The judgement of well-known Kamudi cases Sankaralinga Nadan v. Raja Rajeswara Dorai.

The Shanars, as a class, have, from time immemorial, been devoted to the cultivation of the palmyra palm and to the collection of its juice and the manufacture of liquor from it. Their own local traditions connect them with the toddy-drawers of Ceylon whence the Tiyans, or toddy-drawers of the West Coast, are also supposed to have immigrated; there are no grounds whatever for regarding them as of Aryan origin.

Their worship was a sort of demonology, and their position, in general social estimation, appears to have been just above lower castes and below that of Vellalas, Maravars and other cultivating castes usually classed as Sudras, and admittedly free to worship in the Hindu temples.

In process of time, many of the Shanars took to cultivation, trade and money-lending, and to-day there is a numerous and prosperous body of Shanars, who have no immediate concern with the immemorial calling of their caste. In many villages, they own much of the land and monopolies the bulk of the trade and wealth. With the increase of wealth, they have, not unnaturally, sought for social recognition and to be treated on a footing of equality in religious matters. In a few individual cases in Tanjore and other Districts away from Madura, they appear to have, to some extent, succeeded, but the general attempt of the caste to force itself to an equality with the better castes in social, and religious matters, has been fiercely resisted in the southern Districts and especially in Madura, where serious rioting and loss of life have resulted.

Their status, as above stated, is abundantly borne out by all the best authorities who have written on the subject. No doubt, many of the Shanars have abandoned their caste occupation and have won for themselves by education, industry and frugality, respectable positions as traders and merchants and even as Vakils and clerks, and it is natural to feel sympathy for their efforts to obtain social recognition and to rise to what is regarded as a higher form of religious worship, but such sympathy will not be increased by unreasonable and unfounded pretensions, and in their effort to rise the Shanars must not invade the established rights of other castes. They have temples of their own, and are numerous enough and strong enough in wealth and education to rise along their own lines, and without appropriating the institutions or infringing the rights of others, and in so doing they will have the sympathy of all right-minded men, and, if necessary, the protection of the Courts."

In the treatment of the Nadar community by the castes alleged to be of higher caste status, there can be no doubt that Hindu custom is slowly changing for the better, and while Courts should not interfere with customs which have crystallized and become very rigid, they may well refuse to recognise usages which had lost their original binding force and which are sought to be revitalised by the uprising of a factious or sectarian spirit in particular restricted areas.