Another issue the Maharajah’s auditor took exception to was the removal of Rs 1,07,594 from the Sripadam funds. To this the manager responded stating that this was done when the Senior Maharani was a minor, and hence her management could not be held liable. In any case the money had far from vanished. The Government of Travancore held it as a deposit and interest that accrued was annually being paid to the Sripadam as an income.72 It was therefore an investment and not an irregularity, and the amount was in the government’s possession. Similarly, certain ‘extraneous’ expenses were found going back to 1918 and before. It was found that the Maharani’s sisters had received about Rs 10,000 from the Sripadam, and for the education of her brothers, she had spent over Rs 10,000. A sum of Rs 86,640 had also been withdrawn during the construction of Satelmond Palace while Rs 13,000 worth of furniture was purchased at the time, and so on. All of these were now determined as inappropriate expenses.
Kulathu Iyer clarified that all these expenses were incurred during the lifetime of the late Maharajah, who would have objected had they been irregular. Indeed, it was pointed our, even the late Senior Rani incurred such expenses on Sripadam funds for her nieces and nephews (who were mothers of the present Maharanis), and they were not objected to either. As for the use of funds for construction and expenses of Satelmond Palace, this was in keeping with Mulam Tirunal’s notice dated 05 Meenam 1090 ME wherein he granted Rs 10,000 for the building, and ordered that any further funds should be drawn from the Sripadam.73 Thus there were no ‘extraneous’ expenses as alleged, and all the instances pointed out enjoyed the sanction of the last Maharajah as well as of precedent. The only irregularity was with regard to the arrears in maintaining annual accounts for many years, but this, as the Maharani noted, ‘was detected and rectified long before the audit [by the Maharajah] was contemplated’.74
In any case, the Maharani was now preparing her own defence but this was also rendered very problematic. It had now been two weeks since the Maharajah had physically banned her manager from access to the Sripadam office and treasury, with military force, and the resultant difficulty was that the Maharani did not have access to records she needed to vindicate her position in this dispute. ‘It is an intolerable situation’, she wrote to the Resident, ‘the full implications of which no words can adequately describe.’75 She also made it known that if this ostracism she was facing continued, she would be left with no option but another direct representation to the Viceroy in New Delhi. It was blatant bullying for the Maharajah to use soldiers and force against the Maharani and she was appalled by the levels to which Kowdiar Palace seemed to stoop.
In the meantime the Resident, after consultations with the Dewan, found out that the main issue was that Kulathu Iyer was a ‘persona ingrata with the Palace’, perhaps because of his reputation as the Valiya Koil Tampuran’s favourite, and that if he were removed from office ‘all difficulties could be solved’.76 The Maharani was shocked by the suggestion that she should remove her manager merely because the Maharajah took to him an unreasonable dislike, especially in the light of the former’s ‘meritorious discharge of his official duties and deep personal devotion’ towards her.77 But knowing how she, in spite of being Senior Maharani had to deal with so much trouble from Kowdiar Palace, she acquiesced for she feared that Mr Iyer, who was only a government pensioner, might fare worse, even though asking him to vacate office was ‘a painful and distasteful task’ for her.78 In keeping with the Resident’s instructions, she then appointed a new person as manager, in the hope that the Maharajah would be more reasonable, now that the individual he disliked was gone.
The new man was accordingly sent to Kowdiar Palace with a letter of introduction. But then she was told that ‘the letter could not be received as the Palace had already appointed a Manager’ namely Sankaranarayana Iyer!79 When a protest was lodged with the Resident, he asked the Maharani to send the name of her person to him, so that he might ask the Maharajah to recognise him. This statement from Mr Murphy thoroughly agitated her, for the solution ‘simple as it may sound, strikes at the root of the principle for which I have suffered no small amount of indignities and hardships during the last two months’, namely that the Sripadam was hers and that she, not the Maharajah, had the right to recognise and appoint managers to it. Even in the heyday of Sankaran Tampi when Mulam Tirunal did not like her appointments, he had never thought of imposing someone on her. ‘So I am extremely sorry,’ she wrote to the Resident, ‘I cannot accept your suggestion.’80 In the meantime the domestic crisis at Satelmond Palace had reached horrific levels and the Maharani pleaded with a strangely unperturbed Mr Murphy to ensure a dignified status quo at the very least. But this time she took a stronger stand:
The payments to contractors and my servants should have been made from yesterday. Provisions in the store have run out. I cannot take money from the treasury to meet current expenses on account of the orders given to the military in charge to let no one other than the Palace nominee open my treasury. I am in a really desperate plight … After all that I have suffered from the time the Sripadam affairs reached a climax two months back, I am sure I shall not be liable to the charge of hasty action … If the authorities do not raise the bans before this evening I shall send a wire to His Excellency.81
As she helplessly expected, the authorities did nothing at all and the Resident, who was plausibly tied down too, did not do anything either. So in her distress the Maharani sent a telegram to Delhi, enumerating her troubles and then appealing as follows:
These improper measures have accentuated hardships & inconveniences already being experienced as is natural when sources of income stopped & access to available money cut off. Coercive measures of this nature to make me submit to wanton aggression on my rights together with instances of ill usage already submitted impose insupportable strain. Pray respectfully for immediate relief since inability to meet urgent financial obligations & current expenses have rendered my situation desperate.82
It was quite something that a woman who had once ruled over millions, and ruled admirably for that matter, was today forced to a point of cringing desperation by her relatives. There was, of course, a legal dispute, but the Maharajah’s ostracism of the Maharani and her daughters by coercive measures such as suspending incomes and blocking access to the treasury, in order to force her under his authority, spoke a great deal about the extent to which, as previous British representatives had affirmed, vindictiveness had coloured actions. Ever since ‘la revanche’ had commenced, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi had put up with much, but this Sripadam dispute was the most serious blow yet from her cousin and her nephew.
Even as she was preparing her defence, the Resident sent an explanation to the Government of India. The crux of the matter, he felt, was regarding who had the right to appoint the Sripadam manager. The Maharani claimed it was her prerogative that was independent of the Maharajah, whereas the latter insisted that he could overrule his aunt, especially in light of the irregularities in account keeping. For his own reasons the Resident felt that the Maharajah was well within his rights in claiming that the manager should be appointed and approved by him. All the same, he rejected an argument the Dewan had recently made that this was purely a private family matter and not within the Viceroy’s scope to intervene. He also made it clear that while the Maharani, in his opinion, could not claim independence from the Maharajah, she should be treated with consideration not only because of the ‘peculiar relations’ she enjoyed with her cousin in Kowdiar Palace but also because she was once Regent, an antecedent that threw ‘an extra obligation on the Paramount Power to see that the lady obtains fair and justifiable treatment in conformity with her position’.83
At the same time, he did not accept the argument that the loss of control over the Sripadam would cost the Maharani much of her income. She was receiving Rs 75,000 as pension (although what this had to do with her ancestral right is unclear), about Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000 every month from the Civil List (which was, however, for maintainin
g her position and not as a personal allowance and included moneys paid for her daughters quite independently), and Rs 70,000 from the Sripadam, of which only Rs 12,000 went to the Junior Maharani. Even though the remainder included the costs of her establishment and her personal allowance, there would still be funds to provide for junior female members of the family, in the opinion of the Resident.84 It was obvious that Mr Murphy saw the case as one of distributing incomes, whereas in reality it was about precedent, custom and the fact that in the royal family it was the Senior Maharani who was the head of the house, and not the Maharajah, as was the case in patriarchal dynasties. As the Junior Maharani’s own nephew would remark, ‘in matrilineal families age is the determining factor’ and that ‘in family matters the opinion of the senior female member is always taken and accepted by the senior male member’.85
By December, the Maharani’s lawyer, Kuttikrishna Menon, an expert on the matrilineal system, who would go on to himself become Advocate General of Madras, prepared her defence. In this it was pointed out that Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, who was no specialist on matrilineal law, had approached documents placed before him from a patriarchal perspective, uncertain of the intricacies of Kerala society and of practices obtaining in other aristocratic families. He also seemed to have given an opinion ‘not for the purpose of ascertaining whether the proposed action is legal but for the purpose of justifying the action already taken by the Maharajah’.86 He then stated that while the royal family was a matrilineal family, it did not imply that the Maharajah was the sole manager of its properties. Indeed in many Malabar families, the right to manage lands was vested in ladies, as in the Zamorin’s family where the senior women of the three branches of the house controlled its lands. He also argued that the Sripadam was not a taravad and that male members of the family could not claim a share in its properties, as attested to by several documents and declarations in the past.
He also found it noteworthy that the Attingal Tampurans were always female and no male member in the royal family had ever been called an Attingal Tampuran. As for precedents in the last century showing the Maharajahs’ control over Sripadam affairs, most of these were simply neetus or notices issued when the Ranis appointed managers. This did not mean the Maharajahs were ratifying those appointments; it was merely custom. Thus, for instance, the Maharajah always issued similar neetus when bishops were appointed. But this did not mean he had any power over the appointment of bishops. The only instance when a Maharajah actually took over the Sripadam was in 1885, due to a situation of indebtedness.87 He found issue with two points assumed by Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, namely that in matrilineal houses it was the senior male member who managed properties, which was shown to be wrong through the example of the Zamorin’s dynasty. He also explained that the irregularities were not irregularities at all, with the exception of a lapse in drawing up annual accounts.
This rejoinder to the Maharajah’s case was submitted to Delhi and a decision from the Viceroy was awaited. But at the same time the coercive conditions that had been created were not lifted and on 19 December the Maharani was forced to send another telegram:
I beg to inform Your Excellency that despite my repeated appeals my grievances remain unredressed. Owing to stoppage of all my allowances payments to my servants and others are in arrears for three months. In my previous representations I have said all I have to say. Since conditions are daily becoming more and more distressing I respectfully request early decision.88
By now Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was in such a harried and desperate plight that she urgently wanted the harassment terminated, no matter how just or unjust the judgement from Delhi would be. A week later, the Government of India finally reached a decision, bringing to an end this very vexatious question. There appears to have been a consensus in Delhi that they should support the Maharajah even before the rejoinder was received there, for in a personal letter the Political Secretary wrote Sir CP (the usual ‘inside’ man to link Kowdiar Palace to the Paramount Power) on 9 December, he stated that it was ‘distinctly unlikely that the view provisionally held at present will be altered’, which was the view that had been endorsed by the Resident that the Maharani could not be independent of her nephew.89 Then on 26 December the Viceroy himself communicated his final decision to the Maharani:
I have carefully considered Your Highness’ letters of October 2nd, December 4th and December 7th, and the legal opinion of Mr Kuttikrishna Menon, a copy of which was enclosed with your letter of December 4th. I cannot find in the arguments adduced by your Counsel or yourself or in the practice followed in the past any ground of objection to His Highness’ action in assuming the management of the Sripadam Estate, for which there are several precedents during the last century, or any reason why suitable provision from it should not be made for the First Princess … Your Highness may rest assured that there is no intention on the part of His Highness the Maharajah of preventing you from enjoying that share of the revenues of the Estate which is your due, or of invading your legitimate privileges.90
Thus came to a conclusion the most serious dispute between the two palaces, in a victory for the Maharajah, whose manager controlled not only Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s money and allowances now, but also her domestic establishment and aspects of her everyday life. Although this had received the blessings of the Government of India, it is telling that when the Regency terminated in 1931, a lesser pension of Rs 75,000 had been sanctioned precisely on the grounds that the Maharani already had income from the Sripadam. That promise was now forgotten. Similarly, at that time it was assured that even in retirement she would remain head of the royal family, as per matrilineal law, but a treatment befitting that position had never been accorded her and the whole basis of the Maharajah’s present action was that he was the head of the family, and not the Maharani. In any case, neither of these contraventions were raised, and the Sripadam dispute finally came to an end, with Sethu Lakshmi Bayi in dire straits and entirely abandoned to the authority of Kowdiar Palace. The temples of the Sripadam were shortly afterwards opened, and the Temple Entry Proclamation enacted in its fullest scope.
The Maharajah’s assumption of control over the Sripadam Estate was, in fact, the final milestone in the Attingal Rani’s spiral towards oblivion. Her decline had really begun soon after the time of the redoubtable Queen Ashure. In her day the Dutch had recorded how Travancore was politically ‘under the sway of the Rani of Attingal’ and could not even keep treaty relations ‘without her approval’.91 Indeed, even after her rights of sovereignty and supremacy in Travancore were surrendered by the Silver Plate Treaty, in 1810 Col. Munro recorded that the Attingal Rani was still ‘regarded as the supreme authority in the State’ whose ‘mandates are paramount to those of the Rajah’. Her succession rites and the attendant ceremonies were ‘made in a manner as formal and solemn as that of the instalment of a Rajah upon the Musnad’.92 In 1813 he would again remark that the ‘authority of the [Rani] has continued to be revered in the country, and is generally considered paramount to those of the Rajah and essential to the validity of all great Acts of the Government’.93 By 1938, however, this was all wistful history. The obliteration of the final vestige of authority enjoyed by the royal family’s matriarch was achieved at the Maharajah’s behest, and leave alone acts of state, not even allowances and the enjoyment of her ancestral estates could be determined without the grace and favour of the ruling male monarch.
Such incidents were not isolated to Travancore alone. In the first half of the nineteenth century, ‘in the pursuit of its traditionary ideas of inheritance, neither Eastern nor Western’ and ‘in the true European prejudice against woman [sic]’, the East India Company had tampered with the rights of the begums in Bhopal, unwilling to permit them their traditional position on account of their sex. ‘This,’ lambasted a critic, ‘is British wisdom and liberality—this repeated denial of the right of the female sex to rule.’94 By the 1890s a case occurred in the principality of Indore, with striking similarities to Sethu Laksh
mi Bayi’s treatment by the Government of India in 1938. Like the senior female member of the royal house in Travancore had the Sripadam, the Senior Maharani in Indore was traditionally the owner of an estate known as the Khasgi. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, however, the Maharajah, a son of the Junior Maharani there, did not get along with his late father’s Senior Maharani. He ordered the taking over of the Khasgi from his stepmother in order to reduce her influence at court. As in Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s case, when the Senior Maharani refused to give up her traditional rights over the Khasgi, her allowances were cut and provisions to her household withheld in order to compel her to submission. The Senior Maharani in 1899, therefore, wrote to the Viceroy for his protection, stating:
The Khasgi Estate is in the nature of a jagir in the Indore State and the possessor has inherent rights like any other jagirdar, chieftain, or landlord, which cannot be tampered with. The ruling Rani exercises supreme revenue and judicial powers, subject to an appeal to the Maharajah in respect of serious offences alone. The Rani holds durbars for the transaction of business. There is a separate throne, a separate seal, a separate establishment; separate [tributes] are paid to her on solemn and festive occasions; and the Rani at the time of her accession is placed on the throne and receives a salute in the same way as the Prince does … Further, the Khasgi has a treasury of its own. It has independent jurisdiction both in matters civil and criminal.95
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