Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar

Ukkirapandi Muthuramalinga Thevar (30 October 1908 – 29 October 1963), also known as Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar, was a politician, patriarch of Thevar community.

He was elected three times to the national Parliamentary Constituency.

The birth anniversary of Muthuramalinga Thevar on October 30 is celebrated annually by the Thevar community in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu as Thevar Jayanthi.

Muthuramalinga Thevar was born on 30 October 1908 in Pasumpon, Ramnad District.

From 1910, he was in the custody of his maternal grandmother Parvathiammal in the neighbouring village of Kallupatti.

Parvathiammal was furious with Muthuramalinga Thevar's father for having taken two new wives shortly after the death of his second wife.

During his youth, Muthuramalingam Thevar was aided by Kuzhanthaisami Pillai, a close family friend of his father.

Pillai took responsibility of arranging Muthuramalinga Thevar's schooling.

First he was given a private tuition and in June 1917 he began attending classes at an elementary school run by the American missionaries in Kamuthi.

Later he joined the Pasumalai High School (near Thirupparankundaram) and then he shifted to the Union Christian High School in Madurai.

Muthuramalinga Thevar did not complete his studies.

The following year he also missed his chance to attend the final examinations, as he had returned to Pasumpon to fight a legal battle over issues of inheritance on family property.

The Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) had been enacted in 1920 by the government of the Madras Presidency and was subsequently implemented in a piecemeal fashion.

Thevar mobilised resistance to it, touring villages in the affected areas and leading protest rallies for the rights of the individuals registered under it.

The case lingered and was not settled until 1927, when the court ruled in favour of Muthuramalinga Thevar.

In 1929, the Maravars of 19 villages in Appanad were forced to register, under the CTA.

Thevar led a massive campaign in the villages, urging the people to defy it.

In 1934, Thevar organised a convention at Abhiramam, which urged the authorities to repeal the CTA.

A committee consisting of Thevar, P. Varadarajulu Naidu, Perumal Thevar, Sasivarna Thevar and Navaneethakrishna Thevar was appointed by the convention to carry on the efforts to persuade the government to revoke the Act.

The CTA was, however, not revoked but instead its implementation was widened.

Thevar again led agitations and awareness-raising campaigns against the Act.

At the time the Justice Party was governing the Madras Presidency, and their refusal to revoke the law created a strong animosity on Thevar's behalf towards that party.

Infuriated by the attitude of the Justice Party government towards the CTA, Thevar concluded that the communities affected by the Act had to be mobilised by the Congress.

After returning from a trip to Burma in 1936, he began to work to strengthen the Congress in the southern areas of the Presidency.

He contested the election to the Ramnad District Board from the Mudukulathur constituency, defeating his Justice Party opponent.

This was Thevar's first experience of being a candidate in an election.

After the election, Thevar made a bid to be elected the president of the District Board, as did P. S. Kumarasamy, the Raja of Rajapalyam.

Conflict erupted within the local Congress organisation over the issue.

S. Satyamurthi, on behalf of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, intervened to preserve the unity of the Congress.

Thevar was persuaded to withdraw his candidature and presented a motion nominating Kumarasamy as president.

When the Congress Socialist Party began to mobilise in the Madras Presidency in 1936, Thevar joined their ranks.

Ahead of the 1937 elections to the assembly of the Madras Presidency, Thevar enlisted youths from the Mukkulathor communities to work for the Congress.

His activities created worries for the Justice Party government, which forbade him to travel outside of the Ramnad district and to make speeches in public.

In February 1937, Thevar contested the assembly election himself, as a Congress candidate in the Ramanathapuram constituency.

He had a powerful opponent, the Raja of Ramnad.

Thevar won a landslide victory with 11,942 votes against 6,057 for the Raja.

Following the election, the Congress formed a government in the Presidency.

Muthuramalinga Thevar's father died on 6 June 1939.

One issue particularly impacted on Thevar's political career.

The authorities partially withdrew, and reduced the number of CTA registrations in the concerned areas from around 2000 to 341.