Akathoot Balakrishna Pillai (1889–1960), better known as Kesari Balakrishna Pillai, was a Malayalam writer, art and literary critic and journalist, considered by many as one of the most influential thinkers of modern Kerala. He was the eponymous founder of the newspaper, Kesari and was one of the three major figures in modern Malayalam literary criticism, along with Joseph Mundassery and M. P. Paul. Besides works such as Kesariyude Lokangal, Navalokam, Sankethika Nirupanangal Sahitya Nirupanangal, Rupamanjari, he also wrote a text in English under the title, Outlines of the Proto-Historic Chronology of Western Asia.
Biography
A. Balakrishna Pillai was born on 13 April 1889 to Akathoot Damodaran Kartha of Pulickal Mele Veedu family of Thampanoor, Thiruvananthapuram and Parvathy Amma, in the south Indian state of Kerala. His early schooling was in Thiruvananthapuram and the neighbouring district of Kollam as his father, a scholar, divorced his mother. After matriculating from Maharaja's High School, Thiruvananthapuram in 1904, he graduated in History in 1908 from the Maharaja's College, Thiruvananthapuram (the present-day University College Thiruvananthapuram) and started his career as a tutor at the Government College for Women, Thiruvananthapuram, then known as Maharaja's Women's College. Later, he also worked as a tutor at his alma mater, Maharaja's College. While working, he continued studies in law and graduated with first class in 1913 to pursue a legal career which, however, was short lived as he was not successful as a lawyer.
Balakrishna Pillai, by this time, had already started writing, primarily at the behest of a few publishers and this gave him the opportunity to get acquainted with Kalakkunnath Raman Menon, who ran a weekly, Samadharshi. On Menon's invitation, he assumed the editorship of the weekly, which had a weekly circulation of 300,000, on 14 May 1922. However, his stay at the weekly did not last long as Pillai's editorials were too strong-worded for the ownership of the weekly and he resigned the post on 19 June 1926. Subsequently, he started a press, Sharada Press, out of donations from the public and founded a newspaper, Prabhodhakan, which had to be shut down after three months of operation as the authorities revoked the licence of the newspaper; Pillai was imposed a fine of 200 as fine for contempt of court.
After a week of the closure of Prabhodhakan, Pillai started Kesari as a weekly. He ran the publication for four years until it was discontinued due to mounting debts in April 1935; he had to sell Sharada Press to pay off the debts. The next seven years were spent in Thiruvananthapuram, pursuing a literary career and in 1942, he moved to North Paravur in Ernakulam, the native place of his wife. Later, he moved to Kottayam in 1957 when he started having physical illnesses.
Balakrishna Pillai was married to Madavanapparambil Gauri Amma, whom he married in 1917. He died on 18 December 1960, at the age of 71.
Legacy
Contribution to literature, studies of art
Pillai, termed by K. Balakrishnan as the Socrates of Kerala, was one of the most influential thinkers from Kerala and was credited with mentoring several writers of his time. He contributed to Malayalam literary criticism through his innovative, interdisciplinary approach, and his writings on art, particularly painting, are regarded as masterpieces. He was one of the first Malayalam literary critics to introduce some of the great works of world literature to Malayalam literature and was a source of inspiration for writers such as Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, S. K. Pottekkatt, Vaikom Muhammed Bashir, Kesava Dev and others. He wrote extensively on movements in contemporary European literature and advocated the use of other disciplines like sociology and psychology in literary criticism. He also translated the works of Guy de Maupassant, Balzac, Sigmund Freud, and Charles Darwin, among others. The editorials wrote by Pillai was later compiled as a book and published in 2010 under the title, Kesariyude Lokangal (The Editorials of Kesari).
Progressive Arts and Letters Movement
By the 1930s the "Jeevat Sahitya Prasthanam" was inaugurated in Malayalam literature by a group of Marxist ideologists and some progressive writers including Pillai, Joseph Mundassery and M. P. Paul. Progressive writers tried to give new direction to Malayalam literature. In an era of Western literary and cultural paradigms, they emphasized the importance of prose fiction in Malayalam and also advocated for realism in literature. Jeevat Sahitya Prasthanam was later known as "Purogamana Sahitya Prasthanam". (Progressive Association for Arts and Letters).