Moopil Nair

Moopil Nair, also transliterated Mooppil and Muppil is an elite subgroup of the Nair caste. They were vazhunnors, naduvazhis and desavazhis of small feudal polities on the Malabar, present-day Kerala state, South India, typically owing at least nominal allegiance to a superordinate Raja, despite frequently aggregating lands and political powers of sufficient scale so as to establish them as essentially autonomous monarchs in their own rights. Although Moopils frequently simply styled themselves as 'the' name of swaroopam/tharavadu Nair, virtually all were entitled to higher titular Nair rank, most saliently that of Nambiar, but also Nayanar and Mannadiyar, among others.

Among them was Kavalappara Moopil Nair, who ruled the small kingdom of Kavalappara Swaroopam, and a nominal feudatory of the Vellattiri Raja of Valluvanad, himself a sometime Moopil Nair. Kavalappara holdings spanned some 155,358 acres of allodially freeheld jenmi lands, rendering them among Malabar's foremost jenmimars, alongside fellow Moopil Nairs such as the Mannarghat Nair, a feudatory of the Vallabha Velattiri Raja of Valluvanad, whose peak estates subsumed some 180,000 acres of Malabar lands, and Koothali Nair, whose total holdings are unknown, but whose rump holdings along as escheated to Malabar state amounted to some 53,000 acres.

EXAMPLES

• Kavalappara Moopil Nair
• Mannarghat Moopil Nair
• Koothali Moopil Nair
• Blahayil Moopil Nair
• Kodakara Moopil Nair
• Kuppathode Moopil Nair
• Kuthiravattath Moopil Nair
• K.T. Moopil Nair

Further reading

• Dhanagare, D. N. (February 1977). "Agrarian Conflict, Religion and Politics: The Moplah Rebellions in Malabar in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries". Past & Present (74): 112–141. doi:10.1093/past/74.1.112. JSTOR 650217. (subscription required)