Malabar History journal

Three initiatives were started by 14 youth upon the advice and auspices of Gurudev, including the Aikya Nanaya Sangham, which is present day Uralungul Cooperative Bank and the Atma Vidya Sangham. The atma vidya sangham was launched in 1917, followed by the aikya nanaya sangham in 2022. He laid specific focus on the economic well-being of the downtrodden. In it’s by-laws, the cooperative stated that the purpose of ULCCS was to ‘promote the economic interests of the labourers of the society’. There are four common features of the 14 original members of the cooperative: (1) they all belonged to the thiyya community, (2) they were all labourers except for three of them, (3) most of them were also founding members of the cooperative credit society, and (4) they were all members of the Atmavidya Sangham and ardent followers of Vagbhatananda.

The anti-caste activists of the atma vidya sangham led a very precarious and insecure life, often having denied any work, owing to their participation in the anti-caste activities, which led to the emphasis on their economic well-being as well as setting up school for their children.

During the earlier days, it undertook work in the fields, including re-construction of collapsed bunds in agricultural fields. This was undertaken after the flood of 1924. Similarly, they also undertook work to build stockyards for fishermen. During the colonial times, it also used to undertake contracts across Malabar, from Palakkad to Mangalore, to build roads. In 1944, ULCCS undertook the mission of widening the famous Canoli Canal in Kozhikode.

Paleri Kanaran became the President of the society in 1952 and served as its head for 30 years. Under his leadership, it won its first official contract as well as built a headquarter in Nadapuram in 1954. In the 1990s, they started it’s own quarry and a hollow-bricks unit for sourcing material for construction work. In 2005, it was given membership in the National Labour Co-operative Federation.

It went through many ups and downs, including phases when the cooperative society could not give work to workers registered with them, till around 2010. They constructed the UL Cyber Park with the motto of generating employment in the IT sector in the Malabar region. Today, it has grown into a prominent enterprise which has ventured into Healthcare, Education and Tourism sectors. The United Nations undertook a documentary film making project on the ULCC to document story of ULCCS. The principles, ethics and trajectory of ULCCS has also been written in a book co-authored by Dr. Thomas Issac and Dr. Michelle Williams in which the argue that ULCCS was born ‘out of the local initiatives of a group of young people motivated by the winds of radical change that were sweeping through Malabar during the first decades of the twentieth century’.

ULCC is headquartered at Vadakara and Saragalaya Arts and Crafts village is an undertaking of Uralungul started in 2011.

References

“The Success Story of Uralungal Labour Cooperative Contract Society Ltd.” MediaOne TV (June 2016). Link (accessed July 2022).

Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society – History. (Accessed July 2022).

Elembillassery, Varun. “Organizing Informal Labour in India.” Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 53, No. 3 (January 2018): 438–448.

Issac, Dr. Thomas, and Williams, Michelle. Building Alternatives: The Story of India’s Oldest Construction Workers’ Cooperative. New Delhi: LeftWord Publications, 2017.