Socio-cultural Processes and Livelihood Patterns at Tirurangadi - CDS

Category Hindutotal
Literacy rate per10, 000 people
Brahman nayar Cheruman parayan Muslim Christian
Male 2661 758 552 13 42 1421 4817
Female 824 345 214 3 2 115 3292
It is clear that in an area where Muslim and the backward castes were the majority such
as Tirurangadi, the rate of illiteracy and backwardness in formal education was much
more than even the standard situation in Malabar. However, we should note that illiteracy
does not mean lack of resources in terms of knowledge and experience, which helped
them to sustain their means of livelihood in the pre-modern milieu. However, as we have
seen, the conditions that developed in the early decades of twentieth century resulted in
the quest for alternate means of livelihood where modern education provided a new ray
of hope.
The spread of education in the area was against heavy odds. Many schools started as one
teacher schools, run by enthusiastic persons who were running othupallis and
kutippallikkutams earlier. More people were willing to start schools during the early
decades of twentieth century. But there was the problem of appointment of trained
teachers. The only training centre in the vicinity was at Malappuram, which could be
reached only with ten to twelve kilometers of walking. Only those with extraordinary
enthusiasm could walk to Malappuram daily in order to become trained teachers, or they
would have to stay out of their homes. Not surprisingly, the first teachers came from
families which had valued learning in some form ,either through religious instruction or
were nattasans( indigenous instructors),or from richer families with some access to
learning. The informants who were retired teachers were proud to insist that they
belonged to a family of teachers. There appears to have been some resistance against
schooling earlier, primarily due to the reason that ‘learning’ in those times meant