The Nair Service Society (NSS) is an organisation created for the social advancement and welfare of the Nair community that is found primarily in the state of Kerala in Southern part of India. It was established under the leadership of Mannathu Padmanabha Pillai. The NSS is a three-tier organisation with Karayogams at the base level, Taluk Unions at the intermediate level and a central headquarters operating from Perunna, Changanassery in Kerala. G. Sukumaran Nair is currently the General Secretary.
NSS Headquarters Main Gate, Perunna
NSS Headquarters in Changanassery
Mannathu Padmanabha Pillai, social reformer, freedom fighter and the founder of the Nair Service Society
The Nair also known as Nayar, are a group of Indian Hindu castes, described by anthropologist Kathleen Gough as "not a unitary group but a named category of castes". The Nair include several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom historically bore the name 'Nair'. These people lived, and continue to live, in the area which is now the Indian state of Kerala. Their internal caste behaviours and systems are markedly different between the people in the northern and southern sections of the area, although there is not very much reliable information on those inhabiting the north.
A Nair by Thomas Daniell. Drawn in pencil and watercolor sometime between the 17th and 18th century.
Nair soldiers attending the King of Cochin: A 16th century European portrait. The majority of Nair men were trained in arms, and the traditional role of the Nairs was to fight in the continuous wars which characterized Kerala history.
Members of the Travancore Nair Brigade, drawn in 1855. The Nair brigade was the remnant of the Travancore Nair army after the takeover of the British.
There Comes Papa (1893) by Raja Ravi Varma depicts a Nair woman in the traditional mundum neryathum. The painting has also been noted by several critics due its symbolism of the decline of Nair matrilinity.
