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Sree Narayana Guru’s influence, impact, and success in the lives of Dalits in Kerala were arguably deeper and more transformative than that of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in northern India, said Congress leader and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor at The Hindu Lit for Life in Chennai on Sunday (January 18, 2026).
Mr. Tharoor, who was in conversation with L.V. Navaneeth, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), The Hindu Group, on the topic ‘The Sage Who Reimagined Hinduism,’ said he had grown up outside Kerala and had only a very vague sense of Narayana Guru. When he came to live in Kerala full time, Mr. Tharoor realised the immensity of the Narayana Guru’s presence in the consciousness of every Keralite, particularly in southern Kerala, where the saint was born, grew up and practised much of his work.
“For me, knowing that practically every neighbourhood and every corner in my [Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha] constituency have a shrine to Sree Narayana Guru. It was astonishing that such a giant, who had done so much to transform Kerala society and Hinduism, remained so completely unknown outside the State,” Mr. Tharoor said.
When a couple of Kerala’s leading newspapers conducted polls at the end of the millennium on the greatest Malayalee of all time, Sree Narayana Guru won hands down, Mr. Tharoor said addng that his book was an attempt to capture the essential details of his remarkable life and the extraordinary lessons, which were still incredibly relevant even a hundred years later.
Responding to a question on Narayana Guru’s approach to social reform when compared to other leaders, Mr. Tharoor said he would rank him in the highest plane because of the way he transformed both the understanding of Hinduism as a faith and the Hindu society, and thereby Indian society, particularly on the issue of caste.
When Swami Vivekananda visited Kerala, he was so appalled by the caste discrimination he saw, and by its depth and extent, he described the region as a lunatic asylum. Kerala has come a long way, and that the greatest and most seminal contribution to that transformation was that of Narayana Guru, Mr. Tharoor said.
Nehru, Ambedkar and Narayana Guru on caste
Comparing Jawaharlal Nehru and Ambedkar with Narayana Guru, Mr. Tharoor observed that Nehru was less focused on caste and more on class and socio-economic disabilities, while Ambedkar focused on caste. “They had complementary insights into India’s transformation. What Ambedkar later articulated had already been said by Sree Narayana Guru,” he said, recollecting what the saint had told Mahatma Gandhi — what is the point of freedom from foreign rule if there was no freedom within one’s own society.
Mr. Tharoor also said Nehru and Narayana Guru shared common ground in their views on economic transformation. While Nehru saw it through Marxist-Leninist ideas of class emancipation, Narayana Guru spoke of education and enterprise as ways for people at the bottom of the hierarchy to transform their lives. Nehru focused on self-determination, while Narayana Guru placed great emphasis on enterprise, handicrafts and business.
Speaking about his philosophy of ‘one caste, one religion, one God for humankind’, Mr. Tharoor said Narayana Guru meant that all religions lead to the same divine. It was similar to classic Advaitic understanding preached by Adi Shankaracharya and later popularised by Swami Vivekananda, Mr. Tharoor said, referring to Swami Vivekananda’s speech at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893.
Sharing an incident from the 1921 Census, Mr. Tharoor said that when the enumerator asked Narayana Guru about his caste, he replied, “Human”. He said Narayana Guru remains the first individual in population census history whose caste was recorded as “Human”, reflecting his idea of castelessness.
Vaikom sathyagraha
Speaking about the Vaikom Satyagraha, Mr. Tharoor described it as a major event in the nationalist struggle. He said the agitation began when ‘untouchables’ were denied access to roads leading to a temple in Vaikom. He said Gandhiji believed in passive resistance by Satyagrahis who would sit in front of the barricades.
“While the followers of Narayana Guru fundamentally differed on this point. Narayana Guru, felt they had to be assertive, not violent, as was misunderstood. Narayana Guru urged people to climb onto the barricades, walk into the temple and sit in the middle of the road. Their disagreement was tactical. Gandhi initially felt Narayana Guru was advocating violence, but later the Guru wrote to him explaining his position,” Mr. Tharoor said.
Mr. Tharoor said Gandhiji viewed the entire exercise as a process of Hindu self-purification and believed it was the responsibility of Hindus to expiate the sin of having practicised untouchability. Narayana Guru, however, believed that caste and religion concerned everyone and that all sections of society had to participate.
During the conversation, Mr. Tharoor also read out a few lines from chapters in his book, which were received with a warm round of applause from the audience.
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