And his involvement in Travancore affairs - Marthanda
Varma’s reign
First let us revisit the era. As I wrote earlier in the Abhiramai tale, the days of the last part of the 17th century and the early parts of the 18th were beset by all kinds of feuds related to succession, Venad – Madurai rivalry, temple related demands, settlement of dues, embezzlement and so on. For a period, the famous Umayamma Rani brought order to the region, but with her passing in the early part of the 18th century, the problems from the past began to reassert themselves and the feudal barons of Travancore started to get belligerent. Marthanada Varma as it turned out, her heir proved to be efficient, ruthless and was able to tighten the reins of the Trippappur swaroopam at Trivuvitamkode (Trivandrum).
We also see from the Travancore manuals that Varma even
while serving as a deputy to his uncle had a number of issues with the barons
(pillamar) on varying occasions resulting in his being on the run and even
sleeping on tree tops. Quoting Nagam Aiyya - Even as First Prince and Elaya
Rajah of tender years, he set himself to put down with a strong hand the
lawlessness of these disloyal chiefs. In consequence, he had earned their
undying hatred and his life was more than once attempted. He sought the aid of
the English and the Dutch and would have completely quelled the rebels but for
the timidity and weakness of his uncle the King who compelled him to desist. He
had fled from place to place and on several occasions slept on the tops of
trees in far off jungles. It was on one of these occasions that MV
apparently sought refuge in the house of a well-known trader Pokku Moosa, at
Poovar in the precincts of Desinganadu (Quilon). Now who is this Pokku Moosa?
Pooku Moosa, Poku Mussa, Pockoe Moessa, Pokker Moosa, Pachu
Musathu (Kochu Moosa, Kochu Moosad is sometimes confused with him, see note) they
were all names given to him by the various people who recorded transactions
with him, and what we do know for sure about his early days was that he was a
well to do trader living in the locale of Poovar near the southern border of
today’s Trivandrum near Vizhinjam, a place which was originally called Pokkumoosapuram,
after him. The family lived in a large mansion named the Kallaraickal Tharavad.
Poovar incidentally is located in Neyyatinkara, is placed
south of Kovalam and north of the old Dutch holdings at Coalachel and
Tengapatanam. However he may have lived in the Quilon or Kayamkulam areas as
well for extended periods, for he is sometimes termed as a Desinganad trader. Legend
has it that he hailed from the Marakkar families settled at Calicut. From there
he moved to Kayamkulam, but after antagonizing the ruler there, fled to Poovar
where he married the daughter of a rich trader of the Kallaraickal Tharavad,
then settled down and built up a solid business distributing sugar, spices and
tobacco. Some historians are of the opinion that Moosa supplied goods to the palace
and that was how he entered into a long-term association with the royals.
As the legends state, once when Marthanda Varma was hounded
by the Ettuvettil Pillamar, he sought refuge at the Kallaraikkal Tharavad. He did
not forget the help and so after he vanquished his enemies, the grateful king
bestowed the family with many gifts and honors. Some also mention that the
locale got its name Poovar when Marthanda Varma observing the nice spring scenery
of the river full of fallen flowers called it a poo-aar, a conjunction of the
Malayalam words for "flower" and "river".
As matters progressed, MV got the better of the recalcitrant
rebels. After Rama Varma died, MV took
over as king. He set up a new system of administration and bypassed the old
feudal system consisting of the madampies and the pillas. MV reorganized his military
to include Maravars, Pathans and Channars and created a network of spies all around
the country to report on the pillas. In one swoop they are rounded up during
the arattu procession of 1736 by MV and MV going against all tradition that a
Nair noble is never held accountable for such matters, tries and hangs them
all, over 42 pillas and madampies (Some of them actually fled to neighboring
domains), after which their families are sold to fisher folk and the others
excommunicated. Golleness the Dutch commander also records these actions
stating emphatically that MV did all this with English support, who in turn had
provided arms and ammunition and other kinds of indirect support. MV having got
rid of his nemeses, now laid eyes on the neighboring kingdoms and
principalities between Venad and Cochin. As time would tell, he captured each
of them in the wars that followed. The architect for executing his strategies
and providing the leadership through these wars was his confidante and friend,
the crafty Dalawa – or chief minister Ramayyan.
We can also see that among the merchants who provided him
support and finances through these years was our protagonist, Poku Moosa. Moosa
had a very good relationship with MV and even received tax-free land gifts from
the crown (e.g. at Paikulam pakuthi – Vilavamkodu). It appears that the
rebuilding or renovation of the Kallaraikkal mansion was also done with the
king’s support.
When the kulachal battle took place in 1741 (see my article
on Lannoy) the VOC were besieged at their mud fort and were desperately waiting
for reinforcements and food. Again, we see the hand of Poku Moosa, and we are
given to understand that it was the blockade of the area by Moosa’s Pathemaris
which ensured that no supplies reached them, resulting in the Dutch surrender
to MV.
Moosa was soon to figure in the many discussions,
negotiations and contracts between the VOC and Travancore. He came to the fore
in Feb 1942, just after the VOC wanted to conclude a peace deal with MV. Protracted
discussions covering reparations and release of prisoners, rebuilding of the
forts at Colachel and Thengapatanam, monopoly in trade and sole control of all
Christians in Travancore reached nowhere. When MV suggested that either the
Cochin king or the English factory mediate, the VOC refused stating that the
former was too old and weak while the latter were their biggest competitors. As
they argued endlessly, the crafty Dutch attacked and took Attingal, now
demanding huge reparations from MV in return for a peace treaty. It was under
these circumstances that we see Moosa in Feb 1942 representing the king MV for
negotiations, while the Dutch were represented by Ezekiel Rahabi.
A little introduction on Rahabi would provide some context. Rahabi
II (1694–1771), was a merchant and community leader from Cochin. In 1726, after
the death of his father who migrated from Syria, Rahabi II was appointed by the
Dutch East India Company as "chief merchant and agent," and invested
with a monopoly of the trade in pepper and other commodities in Malabar. He
rose to a position of remarkable influence and prestige; for almost 50 years he
was connected with all the company's major financial transactions in Malabar,
and undertook for the VOC diplomatic assignments to the king of Travancore
(1734–42), to the Zamorin of Calicut (1751), and to other native rulers. He was,
in addition to Issac Surgun of Calicut, one of the two prominent Jewish traders
of that era. As a person born and brought up in Cochin, Rahabi surely understood
and spoke Tamil and Malayalam dialects, so he had no difficulty dealing with
emissaries like Moosa.
Negotiations with VOC were tough and Moosa stood his ground.
He went on to accuse the Dutch as interlopers, and made it amply clear that
they were nothing more than traders and furthermore, had no right to interfere
in any Kerala politics. Rahabi was quite upset with all this and returned empty
handed to the VOC, complaining that Moosa was firmly behind the brutal and
arrogant proposals of MV.
On the warfield, the VOC did not fare well, MV captured
Nedumangad, and the Dutch fled to Quilon (Desinganad). The king of Purakkad
also went against the Dutch and the Desinganad king escaped to Tiruvalla in
Tekkumkur. Led by Duijvenschot, the MV army comprising many Kunji kudis were
victorious, Kayamkulam was devastated and the Dutch soldiers defending
Desinganad were close to revolt, not being provided food or having been paid.
The reinforcements requested from Batavia never arrived. But MV did not succeed
in capturing Quilon and after taking advice from the British and seeing that
his general Duijvenschot was sick, being short of funds himself, eventually withdrew.
In fact, it was a time when we even observe that he raided the temple vaults to
mint kaliyan panam for these encounters. A peace deal was finally concluded at
Manaddi and the Quilon king had to pay large reparations to MV. In 1743, a
formal peace agreement was signed between the VOC and Travancore. If you ask a
question why the VOC supported Quilon in all this, the answer is that it was
only to keep Quilon as a physical buffer between them and the marauding forces
of MV.
In between all this we come across another mention of Pooku
Moosa as a power broker, for in 1747, we see the Ali Raja of Arakkal –
Cannanore is requesting that Poku Moosa pays off some arrears of his to the
English amounting to Rs 15,000/-. It does make it clear that these traders were
well connected.
Three years later they were at war again and Qulion and
Kayamkulam which were defeated with Lannoy in charge, were fully under MV’s
rule. Draconian measures were enacted and the common man had to cough up huge
taxes for the upkeep of the MV forces and the continuing war. All lands upto
the borders of Cochin were now in the hands of Travancore’s MV by the close of
1750 and MV forced an assurance from the Dutch VOC that they will stay away
from any politics between Travancore & Cochin. As reparation, all the
jewels in the treasuries of Desinganadu and Thekkumkur were transferred to
Travancore. Nevertheless, skirmishes and wars continued with the old regimes
not accepting defeat and the treasuries of MV emptied rapidly. He even tried to
force the Zamorin to pay up Rs 50,000/- and submit to MV’s suzerainty, but was
soundly rebuffed.
During this period, we note that Moosa continued
diversifying his trade activities and was involved in supplying various types of
cloth to the Dutch 1752 through Tengapatanam, but he did not turn out to be
reliable in the minds of the Dutch.
MV clung on and continued his fight to reclaim all
territories. Seizing the opportunity, the Zamorin started an invasion of Cochin,
from the North. It was during this skirmish in 1754 that the Travancore mud
wall or the Nedumkotta modifications and repair were commenced between Vaikom
and the Western Ghats, cutting off a rebelling Vadakkumkur from his Northern
allies and to stave off the Zamorin’s armies marching South. Soon came a period
where MV had to protect not only the Northern flanks bordering Cochin, but also
the southern fronts when the troops of Nawab Muhamamd Ali attacked. With Lannoy
victorious in fending away the Nawab’s troops, MV pushed towards Cochin.
At this juncture, Ramayyan Dalawa, MV’s right hand, passed
away, leaving behind a distraught MV. But the march to Cochin continued and MV
can be seen discussing a treaty with Cochin to stop the Zamorin on his tracks.
The crafty Zamorin tied up with the feuding Thekkumkur and Vadakkumkur princes
and brought an end to the MV-Cochin alliance.
By this time, i.e. 1756 we notice that Pooku Moosa has
become the chief or Sarvadi Karayakkar of MV, and the Travancore regime,
desperate for money to hold on to territories captured and to fight off
rebellions, took tough measures in exacting money from the common man. Pokko Moosa
was responsible for the Torakkar or tax collectors who did this job. In fact,
he was now at the Travanocre court, beside MV and manipulated things in such a
way that MV was not influenced by the Dutch with bribes or gifts. He refused to
accept gifts sent to the king on the pretext that gifts should be given to all
24 karayakkar of Travancore, not just the king, as was the prevailing norm.
Back in cochin new intrigues were in play. While the Zamorin
tried to pull the Dutch to his side in a joint attack on Travancore, MV deputed
Pokku Moosa to discuss a joint operation of Travancore, Cochin and the Dutch
against the Zamorin. At the same time, the envoys of MV and the Zamorin met at
Trichur to divide off the Cochin territory and get rid of the Dutch. Phew!
imagine how it would have been. The Dutch, wisely stayed out of all this,
refusing to take sides. However, the Zamorin did succeed in signing a peace
treaty with the Dutch, in 1758.
An overview of the MV years shows that he adopted a
technique of converting merchants of the interior to state officials as we saw
in the case of Poku Moosa. This was as you can observe quite different from
Calicut where it had always been a concept of free trade, until of course
Haider and in reality Tipu came by and destroyed it all. MV adopted various
methods to subjugate private merchants to toe the line, and the most common one
was to ‘set Nairs on their houses’ meaning intimidation and disfigurement.
1758 was an eventful year, both the reigning Zamorin and Marthanda
Varma passed away and a new king came to power in Travancore, the Dharma Raja
(Rama Varma). It can be assumed that Pokku Moosa remained as a senior Karyakkar
during the initial years and we see him associated with the story of a young
Keshava Das.
A small incident involving Moosa and the future Dewan of
Travancore, the famous Keshava Das needs to be retold, for completeness. Keshava
Das, born to a poor couple (father an astrologer and mother a maid at the
palace) moved to Poovar at the age of 12 ( i.e. around 1757) to apprentice
under Poku Musa (others mention him as an apprentice of Kochu Musa, Poku Moosa’s
co-brother, but it is unlikely that Kochu Musa had access to the king like his
brother), who was of course at his peak, as chief Karyakkar for MV. As a tally
clerk, he did well and a chance encounter with the king was to change the course
of his life. During Moosa’s visit to the palace, he took along the young clerk.
The meeting went through the night and the boy fell asleep at the king’s door.
The king saw the boy first thing in the morning and considering it a bad omen,
had him locked up. It was only after Moosa explained that the boy was his guest
that Keshavadas was released and later appointed as a palace assistant. He
steadily rose in esteem, being a reliable and sharp lad and got promoted as a
Rayasom in Dharmaraja’s court. Before long he rose to the high office of
Sarvadhi kariakar. In 1789 he became the popular Dewan of Travancore. Moosa’s
support in his younger years proved to be the reason for Das’s success, as you
can see.
Poku Moosa continued to be a wealthy financier and trader in
Poovar and we see that he advanced money for various causes, but was also a
strict moneylender. It appears he even loaned money towards the ship fare of
some Catholic priests traveling abroad and the Kalloppara Church nearly faced
bankruptcy when it defaulted on repayment to Moosa.
He however did not fare well in the eyes of the Dharmaraja or
his administrators and we can see from Commander De Jung’s note that Moosa was arrested
and trampled to death under the king's orders, by an elephant in 1758, for financial dishonesty. Perhaps
he was avaricious as time went by and paid for his sins, perhaps it was
something else, maybe his detractors at work. So that was it, once his patron sponsor
was gone, he was also quickly done away with. The old Kallaraikkal Tharavad
slowly disintegrated.
New traders like the Konkanis of Cochin and timber lords
like Mathu Tharakan took up where he left, until of course the British became the
masters of all land. Nevertheless, the 17th -18th centuries was a time when the medieval trader was
facing tough times, not only the vagaries of weather, supply and demand, but
also the tough political situation and difficult masters. The seesawing fortunes
saw many of them fade away and following the arrival of the Mysore sultans they
were no longer the power brokers of the past.
References
Kulashekara Perumals of Travancore – Mark D’Lannaoy
India and the Indian Ocean World – Ashin Das Gupta
Coastal polity and 2nd paper winds of change - Pius Malekandathil
House of memories – Sharat Sundar Rajeev – Hindu, July 3,
2015
Note
About Kochu/Kunju Moosa - Kunju Musa Pulavar, who
belonged to the Kallarakkal family of Kerala was the son-in-law of the great
merchant Syed Mohamed Marakkayar of Poovar, wrote many poetical works in Tamil,
Arab-Tamil and Arab-Malayalam. War Ballads (Padaippor Kappiyangal), Salka
Padaiappor and Saidattu Padaippor were his masterpieces. He was the first
Muslim poet who introduced war ballads in Islamic Tamil literature and also the
first to project women in heroic roles. He had 14 other works to his credit. (Source
- Identity crisis and the response of the Muslims, Muslims of Kanyakumari
District through the ages - Mustafa Kamal, M A, PhD thesis)
I have a feeling that Kunju Moosa was Pooku Moosa’s co-brother
and lived at the Tengapatanam branch of the Kallarakkal family. It also implies
that Pooku Moosa’s father in law was perhaps Syed Mohamed Marakkayar.
3 comments:
Exceptional work. Please consolidate all these valuable informations into a book so that everyone could be benefitted by it
Thanks Manu,
I will do it one of these days!
Regarding the killing of Pokku Moosa in 1758,I would like to bring to your attention what C. V Raman Pillai has to says about Marakkar in his "historical novel" -Ramaraja Bahadur (1918–1919)
C.V describes the hectic war preparations in Trivandrum against the onslaught by Tipu in 1789 and the help rendered by Pokku Moosa in Travancore's war efforts:
"The forces to accompany the Diwan from among the cavalry, artillery and the foot soldiers had already been selected and they had set up camp outside his quarters.The materials for the use of this force had already been collected and loaded onto the pathemaris of Pokku Moosa Marakkar , anchored at Valiathura , to be off loaded at Kodungallur . Pokku Moosa Marakkar and other men of the noble houses had arrived to wish the Diwan a prosperous and victorious journey and were staying overnight in the buildings nearby. "
Raman Pillai, C.V. Rama Raja Bahadur. Translated by Prema Jayakumar, Sahitya Akademi,New Delhi,2003,p. 229
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