavadi. This daring act was congratulated by other newspapers like Kerala Patrika who hailed this ‘trespassing’ and ‘violation’. In a similar incident, he supported K V Choi in 1919, another Thiyya who walked the temple pond wall against whom the temple authorities filed a case against. This was one of its first where a case was filed against a lower caste for challenging the order. Manjeri Ram Iyer fought the case and won it. Similarly, he wrote against the increasing practices of untouchability in Cochin where the royal family was in residence. During the Vaikom Satyagraha, he reminded the king that land actually belonged to the people and not the king himself.

Some years before his death, he became an active proponent of Buddhism. He organized the Maha Buddha conference in Kozhikode in 1925 as well as started the Mahabodhi Buddha Mission in the same city. He invited Buddhist scholars from Ceylon who got saplings of the Bodhi tree at Anuradhapura. Of the two saplings, it is believed that one of the trees continues to survive even today. He wrote that it will be very difficult to unite the people of India, who are divided on the lines of religion. He wrote that it is even difficult to unite Hindus because of the prevalence of the caste system and divisions therefore. . In 1929, Mithavadi Krishnan, along with Sahodaran Ayappan started editing the rationalist magazine Yukthivadi, with the belief of spreading rationalist and scientific discourse to the masses. It is in the same year that Krishnan published his take on Buddha’s theory of impermanence in his Buddha Tatva Pradeepam. Mithavadi Krishnan seems to have played key roles in the formulation and passing of the Malabar Tenants Act in November 1930. He also served in the Malabar District Board and Calicut Municipal Council. He was a nominated member of Madras Legislative Council from 1930 to 1936.

References

N. Padmanabhan. “Mithavadi C. Krishnan and Downtrodden Movement in Kerala.” International Journal of Multidisciplinary Educational Research, Vol. 9, No. 12(4) (2020): 1–10.

Sekhar, Ajay S. “Remembering Mithavadi Krishnan and His Multi-Pronged Socio-Cultural Intervention in Kerala.” Forward Press (10 June 2021). Link (accessed on 15 October 2022).