Ninety-five year old historian Dalit Bandhu alias NK Jose, who wrote more than 145 books on Kerala history, passed away on Tuesday, March 5, at his residence in Vechur, Vaikom of Kottayam district. He was not well due to age-related ailments and had just come back from a hospital a few days ago. Acknowledging his elaborate contributions in the field of Dalit history, the Indian Dalit Federation had conferred him with the title Dalit Bandhu in 1990. He had served as the long-lasting president of the Kerala History Congress.
In 2019, he was conferred with the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Overall Contribution to Malayalam literature, and in 2023, the Sree Sankaracharya University in Kalady announced that an archive in his name will be launched on its campus.
Some of his most known works include Channar Lahala, Pulaya Lahala, Vaikom Satyagraha, Ayyankali, Veluthampi Dalava, Dalavakkulam, Ambedkarum Manusmritiyum, Muthalalitham Bharathathil, Kraisthavar Dalitar, Congress Bharanam Ottanotathil and Socialism Mathaviruddamo.
Read: Meet Kerala historian Dalit Bandhu who earned his moniker for his work on Dalit history
A Gandhian in his early years, he had gone to Gandhi's ashram in Wardha to study a course in Gandhism. He used to fast every year on January 30, the day Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. However, reading Ambedkar in his later years, brought a change in his attitude, and he was disillusioned by many of Gandhi's teachings. In 1994, for Gandhi's 125th birth anniversary, he went on to make 125 speeches across venues in Kerala, about how the Father of the Nation and how he had not treated Dalits well. He was critical of all political parties, and had distanced the church with many of his writings, one of which is famously called the ‘Nilakkal prashnam’.
NK Jose was drawn towards socialism from a very young age. As a college student, he had joined a protest by the State Congress against the controversial Dewan of Travancore, CP Ramaswami Iyer, when the latter took a call to not join the Indian Union at the time of the country's independence. In the 1950s, he joined the Praja Socialist Party in Kerala, became its central committee member. That was the time he began writing books on politics, influenced by party leaders like Rammanohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan.
In an interview to TNM last year, Dalit Bandhu spoke about his meeting with Jawaharlal Nehru during which the Prime Minister had invited him to join the Congress and a young Jose refused to, being loyal to his socialist party. However, he later left the party after differences rose between him and the state party leader Pattom Thanu Pillai.
The rest of his life was spent in research, writing and publishing of books on Kerala history.