Letter Songs Among The Mappilas Of Kerala

ABSTRACT: This paper is an exploration of the letter songs among the Mappilas of Kerala in the second half of the twentieth century. The letter songs are an indication of simultaneous deprivation and accumulation of power. On the one hand it displays a jealous guarding of boundaries, thus establishing the kernel of a capitalist economy, thus signaling a transformation from the earlier anti-capitalist ethic which characterized the community, and a newly acquired material prosperity. The locus of these contradiction is the figure of the wife.

Mappila paattu, or the song culture of the Mappila Muslims, remains outside any of the classical/national fold. In vogue for centuries, this song culture has withstood the need for notation by its
It was thus a song culture of mouth to mouth and for public consumption. The author, in most cases, were consequently forgotten, and so were those for whom the letters were written, but the songs survived by an effacement of the individual and the appropriation by the community. This process of the obliteration of the author, or rather the non-privileging of the subject in the discourse, but the very classifying factor of the discourse being that of the community rather than an individual is linked to the universe of images which rests on a communal mode of power, and precedes the individual and the bourgeois mode of production, the creation of the latter being dependent on the political movements as well as the
Zachariah et al. the annual remittances received by Kerala households were 2.55 times higher than what Kerala Government received from the Central Government. It was also higher than exports earnings like sea food industries or spices industry. An underestimation of the total cash remittances received by Kerala in 1998 was Rs.35,304 mn. The migration rate among Muslims was 68%. Muslims received 47%of the total remittances, Ezhavas and Syrian Christians each received about 13%, Latin Christians 11% and Nairs 9%. However, average per year per emigrant remittance for Muslim migrant was Rs.24 thousand only, compared to Latin Christian’s average of Rs.33,000 and Syrian Christians Rs.27,000. This is due to the lower educational levels of the Muslim migrant. One could also then figure out why Mappila’s life in desert would have been of hardships, both of being away from home as well as being employed in unfavorable conditions due to his lower level of skills. The study also shows that migration significantly reduced the percentage of Muslim families below the poverty