From correspondents in India, 09:45 AM IST

We schoolchildren used to call him Pammechan, short for Parameswara Iyer. He was always seen moving around our sprawling village, asking everyone to shun mill-made cloth and use only khadi. Under the influence of his campaign, even my mother started using a charkha (spinning wheel) in her spare time to spin cotton thread and make some pocket money in the process.

Pammechan's great day was undeniably Aug 15, 1947. The hero of Kavasseri in Palakkad district of Kerala during the freedom movement got out of his home early in the day to alert the elementary and secondary schools in the village about a series of events he had in mind to celebrate the successful outcome of the revolt against the British Raj. All students and all 2,000 families of Kavasseri were required to attend a flag-hoisting ceremony at the secondary school ground followed by a march-past at which the inimitable crusader Pammechan, then 40, was to take the salute.

We schoolchildren -- I was 14 and studying in the fifth form (equal to Class 9) in N.E. High School, Alathur, 2.5 kilometres away, where former MP V.S. Vijayaraghavan too subsequently studied -- were very excited and proud because some of us had been part of regular anti-British protests in front of the magistrate's and munsiff's courts in Alathur town during school lunch break. We supported and encouraged Pammechan by mobilising a large crowd at the venue where the tricolour was to be hoisted.

Pammechan, elated by the residents' response, made a spirited speech extolling the glory of the day as the national struggle waged by Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders to get the British out of India's sacred soil had been crowned with success.

We went up the rostrum and sang patriotic songs such as 'Jayati Jayati Bharata Mata (Victory to motherland)', 'Thaayin manikkodi pareer (Behold mother's beautiful flag)' and 'Vande Mataram (Salute to motherland)'. After we dispersed just before lunch, we had sumptuous meals at our homes. I discerned a relaxed attitude being adopted by a disciplinarian father towards children at home - seven of us - and we spent more time playing football and badminton. Some freedom to remember!

Relevant to recall here is something personal but indeed related to the freedom struggle, if only citizens' freedom to worship. Temple entry was a major issue in the 1930s-1940s as Dalits, the so-called untouchables then known as Harijans, got awakened to their right to enter temples where Brahmins and members of other high castes alone had access. We learned from announcements in our school that leaders of what is now the state of Kerala, such as K. Kelappan and A.K. Gopalan, had launched a temple entry satyagraha.

I had on a number of occasions felt mortified by the strange phenomenon of some of my schoolmates belonging to the Ezhava and blacksmith communities being denied entry at our village temples - half a dozen major ones in agraharas, apart from the biggest and popular Devi temple. One day on my way back home from school, where I had just heard fiery speeches in support of the satyagraha, I stopped at a roadside temple dedicated to Lord Ganapathy on seeing that the priest was standing outside the gate and surveying the nearby lush green paddy fields.

After greeting him, I straightaway brought up my concern over the practice of non-entry to Dalits in his temple. Then came the revelation: it had nothing to do with the caste system, as far as he was concerned. For the first time I had an opportunity of seeing a different

face of the seemingly diehard, orthodox Vedic scholar. He came up with an explanation that reflected a highly liberal mind that seemed steeped in logic too. Let me be discreet and rather not spell out his explanation in detail, but still I would say that his thesis could well have been developed into a treatise on lifestyle. And let me also record the fact that Kerala was among the frontline states which, in the spirit of the satyagraha, acted speedily in allowing entry into Hindu temples to everybody and ending the scourge of untouchability.

(K.P.K. Kutty is the editorial director and chief mentor at IANS. He can be reached at kpk.kutty@ians.in)

(Staff Writer, © IANS)