Pulappedi - Honor Killing in Disguise

Pulappedi ‘Pulappedi’ literally means ‘scare of the Pulayas’. It refers to a popular belief prevalent in some parts of Kerala roughly till the middle of the 20th cent. that men of the lowliest of the polluting castes such as Pulayas, Parayas and Mannans could appropriate young women of the higher Nair caste after defiling them. Depending upon the caste and the region involved, it was also called Parappedi or Mannappedi. The earliest known mention of this scare, though not by the name, was made by Duarte Barbosa, a Portuguese national stationed in Kerala at the beginning of the 16th century, in the context of describing the social plight of the Pulaya caste. [The Book, Vol. II, Hakluyt Society, London, 1921, pp.68-69]. In current popular belief, Pulappedi was a customary ritual observed every year with the permission of the local community in the month of ‘Karkitakam’ (July middle to August middle). During that period, men of the Pulaya, Paraya and Mannan castes, the so called ‘slave castes’, would roam around to defile Nair women who strayed alone outside their houses or were left unprotected inside their homes or wished to be defiled and possessed. Defiling could be by touching the woman or hitting her with a twig or a pebble, or by just sighting her and hollering ‘kande, kande’ (I saw, I saw). When defiled, the woman would lose her caste. She should declare it publicly and run away from her home and subject herself to be appropriated by the defiler, or become a beggar or a mendicant, or allow to be converted to another religion. If not, she could be killed with impunity by her own people, or killed or sold to any willing bidder by the local chief. The defiler and his kith and kin, on their part, could also be killed or tortured as the Nairs or the local chiefs pleased. The apparent definitiveness of this belief and its details owe largely to the fanciful descriptions of Elamkulam Kunjan Pillai [''Mannappediyum Pulappediyum'', Mathrubhumi Weekly, November 1957] who mixed local folk lore with a liberal misreading of Barbosa. He assumed that Pulappedi was actually practised in many parts of Kerala until ‘recent times’. Following him uncritically, other historians and text book writers only popularized his views. The fact is that there is no historical record of any instance of a Nair woman ever coming under Pulappedi. There is also absolutely no way of ascertaining whether it was ever practised as was popularly believed. Even Barbosa was not a witness to any actual instance of Pulappedi. He had most probably only reported what his local contacts had told him. The scare was, however, palpable as is indicated by a proclamation issued by a local chief in C.E.1696 prohibiting it in his domain and threatening its perpetrators and their families with summary execution. But, the historians had generally assumed that Pulappedi was actually practised in extreme secrecy, which was why records were not kept. Therefore, they tried only to explain its origin, significance and other related issues. Elamkulam, for instance, explained it as a community licence given to the slave castes to procreate in Nair women a mixed caste of agricultural slaves. According to him, the practice began sometime in 12th century C.E. after the size of the original slave castes in Kerala began to dwindle. [Elamkulam, 1957]. Another historian saw in it the instance of the ubiquitous class conflict between the Nair oppressors and the oppressed slave castes [K.N.Ganesh, Keralathinte Innalekal (in Malayalam), 1990]. Considering all the available facts, it is extremely doubtful that Pulappedi, including its other two variants, was ever practised as a custom in its popularly depicted form. Rather, it was only a scare consciously perpetrated by Nairs themselves to control their own women from straying outside the family and caste diktats, and to punish those who actually broke or were feared would break those diktats. The role of the polluter, a bonded slave of the Nairs, in this plot would have been to obey the commands of the master and defile or claim to have defiled the woman chosen by the master, or acquiesce to the charge of defiling the woman without actually defiling. Whichever way, the Nairs could punish the polluter also. Interestingly, the polluter castes connected with Pulappedi were known as practitioners of voodoo and magic, which gave those who scripted the story of defiling and abduction a credible excuse for failing. This view was first put forward in 1994 in an article, ‘Pulappedi – Puthiya Oranveshanam’ [in Malayalam], by P.P.Sudhakaran [Kerala Padanangal 4, January – March, 1994, Ed. K.T.Ram Mohan, Chithira Printers & Publishers, Ernakulam]. These are the reasons advanced in support of the view: 1. The social distancing between the polluting castes and the Nairs was so pernicious, the habitats of the polluting castes were located in such isolated areas, and the physical marks of the polluting castes were so distinct and loud that it would have been impossible for a polluter man to go anywhere near a Nair habitat even in ordinary times except perhaps with the overt or covert permission of the Nairs. 2. The polluter could not have defiled any Nair woman by surprise either as the Pulappedi season was known to all in advance, and it needed only some extra vigilance by the Nair men during that period to prevent it if they wanted to. 3. The life environment of the polluting castes compared to that of the Nairs being so depressing, and the other options available to a defiled woman being so devastating, no Nair woman in her senses would ever have risked coming under Pulappedi. 4. The punishment for the polluter, whether caught before the act or after, was known in advance to be so cruel and certain that none but a maniac would have dared to provoke the Nair fury