The history of the Mallu Nairs
To understand the origin of the Mallu Nairs, we first have to understand the history of the Tamilians, the neighbours of the mallus.
Long Long Ago, only Brahmins lived in TamilNadu. They are nowadays popularly known as Tambrahms. When the English first landed on the shores of Tamil Nadu, much before they had explored other continents, they were surprised to see people who spoke a strange language , wore strange clothes , even had strange markings on their forehead and other parts of the body. So, when they enquired around (in English of course), there were few who ran away and there were few who answered “Naan Brahmin” and then ran away fearing that the English would spoil their orthodox holiness. “Naan Brahmin” in Tamil means “I am a brahmin”. The English were not expected to understand this and classified this group of people as non-Brahmins. Thus, Non-Brahmins came into being and the English exploited this to create the caste system in India. In fact, all south Indians were only vegetarians at that time. A similar misunderstanding led to few people being understood as non-vegetarians and thus forced to eat meat.
Now, Brahmins consisted only of Iyers in the olden days. But, there were two “different” classes of iyers. One, who worked for daily wages and the other, who had their own businesses. The second category prospered over the years and eventually made enough money to buy and import cars from England. This group wanted to differentiate itself from the daily wage group. So, whenever they had to introduce themselves, they always said “Iyer with car”.Over the next 132 years, this phrase “Iyer with car” slowly evolved to “Iyengar”. Thus started the quest for dominance between the Iyers and the Iyengars.Since the Iyengars had cars, they slowly moved towards the eastern part of Tamil Nadu near the coast, where they made broad roads like the modern ECR, while the Iyers moved onto the hills close to the borders of Kerala.
Now back to Mallu nairs. When the British reached Kerala and started moving inwards towards the Tamil nadu Border, they were shocked to see two similar group of people at war with each other. Both were dark, spoke unintelligible language (they learnt later that both the languages were different) and yet, were fighting each other for control of the coconuts. So, the British started enquiring. Of course, the locals didn’t know English, but were proud of their own culture and identity. Since the British (through Knowledge Transfer) from their counterparts who landed in Tamil nadu, already knew about Iyers, they assumed that all dark people in this people were Iyers. So, they started addressing even the Mallus as Iyers. This enraged the mallus a lot and they started adding “Not an Iyer” at the end of their names like Harish “Not an Iyer”, Anil “Not an Iyer”. Because of the accent of the Mallus and the evolving of language over time, the surname “Not an Iyer” stuck to the mallus and it eventually transformed to Nair. Thus, we have harish Nair and Anil Nair.
All you Nairs, be proud of your history and be proud of the fact that you are “not an Iyer”.
Note: Looking at the comments, it looks like people are taking this post seriously and have started defending mallus/nairs and offending everyone else! Guys (and Gals), this post is meant to be taken in a light note. I am a s/w engineer, not a genealogist, So please don’t start off advising me on the history of the various groups. If you even have an iota of thought that anything that is written makes sense, thank you!
Note 2: If your comment has not appeared here (after a day or two), it is a deliberate act of mine and not a technical glitch. I am not approving comments which are full of expletives/hate stuff directed towards any group of people, be it mallus, iyers, tamilians or even punjabis! This article was intended in good humour, but if you dont get it or dont want to interpret it so, i can’t help it. But, i can’t let morons (like the ones hanging around on the rediff.com forums) start a hate war between communities or groups on my blog!
Note 3: After spending the last 4 years (after writing the above) on intensive research, i am almost ready to publish the history of the Mallu Menons. So, keep watching this space 🙂
hey , i just came here from google. 🙂 nice article and remember only a Nair can make fun of Nairs and get away with it 🙂 .. so dont mind the backlash and yes I am a Mallu and not a Nair !
Hello rajaram,
You be ready to know the sharpness of the sword of Nairs. we are 14.6% of kerala population. Our language & People are the best. Allandu ninde ummaki tamil allada PATTARE. This Brahmin people only know to eat and eat and sleep & fart… But we work hard and are strong. Our attire is one of the best one and wereas you wear a KONAN.
Allow me; i know it’s a south Indian quarrel; but pls allow me…
Go back to that Sardar Jaspreet’s remarks. His Angreji is poor but his thoughts underlining the issue are not.
Can anybody refute his view; going by empirical evidence and the recorded history of the Sikhs and Rajputs-NO!
That, I believe should nail the argument.
Visit http://mudaliars.co.nr for the origin of Vellalas.
pure rubbish …….. the author has to seriously study about Nair’s … or he’s an ignorant person just fooling around .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nair
anyways who cares cmon its 21st century … but yea true Nair’s got good genetics of a warrior .. 🙂
U bloody idiot……. Never in my life have i heard any crap like this before….. Keep up the gud work…. U excel at being the dumbest among ur lott…….
who is the manalar in nair community ?still anybody lives in kerala?
Dear friends,
Some of you were partially right, Iyers are not original brahmins. They are the low cast people who started following advaita philosophy due to the advent of Adisankara. That can be proved genetically. 60% of the southern tamilnadu iyers are dark similar to other tamils and its being genetically proved that they share close genetic similarities with other tamil class. But rest of the people are fair and that is the reason to uphold them as Aryans. The reason being fair is they have mixed up with fair vaishnavites in due course of time. Meanwhile Nairs are true Kshatriya. Keralamahatmyam texts account them as Yajnopaveetham Vanna Kshatriya. (People who threw away the sacred thread). The word Nair is being interpreted for the last 2100 years across texts; from accounts of Magasthenes to ancient tamil texts of Alwars. Iyers are present in kerala since many centuries and their social status is below Nairs. Namboodiris do not consider anybody other than a Namboodiri to be a true brahmin and Nairs never considered anybody other than them as Kshatriyas. Both as well as considered viceversly. So Iyers never got an image as a Brahmin in kerala, instead depicted themselves as good cooks. Iyers were good cooks in kerala. The only remembered word about iyer in history of kerala is that they bought Idly and Dosa and Vada into kerala cuisine. Meanwhile Nairs were great warriors, Protectors of temples during invasions, Rulers, Nourishers of great culture and stood and still stand as the backbone of Hinduism in God’s own country and stand as the most spread professionals in all fields around the globe.
come on anybody leave me some reply
and this kind of primitive backwardness is what holding india back from real progress. below the skin all are….mmm….you know what
This is ridiculous. Origin of Nairs is not certainly as you mentioned.
Further reference is there in Wikipedia; which is infact with evidence.
Also foreigners first landed on kerala coast( Kappad beach in calicut) and not in T nadu.
dude…admit it, u wrote most of these comments yourself. The level of retardation in some of them is too high to be authentic
nair_dude, i agree with you about the “retardation” part …but go over and look at the others forums on rediff, indya etc. You will find even more interesting specimens 🙂
Are you really nuts or pretending to be one?please take your crap out.it stinks!
scoundral….
All that I can say is you bloody moron will rot in hell and may all the bad things happen to you.
90% of Indians are morons. They judge people by their surnames and color. If u go to kerala you’ll see how many nayars are fair. Its just tamilians and people from andhra who are black like soot.
Tamilians are the ones who spoilt the image of south indians. With rajnikant temples praying them and taking dark retarded actors in film industry to star along with punjabi actresses.
So before you write such a stupid blog roam around and check everything first.
The mallu thing was started by some retarted menon posing as lola kutty. Bloody bitch.
brilliant….I am reminded of the joke about a tambram, who when asked about the leaning tower of pisa, commented “Nikkumo nikkaado”. Fine play with words…
Mr Rajaram, what is your real intension?. After hurting lot of people sentiments you really want to highlite your name & to befamous? Buying a space is not at all a big thing but what you write there,that is matters,.
Untill unless you really dont know anything about nair communinty,please keep quiet and dont write anything like a mentally retarded person does.
I dont know whether you will enjoy the origin of this author by adding some mazzala’s and make it a blog. Definitly some people will encourage that one also but will you treat it on the same way?
Being a s/w engineer you should write in a responsible way. If you really want to know the origin og Nair community try to make out using the below link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nair
Loved this post!!, Wonder why cant some people take this hilarious post as the way its intended to be..
Keep writing!
Please dont try to mislead the public if you are not aware of the facts 7 history. This will disgrace you as well.
I googled for “communities of kerala” or something like that and reached here. At first I was reading it seriously. A few lines later I went all “what the!” and started giggling 🙂 Your brand of humour closely resembles my father’s. Keep up the good work.. Iniyum ezhuthu 🙂
Nairs of kerala are pure aryan who are the descendents of nagavansi kshathriyas of ancient India.many of NAIR communities customs resemble aryan’s.serpent worship(nagaradhana) was not the culture of dravidians.Dravidian tribes followed patriarchal system.more than that,LATEST STUDIES PROVED THAT according to the analysis of HLA Class I haplotypes, Nairs were most similar to Western European groups.
yes swathy ,u r right.According to ff fawcett opines that the resemblance between nayars and uriyas of Gumsoor is striking. Quoting him – ‘But the circumstance that inheritance through women was once, perhaps, the rule in Southern India cannot be accepted as of itself proof that the Nayars are identical with the Dravidians, as the people of Southern India are commonly called. It is not yet time to say whether they are or are not. To the ordinary visitor their outward appearance, customs, habitations, mode of life generally, are very different from what he sees in the Telugu or Tamil countries; for Malabar, ” the west coast,” is as unlike the rest of the Presidency as Burma. The only other district of the Madras Presidency which resembles Malabar, is Ganjam, more particularly the northern part of it, where the people are almost entirely Aryan. The resemblance between these, the Uriyas of Gumsoor and thereabouts, a fine fighting stock, and the Nayars of Malabar is very striking. It is not, perhaps, a mere coincidence that in these two furthest remote corners of the Presidency alone, the people at large are to be seen wearing umbrella hats to protect them from the sun.’
according toThomas R, Nair SB, Banerjee M -A crypto-Dravidian origin for the nontribal communities of South India based on human leukocyte antigen class I diversity. – The present study reveals that the HLA diversity of the Dravidian communities is very distinct from that in the other world populations. It is obvious that the non tribal communities of Kerala display a greater Dravidian influence, but traces of genetic admixture with the Mediterranean, western European, central Asian and East Asian populations can be observed. This article analyzes a set of South Indian non tribal and tribal groups to determine their similarity to other ethnic groups. In conclusion here, what was found was that according to the analysis of HLA Class I haplotypes, NAIRS WERE SIMILARTO WESTERN EUROPEAN GROUPS
according to an other study the analysis of HLA Class I haplotypes, Nairs were most similar to Western European groups.
the characteristics of nairs like tall body,wavy hair,hairy body,melanin content,sharp chin,flat forehead,structure of nose ,comparatively little space between the nose and upper lip ect shows that Nairs are true Aryans.
thinking scientifically,swetha is right(by common sense also. ).90% of nairs are fair like north indian aryans.swetha you should add one more charachtaristic feature to the above list “long face(length breadth ratio)” of nair people like europeans.
dear whatsoever iyer,
i know that being an iyer is a burden but still u will have to carry it just like your saadam and poriyal. but what you said about nairs is all crap. the nairs are indo-scithian Naga Vamsha Kshatriya’s who travelled from Ahi-Chatra (Ahi mean Naga in Sanskrit) i.e. rohilkhand of present times. they migrated along with the Namboothiri’s (the most orthodox and purest vedic brahmins in india for eg: Sri Adi Sankara), unlike the iyers). They settled in Tulu Nadu first and then migrated to Kerala. Their mother tongue was Nagari and they never spoke tamil. Present day Bunts of Tulu Nadu (aishwarya rai is a bunt) and Nairs claim similar ancestry. The kula daivam is Adi Shesha or Ananta (you find a Sarpa Kavu – Abode of the Serpents, in every ancient Nair Taravadu). They named their capital as Thiru Ananta Puram. They intermarried with the ancient royal lineage of ‘AY’ dynasty (Nagar+Ayar = Nayar).There conquest of Kerala in the Eight century created the language Malayalam (Tamil + Nagari). And that is why we do not need a Grantha Script like the tamilians to translate complex languages like sanskrit into our language. And all a bit of icing in the cake – JOHN NEUHOFF
A Dutch traveler to Kerala in 1664 wrote an exhaustive travelogue on the Nairs of Kerala wrote that the Nairs of Kerala are the best warriors in the world. This he said after travelling 80 countries including Greece, Rome & Egypt . Happy Learning. Jai Hind
The Nairs/ Menons/ Nambiars in Kerala have no similarity with the other caste groups, it is obvious, most of them are light skinned, they look very different from the other lower castes there who have more aboriginal features like other non-brahmins in southern india. It is also observed that Nairs and Bunts have very similar cultural and physical traits, Namboodiris, Tulu Brahmins all migrated along the Konkan coast and are not related to the native lower castes in Kerala. Like the experts say, Konkan means no man’s land, there were not much habitat there, groups moved from north and also from the interior hills aboriginal tribes. The vedic Hindu rituals, and also the Nag worship is prominent among Mangalore bunts and Malabar Nairs. Nag worship and matrilineal system is common among some groups in the foothills of Himalayas, Himachal, and Mewar region of Nepal. The brahmins, bunts, Nairs are very different from the mainland non- brahmin south indians like that in AP, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, who are mostly dark skinned. The word Dravidian applies mainly to the non- brahmin tamilian people and also large population in AP and Eastern parts of Karnataka are of the same stock as the dark skinned tamilians. Same way there are large populations of dark skinned tribals/aboriginals in Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand etc.
But the anthropological, and Hindu vedic cultural thread among non-tribals runs throughout entire India which is the same in Malabar or Konkan as is in Northern India.
Jai Bharat. Jai Hind.
Rajaram,
well, I do understand your post was written in good humor, people here took it in an offensive manner which is not called for. But there are so many myths and misconceptions about castes and manu system. British and europeans spread lot of lies in india about castes to suit there needs.
thanks Jai. I wonder why many don’t read the disclaimers spread all over the post 🙂
I am a nair and is proud of my heritage, unlike you ugly tamil pandi.
iyer with a car = iyenkar & Harish “Not an Iyer = harish nair ha ha lol……stupid but funny though!
Nairs are just a caste in kerala. They admitted the supermacy of namboodiris.
and gained wealth and positions. In no way they are superior to any others.
Dear Nair friends get rid your false knowledge. if you came to know the real thing, you will be ashamed to say that you belong to this caste.
Great Mr Rajaram, rewriting history is essential. Could I however polish up a few historical facts.
As any schoolboy knows the ‘white-men’ first landed on the west-coast, and there they met the Nairs, a head strong breed who made life a little too hot for them. (Remember Lord Wellington “… these nairs who never care for their lives who lead an army of similar people even against mighty ocean of enemies and fight to win like a hell-fire “) “Who do you think you are?” was their query and “Nairs” was the prompt reply. “Well then, we are the Nai-est”, saying which they ran across the western ghats.
And what do they find out here – an easily domesticated breed with ‘a hard, wiry, tan coat’. “Well, if those were Nairs, and we the Nai-est then these must be Nayas – only then would we have evolution: Naya, Nair and the Nayest!” I need not tell you that the Nayas found the name uncomfortable – in their language and that of the Nairs it meant a ‘DOG’, and so they dropped the N and became ‘Aiya’. That wasn’t enough – surely the British respect the damned Nair’s because of the ‘r’ in their tail – and so they rechristened themselves as ‘Aiyer’. However the first name was more appropriate, for soon they were wagging their tail and climbing up (read ‘bowing down’) the echelons of (British) government with their fabulous ‘command over English’ (you know the stuff we learnt in school – ‘yours Obediently, Slavishly’ etc.). They were bestowed offices of prominence to control the ‘god-damned natives’ but I guess it wasn’t an easy task as the calculus of one of their breed vouches. (1Malayalee = 10 Aiyers, 1 Nair = 10 other Malayalees, etc. – some (C.P.R.) Aiyer maths I don’t understand.)
The saga however doesn’t end there. Soon many were transported to the British Isle for display (as the Orang was taken to their queen) – show pieces of the finest vassals of the Empire – their names prefixed with all the ‘Rt. Hon.’ and ‘Divan Bahadur’ etc., foreheads lined with ash and draped in a coat, dhoti and slippers (no trousers and shoes – they still haven’t figured how to get in to one of them!). What if some Indians rebel – here we have the most ‘CIVIL SERVANTS’! Not inappropriately they even named one of their canis familiaris after them as ‘Airedale’ – a large terrier having a hard, wiry, tan coat (Webster)!
Today, it’s said, they are in the forefront of educating the English – with their “’yours …’ English” stuff, so that Shakespeare would never be at home in England again. Perhaps they have been responsible for making the English into the poodles of the Americans. What’s better than being a poodle? – ‘a POODLE’S POODLE’!
Rajaram! Congratulations!!!!
Atleast you have spurred a lot of people to look up the wikipedia,google etc on the origins of the Nairs etc.,
Guys N gals!!!! Why dont you just chill and just look at it as a humorous piece! Going by your reactions you should have been already decimated by the finest clan of Sardars and Biharis on whom you have mercilessly cracked jokes all the time!!!!!!!
Rest,take a deep breath and laugh!!!!!!
It’s good that some did not start adding “Me an Iyer” at the end of their names like Harish “Me an Iyer”, Anil “Me an Iyer”. That would have added a whole new surname .
Origin of Menon- Once an english guy was walking in the countryside of Kerala and saw couple in the nearby bush with woman on top. Then he shouted man on –man on– Menon…..:)
You make absolutely perfectly nonsensical sense….ha ha loved it !!!
Mr Ganda Singh, You are such a shameless IT labour.. You Jackass wasted my 20 minutes…Google should be blamed for including such craps in their search results.
IT’S A NEW STORY CAN’T BE BELIEVED.
All in jest I presume!
So Pl allow me the liberty of posting two lame rhymes on Tambram– Aka Pattar (in Malayalam).
This once composed by the despicable me:) for a poem competition in Eight Std
Once there was a Pattar riding his scooter
Eating some mutter marinated with butter
Farting non-stop which was causing his Lungi to flutter
Lost in a world of his own ,scheming and conniving!
Alas, the bald headed buffoon never watched the road
And Lo behold pattar on the scooter has landed in the gutter
Where he rightfully belongs!
This one by some unknown brilliant person……….
Motta talayya morru koodeeya,
Pattarmarude morrukuddi
Pattar marude morokudi enthuoru Chandikaddi
This is not true at all. Nair are the among the best caste. I am sure everyone who is well educated will agree.
It was really funny to know things……some people still want to get discriminated from others…..because they take the religion so seriously….creating riots…..nuclear weapons are comments from those only……hey guys iyers…iyers with car and not an iyer all are humans with same body parts…..take this post with positive attitude and laugh on stupidity of our orthodox thinkers who thought that becoming not an iyer will give them wings to fly………!!!!!!!!and i am definitly not an iyer………
WHETHER YOU ARE BRAHMINS/EZHAVAS/NAIRS OR ANY OTHER, NOW YOU HAVE TO LEAVE CROSSING YOUR HANDS.
50% OF HISTORY IS NOT TRUTH.
SO WHY QUARELLING EACH OTHER.
your effort to publish the history of nairs of kerala is only to get some publicity to ur blog.i appreciate you for that.
otherwise its pure non-sense.
if u want to know the real history of nairs of kerala … visit the url http://www.nairs.in
sanjeev
Rubbish! Please remove this article as soon as possible. This article is disgraceful; please get your knowledge updated before putting such things on internet.
Please find the below set of link to know more about Nair.
Proud to be a Nair!
http://historyofnairs.blogspot.in/2009/05/history-of-nair-community-from-kerala.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naga_%28mythology%29
http://www.malabarandkeralastudies.net/downloadfiles/pdf/culturaltraditionsinmedeivalkerala.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keralolpathi
http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/679/8/08_chapter1.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chattampi_Swamikal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chera_dynasty
Utter nonsense. But it’s hilarious. Probably the person who wrote this, was told by his father of how they evolved.
good story and its new story.