For 143 years, owning weapons or training with them in Malabar was a crime. Kalarippayattu survived anyway.
The art's slide started with Europe's arrival in coastal Kerala in the late 15th century. Under Portuguese rule, the first recorded decline of payattu appears: warriors skilled in traditional weapons found them ineffective against firearms. Local kings and chieftains saw little reason to keep patronising kalaris and maintaining armies trained in them.
Around 1750, Marthanda Varma of Travancore modernised his army and replaced the traditional warriors. This single act triggered the decline of payattu in South Kerala. In Malabar, the invasions of Hyder Ali (1766) and Tipu Sultan (1788) disturbed the feudal system that had nurtured the art. In Tulu Nadu, the martial art of garadi suffered so badly that it went into disuse after the British occupation of Canara in 1799 and eventually became extinct.
Pazhassi Raja fought the British in an armed revolt from 1796 to 1805. His Nair warriors and the Kurichya tribals of Wyanad supported him. The British already knew the Nairs' valour, skill with weapons and fighting fitness, and they saw the revolt as a serious threat to their rule in Malabar.
To contain it, and any future uprising, Lord William Bentinck, President and General-in-Council at Fort St. George, Madras, issued a government order in 1804. It proclaimed a permanent ban on the possession of weapons and on weapons training in Malabar.
The ban between 1804 and 1947 almost totally destroyed the popular appeal and systematic practice of payattu across Kerala. Generations of young men and women were denied the chance to learn it.
A few masters continued to teach in secrecy. Without their ardour and valour, this well-entrenched martial art would have been lost forever. Their guru-shishya parampara, the unbroken teacher-to-student lineage, is the reason we can train today.
Revival began with the Swadeshi (Freedom) Movement in Kerala in the early 20th century. K. Kelappan, a well-known nationalist of Malabar from Vatakara, led efforts to revive the art. Masters including Kottakkal Kanaran Gurukkal, Tellicherry Kunhanbu Gurukkal, Maroli Ramunni Gurukkal, Chemberi Kunhikannan Gurukkal, C.V. Narayanan Nair and Chirakkal T. Sreedharan Nair made equally important contributions.
Independence in 1947 did not bring immediate recognition. Kalarippayattu and other folk art forms stayed in hibernation for more than a century. An organised revival began in 1958 under the Kerala State Sports Council, with the State Kalarippayattu Association headquartered in Trivandrum. Today there are roughly five hundred kalaris across Kerala. In 1999, the state government began setting up Martial Art Training Centres in its districts.
Every sequence taught in a kalari today carries this history. At KALARIFIT, we train in that same lineage, from Kannur to all over the world.
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