1. Poykayil Sree Kumara Gurudevan, known as Poykayil Appachan or Poykayil Yohannan, was a spiritual leader, poet, Dalit emancipator, renaissance leader and the founder of the Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha, a socio-religious movement dedicated to the spiritual liberation and social upliftment of the oppressed castes of Kerala.
Poykayil Yohannan's parents were slave laborers for Christian families and they named the boy Komaran when he was a child, nicknamed Kumaran.
Poykayil Yohannan changed his name into Yohannan.
Poykayil Yohannan strategically used the Christian facade for spreading the word of salvation and liberation among the excluded.
Poykayil Yohannan broke the stereotype of Dalit Christian identity by rationally critiquing the very foundations of the teachings of the church and burning the Bible.
Poykayil Yohannan joined the Marthoma church, a reformist sect among the Syrian Christians, but realised the church treated Dalits as an inferior class, and so left it.
Poykayil Yohannan then joined a new sect called the Brethren Mission where he faced similar instances of caste based discrimination.
Poykayil Yohannan concluded that Indian Christian communities continued to discriminate based on caste, and felt this defied the basic tenets of Christianity.
In 1909, Poykayil Yohannan left Christianity and started his own religious protest movement named Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha.
Poykayil Yohannan was known as Poikayil Appachan or Kumara Gurudevan afterwards.