Piramalai Kallar

Piramalai Kallars is a sub-caste of kallars. Kallars are part of Mukkulathor community. Mukkulathor includes the three castes – Kallar, Maravar and Agamudayar.

There are eight sub-divisions of piramalai kallars. These are based on eight temples of eight provinces or “ettu naadus.” They are listed below. However, the order of precedence of the “ettu naadus” is debated till date.

(1) Tidyen

(2) Valandur

(3) Puttur

(4) Karumattur

(5) Pappapatti

(6) Kokkulam

(7) Veppanuttu and

(8) Tummakkundu.

Each province includes a cluster of villages.The book "Piramalai kallar vaazhvum varalaarum" by Sundaravanthiya thevan describes the life and history of the caste.

Caste origins

The caste came to limelight recently due to a genographic research, led by Dr. Spencer Wells. A research was carried out from 2005 to 2015 regarding early human migrations out of Africa. There was a search for human populations with C-M130 gene marker all over the world. In India, the DNA of Mr. Virumandi Andi Thevar, a piramalai kallar matched with haplogroup C-M130. The 13 members of his family, a nine generation clan have the same gene marker. This makes Mr.Virumandi Andi Thevar one of the direct descendants of the first migrants from the Africa, who migrated to India over 60,000 to 70,000 years ago. This means that the piramalai kallars are the oldest known inhabitants of India. The haplogroup CM-130 has remained in the DNA of piramalai kallars across numerous generations for thousands of years. This means that caste endogamy has been practised among piramalai kallars. They are very conservative and traditional till present. Tamil literary works of 4th century BC have notes about the piramalai kallars.

History

The Copper plate inscriptions dated 1645, 1652, 1655 and 1656 are the most important artefacts about the piramalai kallars. These copper plate inscriptions are discussed in the book, “Louis Dumont, South Indian Sub-Caste: Social Organisation and Religion of the Piramalai Kallar, Oxford University Press, New York, 1986.” According to the inscriptions, during the period of Thirumalai Nayak , they were appointed as guards or “kavalkarars” of the villages. Most importantly they safe-guarded cattle of the konars, which was the chief wealth during those days. The piramalai kallar group responsible for a village had to compensate for any theft in that village.

Piramalai kallar local chieftains such as Tirumal Pinna Thevar, also performed judicial duties by organising panchayats. This is described in the Copper plate dated 1655: "The Headman’s charter.” Louis Dumont

With a separate system of judiciary and policing, they refused to subdue to british government. In 1767, around 5000 kallars were killed by british captain Rumley near Melur in a single day as they refused to pay tax.

With the introduction of british system of police and the fall of Nayak dynasty, the piramalai kallars started to lose their job as guards. They participated in the South Indian Rebellion in 1800-1801. The rebellion was subdued in 1802. Madurai and the adjoining regions came under the British rule. They had to deal with the rebellious kallars. They refused to pay tax to british. So, the British, through their calculated moves abolished the system of the “kavalkarars”.

Piramalai kallars were reduced to poverty. They had only dry land farming. So, they were forced to cattle-lift and thefts for survival. Piramalai kallars also opposed British at the same time. Soon they were branded as criminal tribes by british and brought under Criminal Tribes Act(CTA) in 1911.

Being independent in spirit they resisted against the draconian act. On 3rd april, 1920 a group of piramalai kallars at perungamanallur village battled against the british opposing the CTA or fingerprint act. The memorial pillar at perungamanallur village has the names of 16 villagers, including a woman Mayakkal, who were shot dead during the incident. This is commonly called as “the south Indian Jallianwala bagh.”

The Criminal Tribes Act was abolished after independence with the support of leaders such as George Joseph and U. Muthuramalingam Thevar.

Present

The life of piramalai kallars of present day is portrayed well in the film “Rajini Murugan.” The panchayat scene in the climax explains the judicial system of piramalai kallars which has been in practise for more than 500 years. There is no explicit reference of the caste in the film. But, the eight provinces or “ettu naadu” of piramalai kallars explained above is specified in the film. In the film,the panchayat is held with the priests of eight naadus as the bench of judges.