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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent trip to Lakshadweep has catapulted the islands into national conversation. Lying about 400 km off the coast of Kerala in the Arabian Sea, the picturesque islands have long been touted as a “hidden gem” for Indian tourists.
Culturally, the islands are unique. Though majority of its inhabitants are Muslim, the Islam practised in Lakshadweep is unlike that followed anywhere else in India, with islanders sharing ethnic, linguistic and cultural links to Malyalis, Arabs, Tamils and Kannadigas alike.
Andrew W Forbes, a scholar of Islamic studies, noted that “there can be little doubt that the first settlers on the Lakshadweep islands were Malabari sailors, quite possibly castaways” (‘Sources towards the history of the Laccadive islands’, 2007). This is also echoed in oral traditions among islanders, though the specifics of the legends are difficult to validate.
Forbes wrote there is strong evidence to suggest that a wave of immigration took place during the seventh century CE, but it is impossible to pinpoint when exactly it began. However, these immigrants were largely Malabari Hindus.
“The existing caste structure of the Lakshadweep islands probably dates to this period, as does the prevailing marumakkathayam matrilineal system of inheritance,” he wrote (more on that later). Apart from caste, the existence of a pre-Islamic Hindu society in the islands can be deduced from the discovery of a number of buried idols, and the existence of several traditional island songs in praise of Ram and alluding to snake worship.
Forbes believes that islanders converted to Islam over an extended period of time, through regular contact with Arab merchants and sailors travelling between Arabia and the Malabar coast.
Notably, Islamic influence in the Lakshadweep came through the Arabs rather than through the Mappila community of Malabar. “Lakshadweep islanders speak Malayalam with a greater admixture of Arabic than the mainland Mappilas, and write Malayalam in the Arabic rather than Malayali script,” Forbes noted.
“Unlike north India, introduction of Islam in the Indian Ocean including the Lakshadweep islands, Kerala, Tamil Nadu was accompanied by significantly less political contest,” historian Mahmood Kooria told The Indian Express in 2021. “Islam was introduced in these areas mainly through commercial interactions,” he added.
In the 16th century, the islands came under the control of the Arakkal kingdom of Kannur, the only Muslim dynasty to have ruled in Kerala. The kingdom was frequently at loggerheads with European powers, and controlling Lakshadweep was a matter of prestige.
“The Portuguese made strong efforts to take over the island, and in the mid-sixteenth century there was a massacre of hundreds of locals by them,” historian Manu Pillai told The Indian Express in 2021. “However, because the Portuguese came to terms with mainland rulers like the Kolathiri and Arakkal, the islands would eventually enjoy a degree of protection.”
This protection translated to a degree of insulation, which continued during British rule. While the Arakkal kingdom was forced to surrender most of its land in Malabar, they retained a part of Lakshadweep till 1908, in return for tribute to the East India Company, and later the Crown.
Lakshadweep’s geographic isolation along with relatively less influence of colonialism meant that its culture and society evolved very differently than the rest of India. In fact, as Kooria explained, no one cultural influence dominated the islands — that is why it has as many as three main languages: Malayalam, Jazari and Mahl.
What really makes Lakshadweep’s Islamic society unique is the tradition of matriliny — where descent and property is traced through the mother’s line.
“Perhaps nowhere would a social system appear so incompatible with the ideology of Islam and demand so much adjustment and accommodation as in a matrilineal society,” anthropologist Leela Dube wrote in ‘Matriliny and Islam: Religion and society in the Laccadives’ (1969).
Pillai pointed to Lakshadweep’s connections to Kerala to explain its matrilineal tradition. “Amini, Kalpeni, Andrott, Kavaratti, and Agatti are the oldest islands that were inhabited, and certain families here claim to be descendants of converts to Islam from Nair and Namboodiri Brahmin families on the mainland. Matriliny was practised by Nairs and several other castes, and was part of Kerala’s cultural pattern,” he said.
Kooria, however, said that the practice of matriliny cannot be seen in connection with Kerala alone, since it is commonly found among Muslims of the Indian Ocean region like in Mozambique, Indonesia, Malaysia, Tanzania etc. In fact, he said that “the islanders believe their practice of matriliny is not despite of Islam but because of it.”
“They believe that the Prophet lived with his first wife, Khadija in a matrilocal system. This is the religious sanction for their matrilineal practice,” Dr N P Hafiz Mohamad, head of Sociology in Calicut University told The Indian Express in 2021.
A reason for the continued existence of matriliny in Lakshadweep is its relative isolation. Not only did it avoid serious colonial influence, it also did not come under the influence of conventional Islamic ideas from other parts of the Muslim world, like the reformist Mujahid movement in south-west India in the 1930s.
This is an updated version of an article first published in 2021.
