Vallikunnam
Grama Panchayat

Vallikunnam is a panchayat located in the southern tip of Alappuzha district. The western part is a sandy plain, the central part is a middle land with hills and valleys, and the eastern part is a small hilly area. The Thodiyur Arattupuzha stream, which flows from north to south through the center of the village and joins the Vattakayal, is a beautiful village with agricultural fields, paddy fields, hillocks, plains with palm trees and paddy fields. Legend has it that Vallikunnam is the place of Vallidevi, the wife of Subrahmanyan. The idol of Vallidevi in ​​the Padayanivattom temple supports this. Another hypothesis is that the hill with Vallipadarpulla is Vallikunnam. The fact that there were many kavas and vallipadarpukas in the eastern parts of the panchayat, which were relatively sparsely populated in the early days, strengthens this assumption. At the beginning of this century, all the material wealth of the village was under the control of the landlords. A good portion of the land here was given to the Nair families of this area as part of the Travancore monarchy. The landlords here wielded power in a way that gave meaning to the saying “Raja Pratyakha Daivatham”. A slave market existed in Kayamkulam, the area around Vallikunnam. Slaves were taken from this market to places like Alappuzha, Kollam, and Kottayam, where slaves were exported abroad. They were brutally tortured. A slave was worth from 1 to 14 rupees. The untouchability that had imposed Brahmin supremacy throughout Kerala also existed in Vallikunnam with the same force. There were certain rules for untouchability. A Nair had to walk 16 feet, an Ezhava 32 feet and a Pulaya 64 feet away from a Brahmin. Women were not allowed to walk on the road, wear nice clothes or cover their breasts. The unwritten law that slaves should wear a stone necklace, the caste symbol, was implemented literally. As part of the resistance against these practices, social reformers Ayyankali and Narayana Guru came to Vallikunnam and gave comfort and encouragement to the lower castes. At a grand gathering held at the ancestral home in Kampisseri, women from the lower castes openly wore “rauka” (used instead of a blouse) and broke the stone necklace. Later, the national agitation led by K. Kesavan Potty Sir, one of the founding leaders of the communist movement in Central Travancore and the organizer of the drama group K.PAC, created a stir. The Sooranad struggle was a labor and peasant struggle related to the landowner of the Nair family called Thennala in the village of Sooranad. The Menisamaram was a peasant and labor struggle that took place at Lakshmi Vilasat house in Kaduvunkal ward of Vallikunnam panchayat.