‘The death of a Ruler,’ Sethu Lakshmi Bayi would observe, ‘always leaves a legacy of troubles to his successor.' And in her particular case, ‘the knowledge that the present administration is only for a specified period’ tended to ‘prolong the unsettlement and unrest’. In other words, as it was obvious to her opponents that she would hold power only for a short duration and not for all her lifetime, fear of royal displeasure was at its lowest, and politicians were more ambitious and forthright than in a regular reign. They were also aware that the Government of India scrutinised princely states closely during such interim periods, and even if an impression of instability could be conveyed, they might swoop down and clip the Maharani’s wings. ‘If,’ she explained, ‘the present administration had not been a Regency, the movement would long ago have fizzled out.’ But this was not the case, and whenever she was ‘found to be disinclined to dance to [the] tune’ of her rivals, petitions and complaints were quickly dispatched to Delhi to have her government discredited.59 So far none had succeeded, however, because her achievements in only a couple of years were numerous and the respect she earned from the general public far surpassed the ceaseless objections of local politicians from assorted communal backgrounds.
Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s principal opponents were the Nairs. Historically, with an axe to grind against the Brahmins, they did not take too kindly to the introduction of Christians also as rival elements in Travancore’s political equation. The Maharani, whose effort was to curtail that overdependence of the privileged classes on the state and to promote a new spirit of independent entrepreneurship, was constantly accused of favouring minority communities at the cost of the Nairs, who had lost their most powerful votary, Sankaran Tampi, after she assumed control over the administration. The Newspaper Regulation was perceived as a direct blow to their community; social reforms diluted the prestige of their class and enhanced the standing of Ezhavas and other lower castes; and economic reforms again aided largely the Christians and those with business ventures. The Nairs, essentially, were used to being part of the establishment, but now were being asked to fend for themselves, even as their share of the economic pie was diminishing by the day. As the Madras Mail reported in 1898, ‘Syrian Christian merchants are getting the trade of the country into their hands. In the villages the hard-working Syrian is ousting the [Nair] and the [Brahmin].’60 Agitation, naturally, was their recourse, to preserve their position. And if there was any additional inducement necessary to get them to stand up to Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, it came in the form of an ally within the royal household.
Since 1925 the Junior Maharani had begun to concern herself with matters of state, where she technically had no locus standi and which she could never have contemplated during the previous administration. But as mother of the minor Maharajah, she now felt herself entitled to a hand in government, which when Sethu Lakshmi Bayi refused to allow, she resented. Her first association with the cause of the Nairs came at the time Mr Watts was appointed Dewan, and the Resident noted how the opposition had ‘obtained a valuable recruit’ in her.61 She was persuaded to write to him that the successor to Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was her son and that he should be protected from being ‘handicapped by new policies’ when ‘no necessity has arisen to make this departure’ from custom in appointing a Christian as Dewan.62 She felt it abominable, she claimed, that old traditions were being breached, affronted by the fact that this was happening ‘without even so much as being mentioned to me and my views ascertained’.63 Mr Cotton was not convinced about the sincerity of this concern. The Junior Maharani was famously unorthodox and the fact that she was ‘quite ready to pose as a pattern of orthodoxy and conservatism’ now was suspicious. ‘I regard her,’ he inferred, ‘merely as the catspaw of the Nairs,’ adding that no ‘real weight need be attached to her contention that the appointment of Mr Watts does violence to the religious susceptibilities of the people.’64
What was more interesting was that the Junior Maharani also utilised public uproar among the Nairs about Mr Watts to pitch certain proposals of her own. ‘I think the time has come,’ she proffered, ‘for the creation of a Council of Regency.’ In other words, she wanted the uninhibited powers her cousin enjoyed under matrilineal law and tradition, revoked, and wished the Government of India to implement their regular policy of conducting the administration through a council. It was amusing to the Resident that whereas the Junior Maharani claimed to be a protector of tradition in the matter of the Dewan’s appointment, she was anxious to contravene custom completely when it came to her rival. ‘In my opinion,’ she elaborated, ‘the Council should consist of H.H. the Maharani Regent, myself (the mother of the minor Maharajah), and one experienced officer with good reputation and character.’65 The proposal bemused Mr Cotton, for before the start of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s reign, he had consulted the Junior Maharani on ideas she might have about the administration. At the time she had declared that any notion of a Council of Regency was simply ‘repugnant’ to her. ‘I do not recollect,’ he wrote testily now, ‘your hinting that these objections would vanish if there was a change in the Dewanship.’66
Rebuffed by the Resident thus, the Junior Maharani decided to go above his head and submit a memorandum directly to the Viceroy. Through her confidante Sir Vasudeva Rajah, with whom her husband had linked her romantically, she placed before the Government of India a representation arguing that the ‘position attaching to the mother of the heir-apparent is considered to be one of great dignity and the fact that the Junior Maharani attained to this led to a strained relationship between the cousins’.67 In other words, the suggestion all at once was that her opinions ought to be treated with respect since she was the Maharajah’s mother, and that she should not be held inferior to her cousin, who might be prejudiced by their unhappy and historic rivalry. It was quite another matter that matrilineal law did not promise any such status; only the senior male and senior female members of the family enjoyed rank, no matter what their mutual connections might be, and the mother of the senior male member did not inherently gain rank because of the birth of a titled son to her.68 However, the Junior Maharani felt keenly that she was ‘entitled to a voice in the administration of the state as mother and guardian of the minor Maharajah and that the establishment of a Council of Regency is indeed all the more necessary in view of the divergence of interests’ that existed between her cousin and herself.69
Much to her abiding regret, however, Delhi refused to treat this representation transmitted through Sir Vasudeva (notorious for ‘interesting himself in political affairs which are not his concern’)70 as proper conduct. They promptly consulted Mr Cotton and were told that ‘There is no doubt that the [Junior] Maharani has only lately become a convert to the idea of a Council of Regency,’ when she realised she could gain from it. Additionally, he added, ‘I do not think she is entitled to any voice in the administration of the state as mother of the minor Maharajah. Nor is she,’ he clarified, ‘according to the [matrilineal] law governing the ruling family, the guardian of her son.’71 This was indeed true, for as per tradition her son was a ward of the head of the family, namely Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, and not his own mother. To dilute the Junior Maharani’s claims, the Government of India also received intelligence at this time that the only reason Sir Vasudeva was championing her cause was that he had been promised a ‘substantial loan, of which he is in urgent need’ if the scheme were successful and a Council of Regency instituted.72 Even sympathetic factions perceived the Junior Maharani’s actions as a ‘tactical mistake’ for she had only made herself more unpopular.73 Soon enough a telegram arrived from the Viceroy’s office curtly stating: ‘His Excellency has been fully acquainted with all aspects of the case and does not consider further representations would serve any purpose. In any case,’ it added, rebuking the Junior Maharani for attempting to supersede Mr Cotton through Sir Vasudeva, ‘representation can be received only through Agent to Governor General,’ i.e., the Resident.74
By 1927, the Junior Maharan
i found the controversy around Brooke Bond ripe for another interjection, even though her opinions too, like those of the politicians, were based on misinformation. ‘It has come to my notice quite recently, and also very casually,’ she wrote, ‘that there is a proposal to assign about a hundred thousand acres of cultivable land in the Travancore State to a British syndicate for tea cultivation.’ While political implications of all this did not really concern her, she did feel that such a proposal should ‘neither have been mooted nor pursued’ during the minority of her son and when the country was under a Regency government. ‘I would therefore urge,’ she ended, ‘that this question be left over till the majority of the Maharajah is attained.’75 In response, Mr Cotton informed her that the plan was ‘much more modest’, and in any case, it would have to pass through the Legislative Council and obtain the sanction of the Government of India before it became reality. Her grievances would, he assured her, be considered, if deemed necessary, at the appropriate moment.76 Once again, in other words, Sethu Parvathi Bayi was politely asked to desist from venturing advice in the name of her son. The fact that all this came only shortly after the controversial domestic spat with her husband also did not earn her favour with the authorities, in whose mind she was out simply to make trouble.
However, the most chafing dispute between the Junior Maharani and Sethu Lakshmi Bayi pertained to the allocation of funds. Every year a certain sum was set aside as the royal family’s Civil List, but this straightforward task was now rendered peculiarly complex owing to the situation where the minor sovereign and the ruling Maharani belonged to rival camps. In 1923 Mulam Tirunal’s Civil List stood at Rs 7,31,000,77 which by 1924 increased to Rs 7,57,000.78 Out of this, the majority was earmarked for so many wide-ranging expenses, from religious obligations to the payment of palace pensions, that only a surprisingly small amount of Rs 60,000 was spent on the personal outlays of the Maharajah. His pocket money was also as little as Rs 500 per month, and despite all his legendary frugality, he left behind savings of Rs 18 lakh, all of which would be inherited by the Junior Maharani’s son when he came of age.79 Indeed, such was the relative simplicity pervading the royal household that Mulam Tirunal did not claim most of the income from his Crown lands, preferring to donate an amount of more than Rs 2 lakh from that source every year instead to the general funds of the state for the benefit of his people.80
The Civil List also included allowances to subordinate members of the royal house. The Junior Maharani received Rs 19,000 per annum, of which Rs 6,000 was meant as a personal allowance, Rs 5,000 for tour expenses and the remainder for any religious donations she might desire to make. But the recipient of the largest sum after Mulam Tirunal had been Sethu Lakshmi Bayi who as Attingal Rani had more serious expenses. She had Rs 46,000 per annum of which Rs 33,000 was exclusively for her religious commitments in that position, Rs 6,000 for tours and the rest for costs of her establishment. The Sripadam treasury met her private expenses, where also she had a separate fund for religious obligations.81 But with her succession as Pooradam Tirunal Maharajah and as Regent, an additional Rs 2 lakh had been granted her, with the sanction of the Government of India, as a special income. This was not an especially generous sum, for in smaller (and badly run) states, her counterparts often enjoyed similar or better incomes. But by Travancore’s standards it was a most liberal amount and the Maharani accepted it. There was also another reason for the allocation of a special purse to Sethu Lakshmi Bayi. As Mr Cotton wrote to the Government of India:
The Regency has devolved upon her under a law of succession peculiar to this and the neighbouring state of Cochin, and her enhanced position necessitates both now and after the Regency has terminated considerably greater expenditure than if she had continued merely as Senior Rani. And a further reason for treating her generously now is that as she is not the mother of the minor Maharajah, she is unlikely to receive any special consideration upon the latter attaining his majority.82
The Junior Maharani too, however, had her eyes set on a better financial position. She was, to begin with, unhappy with the practicality that her cousin controlled the Civil List, suggesting instead that as much as Rs 3,12,000 be assigned to her every year ‘for my branch of the family’.83 This was completely unprecedented, for the head of the house controlled all funds, and Sethu Lakshmi Bayi saw no reason to revoke custom and deposit such large amounts into the hands of the Junior Maharani simply because she was the Maharajah’s mother.84 She did allocate the Rs 58,000 sanctioned for the Maharajah and Rs 35,000 for the general expenses of Kowdiar Palace to her cousin to defray, but other requests were declined.85 To her friends and in representations to the authorities, the Junior Maharani attempted to present this as an example of her cousin stinting her grievously in the matter of money. But, as Sethu Lakshmi Bayi noted, ‘Her grievances viewed with reference to the style of living of the Travancore Royal Family and the age long customs obtaining in the family, will deceive no one, but when examined in relation to the conditions prevailing in the households of the Northern Indian States, may appear very real.’86
At the same time, a somewhat tired Sethu Lakshmi Bayi also admitted that she had ‘not thought it necessary to go out of my way to heap coals of fire on the Junior Maharani’, and that wherever possible, she had tried to make things easier. But there was no question of any special favour being shown, ‘her attitude being what it is’.87 She described the Junior Maharani’s posture towards her as one of ‘militant antagonism’88 right from the commencement of her administration. To remain above board and to preserve objectivity, however, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi channelled all negotiations on this subject through the Resident. And Mr Cotton supported her decisions, for they were grounded in law and the established practice of the royal family. But the Junior Maharani never ceased to press for greater provisions. She even took the opportunity that discussions on the Civil List presented to have her own personal allowance raised to Rs 30,000. But here, at first, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi tried to draw the line:
…I have regretfully to express my reluctance to move in the matter, so long as she maintains her attitude of wanton hostility to me and open defiance of my authority. I have suffered no end of humiliation and indignities as a result of her misguided activities and my present unwillingness to comply with her request is to be construed merely as an attempt to chasten her and not to retaliate.89
Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was referring to the growing impasse on numerous counts with Kowdiar Palace. Mr Cotton too had observed that the Maharajah’s mother was difficult and stubborn, never compromising while always expecting her cousin to bend backwards on so many real as well as imagined grounds. ‘I have never seen,’ he wrote to the Government of India, ‘any indication of her willingness, even in the most petty matters, to defer to the wishes of the Maharani Regent.’90 When he went on leave, the Junior Maharani attempted to have the Acting Resident advocate for her, and through similar methods kept the issue of financial allocations unsettled for years. Her memorandum to the Viceroy also alleged that the reason Sethu Lakshmi Bayi did not treat her charitably was plain jealousy that she was the mother of the Maharajah. A clearly irritated Senior Maharani again had to point out that while outsiders accustomed to patriarchy might hold the status of the mother of a Maharajah as high, in Travancore there was no such precedent.
[It is] a stern reality that the Junior Maharani, despite her relationship to the Maharajah, has no voice in the direction of the general palace Civil List or the State funds … However unpleasant or unnatural this position may be, it has to be reconciled to. All the world over there are conventions and customs which are so many anomalies and in Travancore, for instance, the fact that a Maharajah’s son has no locus standi in his own State may very likely outrage the sentiments of a person imbued with the more common patriarchal system of inheritance … Very often we have to face things as they are instead of worrying about what they should be.91
The indefatigable Junior Maharani was determined to fight on, however, and s
ubmitted yet another memorandum to Delhi. It met a similar fate as the last one, but Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was so troubled by all this that in December 1926 she agreed to settle ‘the formidable and vexatious question of the Civil List’ for once and for ever, giving her cousin the personal raise she so ardently desired. This along with the Rs 12,000 she received from the Sripadam treasury increased her total income to Rs 42,000, which, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi pointed out, ‘in normal times even the Senior Rani could not [have found] for her personal expenses’.92 In other words, it was despite tradition and existing fiscal customs of the royal family that this raise was provided. The Junior Maharani had won this point. But there was no gratitude in the picture and early in 1927 Mr Cotton was disappointed that while Sethu Parvathi Bayi wrote to thank him, she had not sent ‘even a line of appreciation’ to her cousin, who had granted her this raise ‘unasked’ and despite confirmation from the Government of India that she was not obliged to do so.93 Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was not perturbed, only hoping instead that the Junior Maharani would ‘bring about a change in her attitude towards me’ and allow for peace in the family.94
Far from contemplating gratitude or peace the Junior Maharani’s supporters continued their offensive. Attempts were made to defame the Valiya Koil Tampuran on a regular basis; when he shot a bull bison in the jungles near Peermade it was put out that he had brutally murdered a tribal woman. This was, in Mr Cotton’s words, ‘pure unadulterated fiction’, but it went some way in tarnishing Rama Varma’s name, already suffering.95 Soon afterwards when a forest officer accompanying the Valiya Koil Tampuran died of a heart attack while on the job, it was declared again that he was a sadistic murderer. ‘Of course,’ sighed the Resident, ‘the Kowdiar Palace set on foot the rumour that he had been shot.’96 Later in January 1927 Sir Vasudeva resurfaced in the state and ‘paid a clandestine three day visit’ to the Junior Maharani at Cape Comorin. He promised her that the Viceroy was set to visit south India soon and ‘great changes’ could occur in Travancore if they obtained a memorial against Sethu Lakshmi Bayi.97 Promptly news was heard that the Junior Maharani wanted a fresh petition prepared and was offering a reward of Rs 500 to anybody who might initiate this among the public. Even some months later, though, nobody approached to undertake this had ‘shewn any great alacrity’ in accepting the commission, and the Resident noted that the scheme had proved to be a flop.98
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