SOCIO-RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS IN KERALA 27 like the Nayars, to enter gradually into the new class structure and to obtain high places within it. They still possessed large estates, although some of them never succeeded in adapting themselves to the cultural models of the new society which was dominated by the economic realm. As with the Nayars, it was the younger members of the group, excluded from any social or economic share in the former system, who were the first to rebel against it. The women too played a far from negligible role in the movement; some of them even took part in demonstrations for the abolition of the pollution rules. For they too had been the victims of this system.8 The Kshatryas These were the princely families, whose matrimonial system resembled that of the Nayars. Hence very similar problems had arisen in their case. Actually there were only a few such princely families in Kerala, though they were extremely powerful. Indeed from the 16th century onwards the Portugese, the Dutch and finally the British had, in the interests of trade established contacts with these small kingdoms. They in turn had allied themselves with the Europeans, and in the process had strengthened their own armies to the point where they were able to defeat other kingdoms by the force of arms. In any case it was the authority of these political rulers alone which was recognized in commercial transactions. In Travancore, Marthanda Varma carried out a very thorough scheme of centralization. He suppressed the local authorities and organized a modern army on the British model, under the direction of General de Lannoye, an excellent officer of Belgian origin, who had been taken prisoner while seiving in the Dutch army. The British reinforced the royal authority when they named Residents, some of whom even became dewans, in the two kingdoms of Travancore and Cochin. These, for example, brought the temples under royal control from the very beginning of the 19th century. Among the Kshatryas too the first reaction was to alter the matrimonial system in order to meet the demands of the younger sons of their families. In 1932 marumakhatayam was abolished in Travancore by the Kshatrya Act, which laid down new norms for marriage, succession and land division. The Kshatrya Service Society, inspired by the N S S4, is an organization still in existence today. THE NON-HINDUS On the margin of the caste-structure, though organically related with it, were the non-Hindu groups, the Christians and the Muslims. The former had been in Kerala since the 1st century and the latter since the Sth century A D—that is, they had for a long time formed a recognized part of the social environment. The influence first of the Moghul Empire and then of the European colonial conquests, had had important