SMARTHAVICHARAM

The Namboodiri community held a prominent position in Kerala’s traditional social hierarchy and they exerted enormous cultural and economic authority in Kerala before colonialism. Ironically the Namboodiri women lived secluded and restricted lives.  Strict marriage and inheritance laws consolidated the Namboodiri holdings.

Smarthavicharam (chastity trial) is a procedure followed by the Namboodiri community against their girls or ladies found guilty of adultery or illicit / illegitimate sexual contact with other men than their husbands. This procedure was followed only in their community. Smarthavicharam was held with the permission of the ruling Raja of the area, the learned Brahmins of three or more in numbers will intimate the charges against the lady concerned and give her a chance to reply on the matter.
In overwhelming majority of cases the ladies get excommunicated from the society which is known as Brashtu/outcasting. The family of the ladies will send her out of the house and do the last rites ( irikke pindam – irikke means while living and pindam means doing last rites to dead persons) to her as if she is already a dead person. After this Brashtu she is no longer considered as human being.  She will be addressed as if she is an object like ‘sadhanam’ or ‘it’ ‘that’ etc.  After that anything may happen to her. There might be some vulture like males waiting to take chance or there were some institutions where such ladies were being accommodated. The owners of these institutions known as Mannamars have immunity from Brashtu. Such places have some system where there are two gates/entrances.  If the lady comes through a particular gate she is taken as wife and if through the other gate she is treated as a sister.
Mannamars are from a royal sect of Thiyya community that ruled some parts of Malabar between Kannur and Kasargod. The Mannamars are supposed to have been following Buddhism. They used to give refuge to Antharjanams (namboodiri ladies) who were declared outcaste in a Smarthavicharam.  Since the Mannamars follow Buddhism they have no problem with Brashtu and more over they consider themselves as Royals where they only decide things for them.

Smarthavicharam (a trial for adultery) reflects at the same time the detailed intricacies as well as the basic inhuman insensitivity of the Namboodiri mind. The Namboodiris, whose benumbed mind lost the capacity to understand the extreme level of sexual deprivation and depth of suffering therein of the Antharjanam, were able to anticipate the tendencies of their women to be sexually permissive in the artificial, inhuman environment of the illams unless they were strictly controlled.    They have given shape to a permanent arrangement, not only of making procedures for trials, but also have created permanent smarthanmar (judges), anticipating its regular occurrence. There are six stages for a smarthavicharam. The first stage is dhaasi vicharam (the trial of the maidservant) in which a prima facie report is taken from the maid of the suspected Antharjanam’s sexual misdeeds. If there is prima facie evidence, the Antharjanam is isolated, the head of the family informs the ruler about the trial, and the king sends four lawyers, together with a smarthan (the judge) and Brahmin representative of the king. The lawyers, in consultation with the representatives of the king, prepare the questions. The third stage involves questioning by the smarthan regarding the status of the accused as an Antharjanam.
                                        The smarthan questions her sitting outside of her cell without seeing her. The questioning will continue for several sessions- sometimes for several days- until the accused accepts the allegations and becomes a Saathanam or is proved innocent.  The accused woman is subjected to physical torture during this time. A popular method was to pack the guilty woman in a mat, like a dead body, and roll it from the housetop. Other women were also forced to carry out torture to make the accused confess her guilt. At other times, rats, snakes and other poisonous creatures were driven into the isolation cell of the Saathanam. It must be remembered that those close blood relatives living under the same roof until the woman became an accused undertook such inhuman types of torture. The literal meaning of Saathanam is inanimate object.
                                       A Saathanam loses her status as an Antharjanam, and the smarthan questions the Saathanam face to face to get the names of the jaarans (the men involved). It was not enough that the Saathanam names the jaarans, but she had to prove it, specifying somebody mark in the private parts of the man thus named. The trial would continue until the smarthans are convinced that there were no more jaarans.  The king would be informed of the men involved in the offence. If the accused men denied the accusation, they were subjected to sathiyapariksha (a test of truth) at Suchidran temple to prove their innocence. The fourth stage is sorupamchollal: if the accused men are found innocent through the test, they are declared innocent. The fifth stage is dehavicharam in which the Saathanam, as well as the involved guilty men, are ceremoniously excommunicated.  In the sixth stage, sudhabhojanam (pure meal), there is a sharing of a meal among the accused and the trial team once the accused is proved innocent.

Smarthavicharam-the pre-modern practice of trailing namboodiri women (antharjanam) charged with adultery and sexual infidelity has remained a potential site for discourses of sexual morality from early modern Kerala to the present. It was the ritualistic trial of a namboodiri woman and fellow male adulterers who were accused of illegitimate sexual relations. If the accused woman was found guilty, she and the men found involved with her (known as jaaran) were excommunicated or ostracized (Brashtu) and banished. The permission of Maharaja (king) was necessary for the conduct of smarthavicharam. The practice is nonexistent today and last reportedly took place in 1918. An instance of smarthavicharam in the early twentieth century and the huge controversy that erupted following this incident quickly captured the central stage in the ongoing reformation enterprises in Kerala. The event and its central character Thathrikutty – the woman who was trailed – have ever since remained familiar in its cultural terrains owing mainly to the moral anxieties it unleashed at the time of its occurrence.