Meaning
Maravar, in Tamil, means a warrior. They are brave, warlike and fierce and have preserved their freedom and independence over the centuries[7].

Other historians postulate that Maravar is derived from Tamil language term Marutham (called as Thinnai). They originally lived in (See Ancient Tamil country). Maravar along with Parathavar and Meenavar were one of the very first inhabitants of South India,and hence they are called as Pandyas,which literally mean the oldest and eldest. The name of the city Madurai is also postulated to be derived from Maruthai and honorific title of local Pandya kings.

History

Sangam Literature

Maravar were inhabitants of Palai during the Sangam period. The other clans were Kallar and Katambar[8]. The literature during sangam period divided the regions based upon the climate and topography. Palai was mainly a desert like region with little to no rain.

'Kalitokai'

Maravars are one of the oldest Tamil tribes and they are mentioned in the sangam literature for their valour and warlike qualities. A sangam poet describes them as follows:

"Of strong limbs and hardy frames and fierce looking as a tigers, wearing long and curled locks of hair, the blood thristy Maravar armed with the bow bound with the leather ever ready to injure others shoot their arrows on poor and helpless travellers from whom they can rob nothing, only to feast their eyes on their quivering limbs. The wrathful and furious Maravar whose curled beards resembled the twisted horns of the stag, the loud twang of the powerful bowstrings and the stirring sound of the double headed drums, compel even Kings at the head of their large armies to turn their back and fly".

Their prowess in battle was known far and wide in ancient Tamilakkam. Nalai-kilavan Nagan was a famous Maravan Minister and commander of the Pandyan kingdom. Another Maravan, Pidank-Korran was a commander with the Cheras[2].

Pandya

The Pandyan Empire (Tamil: பாண்டியர்) was another ancient Tamil state in South India. The Pandyas initially ruled from Korkai, a seaport on the Southernmost tip of the Indian Peninsula, and in later times moved to Madurai. Pandyan was well known since the ancient period, with contacts, even diplomatic, reaching the Roman Empire; during the 13th century AD, Marco Polo mentioned it as the richest empire in existence[9]. The Pandyan empire was home to temples including Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai, and Nellaiappar Temple built on the bank of the river Thamirabarani in Tirunelveli. The Pandyan kings took the title Maravar-man after the Maravar clan. The early and later Pandyas are said to have belonged to the Maravar tribe[5][10].

Ramnad Kingdom

The Ramnad kingdom had their origins in the ancient Maravar tribe. They had their capital at Ramanathapuram in southern India. They had complete control of the south eastern coast of Tamil Nadu from Rameshwaram. They were ruled by the Setupati kings. Ragunatha Kilavan Setupati was one of the greatest. Setupati was a honorific title and means guardian or protector of Setu bridge, the coral reef that extends from the tip of Rameswaram to Sri Lanka[3].

Vijayanagar Empire

The downfall of the Mukkulathors occurred in 1345 with the fall of Vira Pandyan IV and the subsequent conquest of Madurai by the Delhi Sultanate. However, the southern territories of the Sultanate soon asserted their independence and the Mukkulathors recovered under the Vijayanagar Empire and later under the Nayak dynasty during whose period they served as Polygars or chieftains.

The South-western parts of Tamilnadu except for Kongu Nadu was called as Kallar Nadu (Thanjavur, Trichy, Pudukkottai and part of Madurai) and was governed by Kallar Palayakkarar.

Ambalakarar is the most important people, they are feudal chiefs of the villages and towns they ruled during 18th century. They were a warlike people who strongly resisted every British attempt to subjugate them. They are found in Madurai, Trichy and Sivaganga districts. In these districts, each village is headed by an Ambalam (president of an assembly) and the Ambalam took upon themselves the power to adjudicate disputes that arose among the inhabitants in the "NADU", belonging to different castes. They used to hear complaints, hold inquiries and punish the offenders. They wielded considerable powers to intervene in any kind of transaction or transfer of property among the people. No land could be alienated from one man to another without the permission of the Ambalams. The sur-name "Ambalam"is given to them, because of their Administration in their Villages. So they are mostly called as "Ambalam".

British India

19th Century

The kondayamkottai maravar were and still are the dominant Maravar tribe during the colonial period. According to the 1891 census there were a total of 308,000 Maravar. F. Fawcett of the East India company describes them as:

"They are very strong, dark, well-made men, physically above the average of the Southern India. Fearless, energetic and active these fearless Ishmaelites are dreaded by the general population, and though every man's hand is against them, they are still able to hold their own. Nor has the British government been more successful in repressing them, for the unwritten laws of the Maravars is more powerful than the laws of the British Criminal Procedure"[11].

They refused to pay tribute to the nawab who was a puppet of the British and when they revolted under Puli Thevar, most of the Maravar were executed during the 18th century[12].

The constantly revolted against the British and due to this they were classified as a criminal tribe. The British viewed the polygars as a threat and constantly sought to decommission the polygar society. They were made to stand within a circle as criminals and were publicly humiliated and tortured during the peak rebellion. Forced disappearances was the norm and many were executed without a fair trial.

The were a people whom the British attempted to totally demilitarize by depriving them of their traditional status in Tamil society through social, economic and penal measures. This was in direct contrast to the social and economic privileging of such castes and classes in the north, during the same period. They were not only disfranchised but were turned into and classified as a delinquent mass – the subject of a disciplinary and penal discourse – relegated to the fringes of the new social pact which was being established in the Tamil South of the Madras Presidency. The obliteration of their traditions and memory was considered essential to complete the process of demilitarization and pacification of the Tamil region. The martial races theory of recruitment and the subsequent martialization of the north further erased their martial legacy and that of the Tamil South from the military ethnography of the subcontinent.

Thus, towards the latter part of the 19th century, there were large, disgruntled groups with a military past in the Bengal, Bombay and Madras Presidencies. They felt that the vast field of opportunities opened by the expanding Indian army was being unfairly denied to them. This grievance was further exacerbated by views of the British military leadership which relegated them to a non-martial status as races that were not fit to bear arms; in whom fighting qualities had declined.

The reaction of these groups was marked by a compulsion to emphasise the martial credentials of their cultures. Opposition to British rule which emerged among classes affected by the shift in recruitment toward the ‘martial races’ of North western India took shape into an ideology that asserted a national spirit which exalted military virtues and ideals as the cure for the ills of Indian society under the British yoke. Bal Gangadhar Tilak who emerged as a spokesman for the disfranchised military groups became the ideologue of this nationalist Indian militarism. Stephen Cohen has attempted to define Indian militarism in terms of Indian attitudes towards the British-Indian military structure and recruitment.

“There are two fundamentally different sets of Indian attitudes towards the British-Indian military structure, both of which may legitimately be labelled Indian militarism: modern militarism and traditional militarism…emerged in Bengal and western India and spread to other regions. Modern militarism stressed the value of the military as a national universal solvent; as an expression of the national will and demanded equalitarian recruitment. ‘Traditional militarism’ resulted from regional traditions and the recruiting practices of the British. It was confined to those castes and classes which exercised the use of arms as matter of birth right and was unevenly distributed throughout India…”(14)

20th Century

At the turn of the 20th century there were two groups in the Tamil region which had a decidedly militarist and anti-British outlook. (a) the adherents of modern Indian militarism – the terrorists – and their sympathizers. (b) the disfranchised traditional military castes. The dispersion of modern Indian militarism’s basic tenet – that the revival of India’s ‘heroic age’ and its war-like traditions and valus was necessary for national emancipation – invested the heroic past and martial cultures of the disenfranchised traditional Tamil military castes with a nationalist significance and cogence. Modern Tamil militarism – the political idea that military virtues and ideals ‘rooted in Tamil martial traditions’ is essential for national resurgence and emancipation – was enunciated at this specific conjuncture in the school of Tamil renaissance established by Pandithurai Thevar – a noble belonging to the sethupathy clan of the dominant traditional Tamil military caste – the Maravar.

It was related politically to changes that took place in the Dravidian movement and the changes that took place in Maravar – Indian National Congress relations after the 1930s. In the Dravidian movement the change was connected mainly with, (a) the rejection of the pro-British elitist leadership of the Justice Party in 1944. (b) the radical change in the attitude towards British rule and imperialism in 1947048 which gave rise to sharp differences within the movement.

Relations between the Indian National Congress and the Maravar began to deteriorate when the moderate Brahmin leadership of the Madras Presidency Congress preferred not to oppose the harsh measures of the British against the Tamil military castes. The contradiction became sharp when Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar the powerful and influential Marava leader, joined the Indian National Army under Subash Chandra Bose and began organizing the Forward Bloc against the Congress in the Tamil region.(24) The antagonism climaxed in a violent caste conflict in 1957. The Congress government arrested Muthuramalinga Thevar in connection with the riot. The DMK which had very little influence in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu at that time made a strategic intervention at this juncture in Maravar affairs. M.Karunanidhi, the only DMK candidate to be elected in the southern parts at that time, was chiefly responsible for co-opting the Maravar into the DMK; and for making the culture of the Tamil military castes a dominant and essential component of Tamilian national identity.

Warrior code of suicide like Ronin

Avippali, Thannai, Verttal, Vallan pakkam, Pun Kilithu Mudiyum Maram and Marakkanchi: the forms of martial suicide and suicidal battle of the warrior as the ultimate expression of his loyalty to his commander. These six forms of martial suicide are defined as described by the works referred to above. Pulla Vazhkai Vallan Pakkam – the martial attitude of the warrior who goes forth into suicidal battle is mentioned by Tholkappiyam. The other works refer to it as Thannai Verttal. Duarte Barbosa describes the practice among the Nayar (of the Chera kingdom). It was later noticed by British officials as well. It was also prevalent among the Maravar (of the Pandya kingdom) from whom the suicidal Aapathhuthavi bodyguard was selected. Thannai Verttal also refers to the suicide of a warrior on hearing that his king or commander has died (Purapporul Venpa Malai). Punkilithu Mudiyum Maram is the martial act of a warrior who commits suicide by tearing apart his battle wound.

Another form of martial suicide mentioned by all the works except Veera soliyam, is Avippali. Tamil inscriptions speak of it as Navakandam. Inscriptions found in many parts of Tamilnadu provide greater information on the practice. Navakandam is the act of a warrior who slices his own neck to fulfil the vow made to Korravai – the Tamil goddess of war – for his commanders' victory in battle. The Kalingathu Parani(10) – a work which celebrates the victory of the Chola king Kulotunga and his general Thondaman in the battle for Kalinga, describes the practice in detail. "The temple of Korravai is decorated with lotus flowers which bloomed when the warriors sliced their own necks" (106); “they slice the base of their necks; the severed heads are given to the goddess”(111); “when the neck is sliced and the head is severed, the headless body jumps with joy for having fulfilled the vow”(113). The epics of Chilapadikaram (5: 79-86) and Manimekalai (6: 50-51) mention the practice. To ensure the complete severing of the head, the warrior tied his hair to a bamboo bent taut before he cut his neck. Hero stones depicting this practice are found all over Tamil Nadu, and are called Saavan Kallu by locals. The warriors who thus committed suicide were not only deified in hero stones (saavan kallu) and worshipped but their relatives were given lands which were exempted from tax(11).

Apart from these codified forms of martial suicide, a method called Vadakkiruththal is mentioned in Tamil heroic poetry. It is the act of a warrior king fasting to death, if some dire dishonour were to come upon him(15). The Tamil teacher, and the Dravidian propagandist, turned the song of the legendary Chera king Irumborai who committed suicide when he was taken captive by his enemies into a compelling theme in Tamil renaissance. The Avippali form of martial suicide as the ultimate expression of loyalty to one’s commander, is deeply embedded in the Tamil psyche. Senchorru-kadan (the debt of red rice) is a phrase that is widely used today by Tamils as an expression of loyalty. One frequently hears of it in a popular Tamil song. The phrase sands for the ritual of partaking of rice by which Maravar and other Tamil military caste warriors bound themselves to their king or commander to die in suicidal battle for him, or to commit suicide on the day he was slain. Of Avippali, the Puraporul Venba Malai ([verse] 92) says, “thinking of nothing but the red (blood) rice the Maravar give their life as offering in battle.” The ritual of red or blood rice was described by two Muslim travellers who had visited the Tamil country in the 9th century. “A quantity of cooked rice was spread before the king, and some three or four hundred persons came of their own accord and received each a small quantity of rice from the king’s own hands, after he himself had eaten some. By eating of this rice, they all engage themselvesto burn themselves on the day the king dies or is slain; and they punctually fulfill their promise.”(16) In modern times it has been observed that “when a Maravar takes food in the house of a stranger, he will take a pinch of earth and put it on the food before he commences his meal.”(17) This act freed him from the debt of blood rice.[3] Some also committed suicide by eating bricks.

The legacy of these strategies in the north and south of the subcontinent, embodied in the structure of the modern Indian army, is central to the emergence of modern Tamil militarism. The gains of this demartialization were consolidated by favouring and encouraging non-military castes in Tamil society which “contrasted favourably with the Maravar”.(19)

The more important of these were the Vellalas, Nadars and Adi Dravidas. The culture and values of the “peace loving” (Madras census, 1871) Vellalas who had “no other calling than the cultivation of the soil” eminently suited the aims of demartialization and suppression of the traditional military castes. In this the British were following local precedents which had been based on the principle that the best way to ensure control and security was to “have none there but cultivators” (21). Thus, under active British patronage the Vellala caste established its dominance, and its culture became representative and hegemonic in Tamil society. The Nadars and Adi Dravidas were considered amenable to conversion. A large section of them had become Anglicans. The recruitment base of the Indian army in the Madras Presidency was constituted strongly in favour of these groups. The Dravidian ideology emerged as the cultural and academic basis for their pro-British politics, led by the newly arisen Vellala elite.

The nascent Dravidian movement was clearly underpinned by the concerns of British administrators and Anglican missionaries (22) in consolidating the social, economic and religious gains of demartialization. This is why the early Dravidian school of Tamil studies and historiography had a strong political compulsion to reject, ignore or play down the dominant role of the traditional military castes in Tamil history and culture, and to assert that Tamil civilization was Vellala civilization. (Maraimalai Atikal, was the chief proponent of this view.)

Thus in the early decades of the twentieth century we find two contending narratives (23) of Tamil national identity – the ideology and caste culture of the anti-British and “turbulent” military castes and the ideology and caste culture of the pro-British and “peace loving” Vellala elite – claiming authentic readings of the Tamilian past and present. The one claiming that the “pure Tamils” were Vellalas. The other claiming that all Tamils are Maravar and that the Tamil nation was distinguished by its ancient martial heritage. How then did Tamil militarism which originally was related to a political and social milieu that was opposed to the Dravidian movement become its dominant feature in the [nineteen] fifties and sixties to the levelof strongly impacting on the Tamil nationalist movement in Sri Lanka’s north and east?

Sub castes

There are many sub castes but the most famous are the kondayam kottai maravars who are known for their valour. Also worth noting is that each sub caste is further divided into kothu and kilai.

Customs

Maravar take the titular surname of Devar or Thevan, meaning divine[12]. Historically they were somewhat a matriarchal society where the children inherit the kothu and kilai from the maternal side. Until recently they always buried their dead like the kallar and other ancient Tamil castes. But most sections have now slowly changed due to the influence of Vedic hinduism.

Notable Reformers

Although there are Many Kings, Polygors ,Zamindars and Land lords the main occupation of kallar is Warrior, hence many Kallar Families struggled for income During British rule and after independence.. There were many reformers served for their Community.

Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar (முத்து ராமலிங்க தேவர்)
- Freedom fighter, social reformer, a descendant of pandiya kings and known for his relationship with Nethaji

P. K. Mookayya Thevar (1923–1979) (மூக்கையா தேவர் )
-Founder of the Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar college, President of All India Forward Bloc.

Zamindar V. Gopalsamy Rajaliar (மேன்மை பொருந்திய வா. கோபாலசாமி ரகுநாத இராசாளியார்)
-Philanthropist, President indra kuladibar sangam.

H. R. H. Rajagopala Tondaiman.
-Maharajah of Pudukottai (Thondaiman dynasty of Pudukkottai)

Chevalier Nadikar Thilagam C.Sivaji Ganesan (நடிகர் திலகம் சிவாஜி கணேசன்)
-Famous Actor, Legend in Tamil film History.

Late V.K.C. Natarajan I.A.S.,
-One of the first higher civil servants from the community. Co-founder of the Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar College at Usilampatti

N.P Manicham Errthaandaar.(மக்கள் தொண்டர் ந.பா.மாணிக்கம் ஏற்றாண்டார்)
-Founder Mukkalathor Higher Secondary School and Tamilnadu Maanavar illam. Thiruverumbur, Founder Urimai murasu magazine(1954).

Late Rao Bahadur Sri. A.Veeriya Vandayar(Poondi. Vandayar)
-Leader Kallar maha Sangam Previous to starting Mukkulathor Sangam

G.M.Premkumar Vandayar,(பிரேம் குமார் வாண்டையார் )
-Founder Moovendar Munnetra Kazhagam (MMK)

G.M. Sridhar Vandayar,(ஸ்ரீதர் வாண்டையார்)
-leader of Moovendar Munnetra Kazhagam (MMK)

Late. AYYA. P.Tamilrasan Kalapadiyar.Dmk activist
Navalar N.M Venkatasamy Nattar
-Tamil scholar, Tamil Activist.

DR.A.Srinivasan Vanniyar
-Founder President Tamilnadu Kallar Sangam [13] [14]

Current status

They can now be found in all walks of life such as doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, politicians and civil servants. Large number of people from the community are serving the nation as military men. A significant number of them are employed as civil servants in the state and central governments.

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