Kerala - History - English Hegemony
The English secured their foothold in Kerala in 1682, when they obtained permission from the Vadakkilamkur Prince of Kolattunad, to settle at Thalassery. In 1694 they settled at Anjengo (Anchuthengu) in Travancore (Thiruvithamcore). It was from these settlements that the English were able to extend their influence over Kerala. In the initial stages, the English were inclined to take a lesson from the experiences of the Portuguese and the Dutch and keep themselves aloof from local quarrels.
But in time, this resolution watered down and the East India Company began to provide assistance to local powers to fight against their common enemies, but without, at the same time, entangling themselves directly in the conflicts. Thus the Company assisted both Marthanda Varma, King of Travancore and the Zamorin in their quarrels with the Dutch and other local powers. The Mysorean invasion of Malabar provided the Company further opportunity to strengthen its grip on the local rajas and chieftains.
The Raja of Travancore was asked by the Company officers to met the entire expenditure of the Third Anglo-Mysore war on the plea that the war was undertaken in defence of Travancore. The new treaty of 1795 practically reduced Travancore from the position of a friend and ally of the English East India Company to that of a protected ally. The Raja was forced to entertain a subsidiary force far beyond his capacity to subsidise. The Company also claimed a monopoly in the pepper trade of the country. The natural outcome of all these developments was to drag Travancore into the vortex of a major financial crisis. The Raja was forced to raise loans from bankers and merchants. The Company's authorities insistently demanded the clearing of arrears of tribute. The Raja was in a quandary.
Velu Thampi, the newly appointed Dalava tried to put the State's finances in order by reducing expenditure and increasing revenues wherever possible. One measure of economy was the scrapping of the field allowances paid to troops in times of peace. This led to a revolt by the Travancore troops. The insurgency was put down by the exertions of the native troops alone. But the Company authorities were visibly disturbed. The Madras Government insisted on a modification of the treaty of 1795 so that British troops be used to aid the Raja in quelling internal commotion's as well. Thus a new treaty of perpetual friendship and alliance was signed in January 1805. The new treaty was not well received, especially by Velu Thampi Dalava.
The Dalava began concerted moves for an open rebellion against the British in defense of the king and the country. He began to recruit soldiers and collect arms. This move had the whole-hearted support from all sections of the people. The insurrection that followed was formidable one. But it was short-lived. On January 16, 1807 Velu Thampi issued a historic proclamation at Kundara calling upon the people to rise en masse against the British. The response was wide-spread and in many places British troops were put in peril. But, as British contingents began to converge on Travancore from different directions, the rebels lost heart and the revolt began to peter out. The Raja, who was anxious about the safety of his throne, wrote to the Resident requesting for the cessation of hostilities. Peace was concluded in March 1809. Velu Thampi, who was hiding in the Mannadi Temple, committed suicide.
A new treaty was imposed upon Travancore with the same clauses as were found in the treaty of 1805. The natural consequences of fighting with the British and losing the fight, overtook the three princely states. British control over these states increased in inverse proportion to the decrease in the power of the Rajas. By 1812 British control was effectively established all over the three regions of Kerala - Malabar, Kochi and Travancore. The expansion of British powers in Kerala was by no means a smooth affair. There were occasions of violent resistance against them well up to the second decade of the 19th century by which time consolidation of British power had more or less been achieved. There were organised revolts of the natives at Anchuthengu in 1695 and 1721 and at Thalassery in 1704. But it must be stressed that these uprisings were not merely sporadic and local but singularly lacking in that spirit of nationalism which was animating the nations of Europe at that time. The ruling dynasties and the politically powerful elements in Kerala did not even dimly perceive that the English Company was the entering wedge of European imperialism.
As distinct from these sporadic, localized revolts, that showed the characteristics of a popular insurrection was the Kuruchiya revolt of 1812. The Kurichiyas and Kurumbas were a fairly numerous tribal folk inhabiting the mountains of Waynad in Malabar. Led by their chieftain Talakkal Chandu, they constituted the main prop of Pazhassi Raja's militia and earned for him many victories in his guerrilla warfare against the British. After the suppression of the Pazhassi rebellion, the British brought Wayanad under their strict surveillance and subjected the Kurichiyas to untold abuses and misery. The rebellion broke out on March 25, 1812. It speaks much for the unity of the tribals that they kept all preparations a closely guarded secret until the rebellion began. Though confined to a limited area in north Malabar, it was truly a mass uprising triggered off by economic grievances and official high-handedness.
The Kurichiyas took possessions of all important passes leading to Wayanad and cut supplies and reinforcements to the ambushed British troops in the valley. The magnitude of the insurrection is revealed by the fact that the sub collector of the division had to frantically requisition troops from Canara and Mysore as the local British regiment was insufficient to deal with the uprising. For a few days at least, British administration ceased to function in the Wayanad area. The failure of the revolt was a foregone conclusion, for tribal heroism was ill-matched with the sophisticated military machinery of the English Company. Early in April, the British troops moved into the jungles, combed out the guerrilla hands and suppressed them. By the beginning of May 1812, the revolt was effectively crushed quiet returned to Wayanad.
The Kuruchiya uprising represented the last of the early organized revolts against British power in Kerala. A period of political acquiescence, extending for almost a century, ensured. The only exception was the series of violent disturbances known as the 'Moopa Riots' in Malabar from about 1835 to the close of the century. Though the riots occurred in different parts of Malabar, they were mostly confined to the Eranad and Valluvanad taluks. Agrarian unrest among the Moplas, their general economic backwardness and the low level of education have been mentioned as the fundamental factors behind these outbreaks. Barring these sporadic outbreaks, political tranquillity prevailed over the whole of Kerala for roughly a century since the suppression of the Velu Thampi and Kuruchiya revolts. A sense of helplessness against British authority, an awareness that British rule had come to stay, became the dominant note in popular mind.
With Malabar directly administered by the British as part of the Madras Presidency and guided by the paramount power, Kerala enjoyed perhaps the longest span of relative peace in her history. It was, moreover, the period when she felt the full impact of the West which helped lay, as it were, the foundations of a "New Kerala". Under the aegis of the British Government and the enlightened rulers of Travancore and Kochi, substantial developments took place in the administrative, social, economic and cultural fields of Kerala. Reforms and changes were introduced in the administration. The judiciary and the legal systems were completely reorganised. Humanitarian and welfare measures - abolition of slavery and removal of the ban on the wearing of upper-cloth by the low-caste people, to mention only a few, were undertaken. Public works like roads, irrigation and communication received special attention. Above all, the 19th century saw the introduction and spread of western education, in which a very significant role was played by the various Christian missionaries. Through the medium of English education, Kerala was exposed to the full blast of western civilization. Her intellectual isolation was broken. Reforms necessarily entailed changes in the conditions and outlook of the people and these changes in turn necessarily opened the floodgates of further reforms.
The last decades of the 19th century saw the emergence of nationalism in India. The Indian National Congress was established in 1885 and it soon became the spearhead of the Indian Nationalist Movement. These developments did not go unnoticed in Kerala. A conference was held at Kozhikode in 1904 under the auspices of the Congress and in 1908, a district Congress committee was formed in Malabar. Beyond this, there was no political activity worth the name in Malabar.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
