Indulekha

Perhaps the only novel to have been reprinted nearly every year for over a hundred years, Indulekha (1889) is widely held to be the first Malayalam novel. Often called an ‘accidental’ and ‘flawed’ work, at its core lies a love story. The setting of the novel is the Nair community of Kerala, which had for centuries practised polyandrous matriliny, a most unusual form of inheritance through the women whom both property and authority favoured. It gives us glimpses of prevalent social practices much debated amongst a people already under colonial pressure to change their ways of life. Written by a Nair, Indulekha is not a grandiose outpouring but the author’s effort to achieve certain social goals: firstly, to create a novel much like those of the English authors he had read, and secondly, to illustrate Nair society at that time, both of which met with success. The novel influenced the deliberations of the Malabar Marriage Commission which it predated, and of which Chandumenon was a member. This novel will appeal to general readers interested in Indian writings in translation. Students of literature, history and culture, political and legal theory, and gender studies, will also find it useful.