Ivory Throne

by Manu S. Pillai

  Her Highness’ sympathies so far as she is personally concerned, are entirely with those who are trying to seek redress. I am free to tell you that she considers that these roads at Vaikom should be open to all classes. But as the Head of the State she feels powerless unless there is public opinion behind her and unless therefore the public opinion of Travancore is organized in a perfectly legitimate, peaceful and constitutional manner, and unless that opinion is expressed in an equally constitutional, legitimate and peaceful manner, though ever so emphatic, she will feel powerless to grant the relief that is required. I for my part entirely accept that position.58

  This was quite extraordinary, for Sethu Lakshmi Bayi passed a crucial message to her people through the Mahatma, which she could not do in the normal course as monarch. It was implicit in this that they ought to understand her constraints as a ruler and while she would do everything in her power, she needed overwhelming support from outside to match the pressures of conservatism inside (which remained in spite of Mr Raghavaiah’s defeat).59 She also needed Gandhi to prevent a law and order calamity arising in the state. Deducing this, Gandhi tried to help the Maharani conciliate the authorities. He assured the government that the reformers’ ‘objective is not to irritate orthodoxy but to win it over to their side. Their object moreover is in no way to embarrass the Government … [but to] enlist its sympathy and support.’60 By the end of March a temporary compromise was then finally announced after a conference between Police Commissioner W.H. Pitt and Gandhi. The Gandhi–Pitt Pact, as some called it, decided that the satyagrahis would continue with their activities to build support for the cause, but they would stop attempting to use the temple roads. And the government promised to issue orders to withdraw the police and remove the barricades from Vaikom, trusting the satyagrahis to respect the status quo until a final decision was taken. Orders to this effect were passed on 1 April, and while there were many who felt Gandhi’s visit had not quite succeeded, for most part the fact that the previously severe government was willing to work with the reformers and come to a mutually agreeable conclusion was seen as a decisive development. For Sethu Lakshmi Bayi things were on track exactly as she desired and Mr Raghavaiah deferred to her wishes on the subject. In his fall, he finally decided to act with grace.

  For the next several months the leaders of both sides conferred, debated, and discussed, as they ought to have been doing right from the onset. The government’s persistent worry was about the consequence the reform would have. Temple entry would inevitably become the next demand and the Mahatma had himself declared that ‘the opening of the roads is not the final but the first step in the ladder of reform’.61 But as Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s next Dewan, who was considerably more empathetic, noted, old practices could not be ‘dynamited out of existence’ and would require slow progress, through education and debate.62 This stand in fact hints at the continued pressure of forces within the palace, which were willing to take baby steps but would never permit a sudden and radical change of established norms. So in June 1925 when Sethu Lakshmi Bayi passed final orders, she conceded much to the satyagrahis while holding on enough to conciliate the orthodoxy and demonstrate to them that their views would also be respected.

  It was decided that the roads around the Vaikom Temple on the northern, western and southern sides, would be thrown open to all Hindus irrespective of caste. The eastern street, however, which led to the main gate of the temple, remained barred, and as an alternative a new parallel road was constructed for everybody’s use by November. It was also promised that a similar policy would be implemented in all other temple towns of Travancore, in consultation with local stakeholders. In some places, such as Suchindram, negotiations proved very difficult due to the powerful influence of local Brahmins, leading to agitations, so that some years would pass before success was achieved. But in others like Kannankulangara, for instance, the police were ordered to break Brahmin opposition by force and in fact open up even the eastern street to low castes.63 One by one, public roads were opened to all subjects of the state. In other words, by 1928, infrastructure accessible so far only by the 8,00,000-odd high castes was thrown open for an estimated 1.7 million low castes also.64 The Maharani was quick to demonstrate her own subscription of this and to lead by example; the roads around her royal abode and the temple in Attingal were declared free, and at the riverbank nearby notice boards were erected in English and Malayalam announcing that the ferry, hitherto plying only for high-caste Hindus, would now serve everyone.65

  The news was received with great acclaim everywhere. Gandhi lauded the reforms as ‘a bed-rock of freedom’ and expressed his highest admiration of the Maharani.66 Newspapers carried her character sketches and elaborate reports, while ordinary people also wrote in from distant parts of India, thanking her for the long-awaited changes. ‘By humanitarian farsighted statesmanship respecting Vaikom road problem,’ telegrammed one C. Vijayaraghavachari from Kodaikanal, ‘Her Highness has placed Hindu religion under eternal obligation to her.’ ‘Man’s destinies appear safer with women than men!’ wrote in another admirer, while the Poona Municipality in the Bombay Presidency sent the Maharani their felicitations.67 Many women and women’s organisations also sent letters and telegrams to Satelmond Palace, and it was clear that Sethu Lakshmi Bayi had come out on top, with universal admiration at the end of the Vaikom Satyagraha. She had passed her maiden test with distinction.

  In retrospect it might appear that the Maharani could have taken a more forceful stand and issued arbitrary orders right at the start. But her circumstances and disposition precluded such an option. She knew she had to rule for several more years and preside over a high-caste-dominated government. Alienating them on matters so personal and sensitive as religious sentiment would put her in a difficult position. As Gandhi himself warned, ‘Let us not retard [reforms] by indiscretion or over-zeal.’68 Similarly, while she sympathized with the reformers, she subscribed to her husband’s views that she could not allow the government to be stampeded into changing its ways. In the larger perspective, in fact, consciously or inadvertently, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s style of approaching the issue also took the right step in instilling the democratic practices of debate and discussion between conflicting groups in her state. Patience, moderation and balance were the hallmark of her policy, and through these she managed to conclude the Vaikom Satyagraha on a happy note. ‘It was an act of great magnitude with far flung echoes, apart from being the first enactment of its kind in India.’69 As a domino effect, similar movements commenced in Cochin and Malabar also, so that by the 1930s ‘the climate for the introduction of social reforms of a more radical nature’ (i.e., temple entry) was created with success. And thus Sethu Lakshmi Bayi earned for herself, in the words of the historian Sreedhara Menon, ‘an honoured place among the social reformers of modern Kerala’.70

  She also won some wonderful appreciation for her personal qualities and mien from none other than Gandhi himself. When he arrived in Varkala for their meeting in March 1925, little did that famous loincloth-and-shawl-clad, frugality-promoting nationalist expect he would meet such a striking young queen. Walking into the drawing room of the Maharani’s residence, he was astounded to discover a handsome woman dressed in austere white who could give him a run for his money insofar as the use of cotton khadi was concerned. So amazed was the Mahatma by Sethu Lakshmi Bayi that he dedicated a generous paragraph to her in Young India, proclaiming to the world that he had met ‘the ideal of Indian womanhood’ in Travancore:

  My visit to Her Highness was an agreeable surprise for me. Instead of being ushered into the presence of an over-decorated woman, sporting diamond pendants and necklaces, I found myself in the presence of a modest young woman who relied not upon jewels or gaudy dress for beauty but on her own naturally well formed features and exactness of manners. Her room was as plainly furnished as she was plainly dressed. Her severe simplicity became an object of my envy. She seemed to me an object lesson for many a prince and many a millionaire
whose loud ornamentation, ugly looking diamonds, rings and studs and still more loud and almost vulgar furniture offend the taste and present a terrible and sad contrast between them and the masses from whom they derive their wealth.71

  Gandhi was no friend of royalty, with all their vagaries and proclivities, and it stands as a testimony to Sethu Lakshmi Bayi that India’s undisputed leader looked up at her with absolute awe. It is also said that when their meeting came to a conclusion, she remarked to him, ‘There is another Mahatma who resides here. I do hope you are going to pay your respects.’ She was referring to Sri Narayana Guru, the spiritual leader of the Ezhavas, whom she never met but apparently respected.72 It must have impressed Gandhi quite a bit that surrounded by so much orthodox prejudice, this fairly conservative woman still had the independence of thought and outlook to recognise and appreciate his meeting later that day with a low-caste leader who mattered so much to a large section of her people, for whom there was no other voice of expression.

  All these events occurred within a year of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s coming to power and it was widely appreciated that she could win the respect and admiration of her people so quickly and so very substantially. And it was not just Gandhi who noted her judicious and equable attitude towards political questions. The Government of India had also been keenly observing the ruler, in whom they did not really at first invest much confidence. Indeed, Mr Cotton had in September 1924, soon after her installation, made the mistake of evaluating Sethu Lakshmi Bayi at face value. He described her as being ‘of the pious, orthodox and domestic type’ although he conceded that she was ‘remarkably well read’ and possessed a ‘considerable charm of manner’.73 But when newspapers described her as ‘a highly distinguished lady of wide culture, broad outlook and catholic views’ who commanded the ‘entire confidence of her people’, the Resident was quite unconvinced.74 He felt, like Mr Raghavaiah, that she was too inexperienced and removed from reality to make a good ruler, adding also the point that she was ‘completely under the domination’ of her husband.75 In these circumstances he wondered how successful Sethu Lakshmi Bayi would be in power.

  But unlike the Dewan, Mr Cotton readily confessed his error of judgement when he made one. It struck him very soon after the Maharani’s reign began that a first impression could be highly deceptive. The conformism of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s personal manners, for instance, belied her urbane and forward-looking mindset towards matters of government and state. Once this became clear he reviewed his previous conclusions, paying her the attention and respect she deserved. In a letter written to the Political Secretary in Delhi in January 1925, Mr Cotton noted with pleasant surprise and rightful approval:

  Her Highness has now had nearly five months experience since she assumed the Regency on the 1st of September, and she has spared no pains to acquaint herself, so far as the time has permitted, with every branch of work. Her industry and intelligence are of a high order. She has a great sense of fairness and high ideals and has already shown herself on more than one occasion capable of expressing an opinion of her own and strong enough to see that her orders are carried out. The more I see of her, the more I am inclined to hold that she is not so much under the influence of her Consort, as in the first days of the Regency I feared would be the case.76

  Sethu Lakshmi Bayi had demonstrated adequately through her work that she was set to be a success as a ruler. By her constant appraisal of the flood situation, in her manner of handling the Dewan’s obstinacy, and through her effective dealings with the satyagrahis at Vaikom, the young Maharani proved to be up to the task she herself so dreaded at first. She was actually rather surprised by the ease with which she managed to apply her mind to politics, leading her to heave a sigh of relief and positively enjoy her work henceforth. By April 1925 she confidently set out on her first tour of Travancore as sovereign ‘with a view to make herself personally acquainted with the wants of the people’.77 As the Maharani’s motorcade passed through the pretty hamlets and villages of the country, the awe that was conventionally owed to the monarch merged with a sincere affection for the woman occupying that position. At every major town on the way Sethu Lakshmi Bayi broke her journey to meet with her people. She personally received petitions and representations from them, often even granting interviews on the spot to those with pressing needs. Newspapers were singing paeans to the young queen by the time she arrived in the hills, recognising that her popularity with her subjects was matched by her manifest empathy for them.

  And thus, the inauguration of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s government was as eventful as it was positive. She emerged with bright colours to the applause of the masses she reigned over. The world sang her glories, with Gandhi leading the chorus, and not many rulers could claim such tremendous success so early in their reigns. But then politics was not a fairy world where things remained brilliant and sparkling forever. And the Maharani was set to unleash upon herself a wave of political fury that would not only give her nerves of steel but would also set in stone the principles by which she intended to rule.

  6

  A Christian Minister

  When Martanda Varma died in 1758, little did he imagine how perilously close Travancore would come to annihilation in only fifty years’ time. For, by the end of the eighteenth century, the horrific war with Tipu Sultan of Mysore left his distraught successor first knocking at the doors of the English for military assistance and then, having recruited their services, running helter-skelter to pay for it. During the next nearly two decades, until 1810, Travancore remained in debt with a mismanaged economy and precarious government. The English East India Company never ceased to press for payments and in 1808–09 the Dewan Velu Tampi rose in revolt against them. It was an ill-fated venture, one that would end with his dead body hanging from a gibbet, and with the complete and unabridged humiliation of his sovereign. The armies of Travancore, so masterfully assembled by Martanda Varma, were disbanded and the people were prohibited from carrying arms. The royal family began to live a ghastly nightmare, counting the days before the Company annexed its territories and relegated their dynasty to the dustbins of history.

  And then, in what surprised everyone, Travancore was saved; and saved by the convictions of one man. It was not a heroic monarch or a powerful minister but a middle-aged Scotsman from across the seas who heaved the state out of its impending doom. Indeed, just as Martanda Varma forged modern Travancore from an assortment of petty principalities, it was Col John Munro of the East India Company who secured it from a premature demise at its most vulnerable moment since. The future ‘Model State’, which so prided itself on its Hindu identity and Brahminical traditions, became hugely indebted, thus, to the generosity of a foreign Christian.

  A new chapter began in Travancore when Col Munro (popular even today among an age group of Malayalis who studied in school about ‘Munro Sahib’) arrived as Resident in Trivandrum in 1809. The fate of the state hung in balance before him but when, soon afterwards, a new intelligent ruler came to power in the form of Gowri Lakshmi Bayi, he realised that annexation was not necessarily the only option. The Rani, for her part, went out of her way to win him over, famously declaring: ‘To you, Colonel, I entrust everything connected with my country.’1 ‘Thus, this wise Princess,’ we are told, ‘managed to place her kingdom which was verging on ruin and was nearly falling into the hands of the Honourable East India Company, in a position of stability,’ relieving herself ‘not only from the cumbersome burden of Government, but also from a world of personal inconvenience’.2 She was a clever woman in reality, for she satisfied the Resident by practically making him the ruler while at the same time averting an actual acquisition of her domains by his Company.3 After all, ‘a line from Col Munro should have been enough’4 to take the throne away from her successors, and Gowri Lakshmi Bayi liberally massaged his ego and allowed him to exercise real power to prevent such a development. He was successfully persuaded, then, to go that extra mile to protect Travancore from direct British Raj, shapin
g its modern identity in the process.

  Lord Minto had made it clear in 1809 after quelling Velu Tampi’s rebellion that Travancore’s two options were either annexation or ‘some intermediate and experimental measure’ that would ensure it paid its dues to the Company.5 Col Munro became that experimental measure, and a success at that. Residents were usually a thorn in the side of Indian rulers, but with Gowri Lakshmi Bayi giving him free rein, this one thoroughly altered the traditional administration of Travancore. Several taxes were abolished, forced labour was prohibited, a number of caste discriminations were removed, and Christians received active state patronage for the first time. Land surveys were conducted and a modern administrative machinery, modelled on the British style, was introduced into the state. The results were telling. By 1818, Travancore became free of debt, and its revenues, which had stood at Rs 17 lakh in 1810 now sat at a comfortable Rs 38 lakh. Land revenue, which had been Rs 9 lakh went up to Rs 15 lakh, while the paltry salt revenue of Rs 30,000 rose to Rs 2,30,000. It was with some satisfaction, then, that it was announced in the House of Commons in London that conditions in Travancore had ‘greatly improved’.6

  Col Munro, endearingly, also took a personal interest in protecting the state and its ruler. A popular story goes that when in 1813 the Rani became pregnant, he promptly informed the Company that she had already given birth to a male heir (for his superiors were quite uncertain about a female sovereign and the question of annexation lingered). And then he went to the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple and threatened to blow up the deity with a cannon if the baby were not a boy.7 But what is perhaps more crucial than the Resident’s services to the royal family is the impact of his work on Travancore’s society and polity. By reforming the administration, Col Munro created for the first time in the state a class of officers and civil servants. No longer, for instance, were ancient families permitted to function as hereditary village heads; individuals, evaluated by the government, were appointed to these positions. So too at every level a bureaucracy took the place of the old feudal system, already in ruins after Martanda Varma’s assaults on it, and one’s ancestry began to mean less than it did before. Munro famously used to flog erring officials himself with his cat-o’-nine-tails to ensure efficiency.8 The judicial system was revamped and courts began to be set up. Christian missionaries, who brought with them the novelty of English education, were greatly encouraged by the state. In essence, modernity (in pre-Victorian style) arrived in Travancore, bringing with it also, however, a social turbulence that would influence the state for the remainder of its life ahead.