VICTORIA INSTITUTIONS' India pages

It will now be seen that the free access of the lower classes of the population to Courts of Justice, Government officials, and fairs and markets, however essential to the public peace, security, and prosperity, is still more difficult of attainment.

It is very amusing to watch a case of this description going on, for the Gumashta (clerk) of the cutcherry has to cry out at the top of his voice every question, and the witnesses or defendants, as the case may be, have in turn to respond to them, by as loud yells, so that all the proceedings are not only audible to those in court, but to those out of and far from it, presenting a scene more like a serious quarrel than a court of law.

He was the junior of the two Dewan Peishcars, but the Senior one Raman Menoven (Menon) was in the north of Travancore and being a Soodra could not have conducted the great religious festival then celebrating at Trivandrum.

The Travancoreans are not a nation, but a congeries of artificially and widely-separated, for the most part mutually opposing, sections of population.

Some Tahsildars we have known abuse all of the poorer classes who apply to them, and keep them at a distance. These men hate to see a decent dress on any man of humble origin, or the chest covered with a cloth; and such are openly reviled, their letters declined on various pretexts, and their business left undone

“One of the most needed missionary agents in India,” says the Indian Evangelical Review, “is a travelling missionary musician, one who can sing well, and is thoroughly acquainted with the science of music,

Sudras, and especially the Nayars of the Western Coast, though not regarded as “twice born,” are yet not socially a low caste, but constitute the mass of the respectable population — the landowners and employers of labour, the agricultural and military classes. Some are nobles and even kings.

Yet Ilavars ഈഴവർ and Chogans ചെവ്വന്മാർ were, and still are in most parts, similarly driven out of the way by Brahmans. Missionaries have pleaded the cause of all classes alike, and to a large extent succeeded in procuring the emancipation of Shanars and Ilavars from such bonds, but as soon as one caste has somewhat risen from their degradation they inflict similar indignities upon their inferiors,.......

They have now cattle of their own, and lease lands from the Sudras for cultivation. Some Sudras even work on the lands of those who were once their slaves. One is now bullock driver for his former slave.

In Malabar, it is believed that snakes wed mortal girls, and fall in love with women. When once they do so, they are said to be constantly pursuing them, and never to leave them, except for an occasional separation for food.

It was unanimously decided, in 1905, by the Executive Committee of the Prince and Princess of Wales' reception committee, that there should be no performance by nautch girls at the entertainment to their Royal Highnesses at Madras.

It is because our Government are so generous to you that people are permitted to become Christians, and to proclaim their religion in our streets.

This part of his character impressed me with a strong apprehension of his being misled in the event of his appointment to the office of Dewan, by the artful and unprincipled men who are around in Travancore.

We have arrived at the stage when new and perplexing problems spring up, which require for their solution great wisdom, experience and grace;

Forests in Malabar are chiefly private property and the great bulk of the land in the Nilambur valley is the property of the Nilambur Tirumulpad, a wealthy landowner not likely under any circumstances to sell land, still less for the purpose of instituting a local industry of a character to compete with his own agricultural and timber operations for the limited supply of local labour. The plantations owed their existence to the accident that one of the many religious bodies holding temple lands happened to be in want of funds and to own blocks of land scattered here and there in this valley, many of which constituted the very best sites for planting that could have been selected had the whole area been available to choose from.

We have known one or two apostates from Christianity, well educated in English, who assumed Sudra names, and passed in distant parts of the country as such.

Al-Biruni was critical of SouthAsian scribes who he believed carelessly corrupted SouthAsian documents while making copies of older documents.

... and even in genuinely ancient deeds it is frequently found that the facts to be gathered from them are unreliable owing to the deeds themselves having been forged at periods long subsequent to the facts which they pretend to state.

The intention of the Purana is evidently to describe Kerala as being first under the rule of the united Travancore and Kolattiri dynasty, ...

ജാതിയുടെ ഏറ്റക്കുറച്ചിൽ നോക്കിയാണ് കുറ്റങ്ങൾക്ക് ശിക്ഷ വിധിച്ചിരുന്നത്. അവർണ്ണർക്ക് ഏർപ്പെടുത്തിയിരുന്ന ശിക്ഷകൾ അതിക്രൂരമായിരുന്നു. ചെറിയ കുറ്റങ്ങൾക്കുപോലും അവയവങ്ങൾ മുറിച്ചു കളഞ്ഞിരുന്നു. ചിത്രവധം അക്കാലത്ത് നടപ്പിലിരുന്ന ഏറ്റവും ക്രൂരമായ ശിക്ഷാവിധിയായിരുന്നു. പൃഷ്ഠത്തിൽ നിന്നും കമ്പിയടിച്ചുകയറ്റി നാട്ടിനിറുത്തി കൊലചെയ്യുന്നതിനാണ് ചിത്രവധം എന്നു പറഞ്ഞിരുന്നത്. രണ്ടും മൂന്നും ദിവസം അവർ അങ്ങനെ കിടന്നു അന്ത്യശ്വാസം വലിക്കും.