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February 21 - December 20, 2021
After the destruction of their second Temple in AD 70, Jews escaping persecution in Jerusalem sought refuge in Kerala where they lived in prosperity until the Portuguese arrived 1,500 years later to harass them afresh.
the Krishna Temple in Ambalapuzha an image of St Thomas used to be carried in procession alongside those of Hindu divinities on festive occasions.
After all, these Malayalis had been Christian long before Christianity had reached even the outskirts of Europe. They were heirs to a tradition more ancient than the Roman Catholicism of the Portuguese and had never, for instance, even heard of the Pope; when the Portuguese presumed to claim that the Kerala churches ‘belonged’ to the Pope, quick came the retort, ‘Who is the Pope?’
Malayali Christians, as it turned out to the great mortification of the Portuguese, adhered not to the Vatican but to the Nestorian Church headed by the Patriarch of Antioch in modern-day Turkey.
Their liturgical language, similarly, was not Latin but Syriac, by virtue of which they were ...
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local Christians whom the Europeans ‘rediscovered’ observed a branch of the faith that Roman Catholicism neither approved of nor upheld.
As the Zamorins of Calicut faded into oblivion, it was time for the Maharajahs of Travancore to emerge from the shadows.
On the side, as Devika has detailed, women were also now asked to cultivate an image as humble, passive and in need of protection. ‘Womanly qualities’ were championed, with special emphasis on sexual virtue and loyalty to a single husband.
As late as 1926 the Mahila Mandiram, for instance, would strongly argue that a woman’s role was as mistress of the (husband’s) household, and as a caretaker and that she should leave everything else to the superior competence of men. Propaganda was at its peak.
They pointed out that as women ‘enjoying special rights of property, legal status, religious honours, and recognised independence sanctioned by ancient scriptures, traditions, and customs’, they resented now being asked to fit into the mould of kulina householders by ‘a very small section’ of pseudo-puritan Hindus.
The lead actress was P.K. Rosy, a Dalit woman, whose duties included not only acting but also ‘cleaning up the kitchen and vessels’ on the sets. However, when the movie was released, high-caste audiences were incensed at having to watch a low-caste woman on screen. ‘They created a ruckus in the theatre, even burning down the screen. Rosy was heckled and her family ostracised.
the same time Dr Mary was also nominated by the Maharani as a member of the Legislative Council, becoming the first woman to a take a seat in the house. It was the first time in India that a woman was being appointed the head of a major department, and also the first instance of a ‘Lady Legislator’.
the Maharani was dismissed as ‘a lady of domestic tastes who has not concerned herself with events beyond the range of her family and the palace walls. The palace is, as it ever was, a hotbed of petty and mischievous intrigues, and a lady living in seclusion might with the best of intentions be moved by evil influences to exert her authority in a wrong direction.’
only difference in India being the wholesale application of imported Victorian prejudices upon the situation so as to justify constant interference by the British.
By interfering with and amending the internal affairs of a family, promoting one group over another, and then doing just the opposite sometime later, Indian Maharajahs were not only taught that the British had the power to do so, but that their own royal authority was ‘a favour, not a right’.106
But as Louise Ouwerkerk would remark, ‘At no time either at the height of his power or after his fall, did he cast the blame for the disastrous policies where it belonged’, i.e., at the doors of Kowdiar Palace.59 ‘He was not a free agent: he supported their policies—even those that were foolish and impracticable, he announced them as his own—he defended them, worked them out, took the blame for what went wrong, braved the storms of hatred and calumny and the threats to his life. He was indeed a “daring pilot in extremity”.’60 Even in his fall, he remained dignified enough not to vent
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As one of the conspirators in his assassination attempt would later add: ‘We did not mean to kill him; killing was too good for him. We meant to send him away from the state humiliated and disgraced—and we succeeded.’65 Travancore, an awkward entity created with the devoted assistance of Tamil Brahmins, went down also with one of the greatest Tamil Brahmins who ever lived. And its dynasty’s most loyal adherent became also its ultimate gravedigger.
We really wanted to be participants at a historic moment and we were very conscious that this was one of those rare times that came once in a lifetime.
Menon was a tough taskmaster who did not particularly care for the princes, though his mandate was to diplomatically win them over. He would tell how as a poor boy struggling to make his way through life, ‘I went to a shop one day and watched a Maharani buy a hundred expensive saris. Another time I was present when a Maharajah walked into a sporting goods shop and casually ordered 100,000 rupees worth of hunting rifles. And one day on my civil service assignments, I was stopped at 15 different state customs posts on a thirty-mile drive through Kathiawar. I thought it was time this sort of
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As it happened, Cochin’s last princely ruler made few impositions on the Government of India. He had ‘practically no demands at all. A typical request of his was that free copies should continue to be supplied to him of the Panjangam or Almanac, which was published by the Cochin Government annually, and was priced at a few annas! He was prepared to efface himself completely in order that his people might enjoy a larger life.’25 The Maharajah’s privy purse there was fixed at Rs 2,35,000 per annum.26
Cochin, a fifth the size of Travancore, in 1949 had a remarkable 223 princes and 231 princesses, some of whom, due to the want of resources, even took up ordinary vocations like government service and teaching.
