History of The Title
"Pillai" was historically used throughout the medieval period as an honorific title bestowed on high functionaries serving in various royal courts in South India particularly the Nairs in Kerala and the Vellalas in Tamil Nadu . Although traditionally bestowed on members of high status and aristocratic castes, the name became adopted as a surname by a broad layer of the Tamil peasantry during the 19th and 20th century.
The peasantry and the lower castes were looked after by the state or by those of the upper classes which meant they were like extra children to the ruling community and hence the title as Thurtson notes.
With the extension of tenancy rights, the growth of the market economy and with new opportunities for middle class employment, members of cultivator communities, starting with the peasantry, began adopting the name as both a form of upward social mobility and as a means of differentiating themselves from the broader peasantry. Those adopting it for this reason included communities considered historically oppressed (see Paraiyar).
Amongst some Tamil communities the name is also now used as a caste name or signifier, though without any real historical basis.
In 1909 Edgar Thurston notes, ″ Pillai. — Pillai, meaning child, is in the Tamil country primarily the title of Vellalas, but has, at recent times of census, been returned as the title of a number of classes, which include Agamudaiyan, Ambalakaran, Golla, Idaiyan, Nayar, Nokkan, Panisavan, Panikkan, Paraiyan, Saiyakkaran, Sembadavan and Senaikkudaiyans. Pilla is further used as the title of the male offspring of Deva-dasis. Many Paraiyan butlers of Europeans have assumed the title Pillai as an honorific suffix to their name. So, too, have some criminal Koravas, who pose as Vellalas.″
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