Historic Alleys

Having lived in Turkey for a few years and having admired Mustafa Kemal Ataturk‘s rebuilding of that war torn nation into a modern Turkey, I was always curious as to what Mustafa Kemal had to say about India. After all, he had come eye to eye with many an Indian soldier working in the British Army at Gallipoli and slew many (a lot of them still rest in Turkish graves) and later hobnobbed with many an Indian Khilafat representative. This article will lightly focus on the Kemalist approach to the Indian Khilafat movement. As it all ended, it appeared that Mustafa Kemal had lost interest in the concept of the Caliphate and walked away from the whole thing, leaving the Indian side who had invested time, resources and huge amounts of money in Turkey’s support, bewildered and shattered.

And their tragic lives

British Governance - Calicut

There is a furor at Calicut these days resulting from the transfer of a benevolent collector popularly known as ‘collector bro’ and it appears that this resulted from the differences in opinion between bro and a member of parliament. I am sure much debate and argument will continue over this, but then again, it has always been like this. These positions of administrative bureaucracy though very important for any district are unfortunately at the mercy of the politicians. One only needs to look at the career of Malabar’s premier administrator William Logan. He was moved in and moved out of the Malabar Collector’s position no less than 7 times between 1869 and 1887 till he finally threw in the towel.

The stories of Kerala Varma and Ummini Thampi

The events which clouded the placid skyline of 19^th century Travancore actually started during the reign of Avittam Tirunal Balarama Varma. It was in 1798 that the 14 year old Balarama Varma succeeded Dharma Raja. A weak ruler, Balarama Varma, so they say, was manipulated by ministers and associates such as the Machiavellian Jayantan Sankaran Namboodiri and his cohorts Sankara Narayana Chetti and Mathu Tharakan. The situation is explained in differing ways by various historians, with one group uplifting the glorious services of Keshava Das and the treachery of the other ministers, while the other group maintain that Balarama Varma was actually anti British from the beginning and did not really want to sign any subsidiary treaties with the English. According to the latter, the king had no choice but to finally send away the British friendly Keshava Das into retirement, who then unfortunately ended up dead, perhaps poisoned. Then, for a while, Jayantan Namboodiri took over as Dewan and wreaked havoc on the hapless citizens of Travancore, with his cohorts Tharakan and Chetti.

The intrigues of 1808-09

Some readers may recall a bit of the story behind the overtures made by Travancore to the Calicut Zamorin for support on final ploys against the British, and I had made a brief mention of it some years ago when I wrote about the Dalawa. What I wrote then was the following, summarizing the nexus between the Paliyath Achan and the Dalawa and their attempts to rope in the Zamorin. The Zamorins case had already been lost and the old suzerain was left high and dry by the British, with no power and a lot of debts. The bitter man was left in relative peace, to lick his wounds. The Pazhassi raja had been dealt with and Cochin was largely under control but Travancore was on the limb and the situation there was being stirred up nicely by an upstart Dalawa named Velayudhan Thampi.

Sanketams of Malabar

Starting from the time when the Chera Empire and its powers declined, new forms of governance came up as lands split into multiple Swaroopams, Nadus, Desams and so on. Local chieftains administered the land with the help of the Lokars or Nairs, and came under the local Swaroopam suzerain’s umbrella. In return, they provided the services of foot soldiers comprising Nairs in the time of a war between the swaroopams. But in between all that, temple states also sprung up in parallel and some of them became very powerful. Some were small, like Pallavur in Palghat, which was just 2 square miles and where I hail from, others were very big, comprising many hundred square miles like Padmanabhapuram in Trivandrum. The Peruvanam Kshethra Sanketham for instance, extended approximately 25 miles in all directions, to Kuthiraanmudi (peak) Ayyappa temple in the east, Kodungalloor Oozhakam Sastha temple in the south, Edathiruthy Ayyappa temple near Thriprayar in the west and the Akamala Sastha temple in the north.

The position of Nairs in the caste and ruling structures of medieval Kerala is a very peculiar one, and this resulted in so many anthropological studies into it. Volumes have been written by people who understood it in parts, for decoding the structure and its peculiarities is not easy. I don’t claim to know even parts of it, but I thought I will cover a little bit of my gatherings on the specific aspects of Kiriyam and Kiriyathil nairs here and in particular, as related to Malabar, not Travancore.

The author of The Malabar Manual and a friend of Malabar

There are many Scotsmen, Irish and Englishmen who have spent long tenures in India, and some have spent their entire adult lifetimes in India but have done little. Logan Sayipp as he was known in Calicut spent only a few years but left a huge mark, for unlike many others who followed, he loved the land (and the people) which he was sent to administer. This man of Scottish farming stock went on to write what we still consider as source book on Malabar and his history, the Malabar manual. Let’s now try to get to know the man behind it all, his life and times.

Perhaps we give too much credit to the Portuguese when it came to the Malabar trade. In a manner, it is right as they possessed the might and the control of the sea route to make it all happen. But what most casual readers of history gloss over is the simple fact that the finances and string pulling at times, originated elsewhere. Two major players were families who had hands on the strings, and one being the Fuggers, whom we had come across briefly in a previous article (then again, there are plenty of books written about the Fuggers). But the pioneering family of the two, were the risk taking Welser’s from Augsburg, Germany. Not much has been written about them in English and only recently has substantial information surfaced. They were an enterprising family, so let’s meet them and take a quick look at their connections to the Malabar spice trade.

Chekavars and their Tiyya origins 

I had written an article exploring the origins of the Tiyyas of Malabar some years ago and many comments came in, some asking new questions, some adding new insights, but I missed covering something which could have provided a more definite angle. Recently I got back to studying the Vadakkan Pattukal or Northern ballads and some books on that subject, notably the volume 1 on the Ballads by C Achyutha Menon, some fine articles by the eminent MD Raghavan and an explanatory volume by the great historian KS Mathew. All of them spent a few pages on the first set of Ballads dealing with Aromal Chekavar, also Tacholi Othenan and dwelled a bit on the time period of these dueling heroes. In particular they explored the origin of these Chevakars or Chekavers, living among the other traditional communities of Malabar such as Nairs and Chetties and also pointed out the lack of importance or presence of the Namboodiris who were mentioned only in passing in the ballads as temple priests (perhaps they were mostly settled between Tirunavaya and North of Trissur and minding their business).

Franco Rule - A nation is proclaimed, within the domains of Travancore

It was a curious incident, not oft mentioned in the annals of history. During the ironclad reign of Sir CP, a few individuals took an opportunity that came by and on their own, liberated their village from a brutal tax collector and proclaimed independence. The leaders then called themselves the king and chief minister respectively. The police retaliated strongly resulting in violence and deaths and eventual overpowering of the revolting hordes. It was somewhat inconsequential, in the large scale of things, and was hardly reported, for the press itself was being muzzled by Sir CP. But it signaled the start of many more acts against the royal government, the evolution of the Travancore state congress, the wane of the Dewan’s powers and even resulted in physical threats and assassination attempts against him. For a while, Sir CP thought of implementing an American style government in Travancore, but the public protested, as Sir CP planned to become the president. In the end Travancore was finally ceded to the Indian union and Sir CP rode into the sunset. History books call these acts and events as demands for responsible government. These acts continue ever so often even today in Kerala and serve to be safeguards of Kerala’s democracy, as checks and balances. People like us keep us looking at the state from afar, bemused, while comedians and mimicry artistes remind its citizens to be either satirical or lighthearted about all those, after the fact. The life of a Malayali, so to say.

The Kollengode Rajas

Today there is not much left of that small dynasty but for a lovely palace built purportedly for a recalcitrant princess, an opulent building serving these days as a popular Ayurvedic center. The Venganad Swaroopam which once inhabited it, is scattered around the globe, with homes elsewhere, while people from the West and many an Indian tourist wandering off the beaten track, ironically spend days and nights resting and recuperating in it. The Venganad family must I am sure, be thinking of the old days of splendor and pomp at this kovilakom, of many occasions and festivities, as children played in the courtyard, of the feasting and shows when dignitaries visited and even of the times spent going in hunt to the nearby Anamalai hills. They may recall the trips to the Nelliyampathi coffee estates and presiding over the festivities at the Kachamkurichi temple.