Poykayil Sree Kumara Gurudevan (17 February 1879, in Eraviperoor – 1939), known as Poykayil Appachan or Poykayil Yohannan, was a spiritual leader, poet, Dalit emancipator, renaissance leader and the founder of the socio-religious movement Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha ("God's Society of Obvious Salvation").
[1][full citation needed] 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.
He then joined a new sect called the Brethren Mission where he faced similar instances of caste based discrimination.
[2] In 1909, Yohannan left Christianity and started his own religious protest movement named Prathyaksha Raksha Daiva Sabha.
[3][better source needed] Appachan was nominated twice, in 1921 and 1931, to the Sree Moolam Praja Sabha, the legislative council of the princely state of Travancore.