Dr Palpu

A Bacteriologist and a social revolutionist

The Doctor Legend was born in Pettah near Thiruvananthapuram on November 2, 1863. Padmanabhan was born into an Ezhava family that was traditionally involved in Ayurvedic medicine business.  He was well educated in his young age. He attended The Maharaja College in Thiruvananthapuram. 

Later he tried to register a medical course in the Travancore Medical College. Unfortunately seat was refused to him due to caste connotation. But Palpu never gave up. He then got a seat in a Madras based Medical college. 

Palpu was the first medical graduate in Ezhava caste.

Later he also went to Cambridge University, London and got trained in Bacteriology. 

How the caste system infuriated Palpu?

When he came back to India after successfully completing his Bacteriological studies in London, he was restricted from continuing his profession as a doctor due to his caste. He tried and fought back to get a professional approbation as a doctor. But failed. This infuriated and created a deep distress in Paplu. But he just left Kerala and found his way as a Doctor in Mysore.

Malayali Memorial Pact

The infuriation brought him back to Kerala after some months. He wanted to help his community members to earn their right. So he met various revolutionists in Kerala at that time.  He gathered many Ezhava caste members and provoked them to fight for their rights. On his initiation more than 13, 000 signed a mass petition.  The petition was submitted to the Diwan of the then Maharaja Sree Moolam Thirunal in 1891. 

But the reply to the petition was not welcoming. The petition was confuted by the diwan saying the Ezhavas were uneducated. This agitated the community and created vigorous public campaigning throughout the state. 

Dr Palpu then established "The Travancore Ezhava Sabha"

More and more people joined the sabha and the revolution grew bigger. The petition was again submitted and this time directly to the Maharaja himself in 1896. This was called as the "Ezhava Memorial"

The Ezhavas were disappointed again as no measures were taken on their memorial. So Dr Palpu headed his revolution straight to Lord Curzon in 1900 and presented another memorial. This memorial was joined by other revolutionists in Kerala and was called the "Malayali Memorial"

The petitions mainly insisted to allow all the caste members to equally enter Government Service jobs.

At the end of the long struggle, all caste members were allowed to enter the government jobs. The lower caste members even got selected to the State Legislative Assembly.

Works in SNDP (Sri Narayana Dharma Paripalana) Yogam. 

Dr Palpu was very much inspired by the great saint Sri Narayana Guru. He became the president of SNDP in 1903. While he worked for the Yogam he learnt a lot from the saint and Kumaran Asan. this helped him to motivate his followers to become financially independent. He organized agricultural and industrial exhibitions in different places. He was also able to reach every corner of Kerala, even the most rural areas and enlightened the lower castes.

Dr Padmanabhan Palpu was a great social reformer. He always had his own way of organizing petition campaigns to enlighten the society. He had a son by name Nataraja Guru who was also a doctor by profession. Dr Nataraja Guru also worked for the upliftment of the society and founded Sree Narayana Gurukulam.

The legend Dr Palpu died on 25th January 1950.