Cochin Saga

Title: Cochin Saga

Author: Robert Bristow

Publisher: Bristow Memorial Society, 2015 (First published 1959)

ISBN: Nil

Pages: 292

 

The Kochi harbour and deep water port is the product of one man’s dream and dedication. At a time when the development of the small natural harbour into a modern port was discussed and put in jeopardy by vested interests and competition from other plausible locations, Robert Bristow put his feet firmly down and convinced the British authorities to approve and invest in his plans for dredging the port to a depth which can receive vessels passing through the Suez Canal that was thrown open to traffic just a half century before. This book is his memoir that is divided into four parts – the history of Cochin till the modern times, his personal efforts in developing the port, his domestic life and miscellaneous writings which also include a crude review of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophic treatise, The Life Divine’. The book’s opening line ‘the history of a civilization is written largely in the history of its ports’ excellently sums up the crucial role ports play in the growth of a society. As a harbour engineer, Bristow had worked in the Admiralty in London. He spent the remainder of his career in Kochi that spanned 21 years till 1941. The book also provides a taste of the white bureaucrats’ outlook of Indian society and how they lived their lives in the company of numerous native servants attending to the minutest needs of the sahib. This book was long out of print and was republished in 2015 by the Bristow Memorial Society in 2015.

 

Kochi was a prominent natural harbour on the western coast of India right from the arrival of the Portuguese. An underwater sandbar blocked the entry of large vessels into the harbour and wharves were situated in the Fort Kochi – Mattanchery area that was known as British Cochin in the nineteenth century. Cargo was carried in small vessels from the shore to larger vessels waiting and anchored in the outer sea. The idea to develop the place into a modern harbour germinated with the arrival of Captain Castor for regulating shipping and boats by the middle of the nineteenth century. The years 1859 and 1860 witnessed very heavy monsoon rains that brought severe storms putting the shipping lines in danger. One day, a report came that a certain vessel has anchored in calm water while a furious storm was raging all around it. This was identified as due to the existence of the Njarakkal mud bank and proved the concept that Kochi could be transformed into a sheltered port. British entrepreneurs like J H Aspinwall of the British Cochin Chamber of Commerce actively campaigned for it. Opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 had the potential to place Kochi on the maritime map as a coaling station for the Far East route.

 

In the first part, referring to himself in the third person as a good historian should, Bristow notes that ‘Early in 1920, an Admiralty harbour engineer, a Mr. Robert Bristow, was transferred to Madras for harbour duties’ and goes on to describe his activities. A rock-like sandbar guarded the entrance of the harbour restricting vessels within a draft of only 8-9 feet. The author remembers that dredging technology had not matured in the 1870s to cater to large steam vessels. Any attempt to do the work before the year 1920 would have been financially impracticable and disastrous. Bristow specifically commissioned a dredger for this work and accumulated the sludge adjacent to the Vathuruthy Island and reclaimed a large area from the waters for later use. The present port installations are built on this reclaimed land. The dredging was an engineering marvel too. The dredger was attached to a discharge pipeline of one meter diameter, 1.2 km long and joined at 20 m intervals with universal ball joints flexible in all directions, each length supported by two heavy cylindrical pontoons connected with the next unit by heavy chains. The mud slurry was moved through this pipe by powerful pumps and deposited in the region identified for reclamation. The author also remarks amusingly that the crew dredged up old cannon balls of Portuguese era and rice bags long buried under the sea. Old coins from sea bottom were also deposited among the silt that formed Willingdon Island. With the fall of Singapore in World War II, Cochin became the stronghold of the Allies and resulted in the consequent naval, military and air force developments.

 

Having worked on the island which Bristow had somewhat magically raised from below the waves, I have heard a lot of legends about him. A popular one states that after constructing the bridge connecting the island to Ernakulam, a herd of elephants was marched across the bridge to test its strength while Bristow and his wife waited in a boat right under the bridge! Such heroics are, however, not mentioned in the book. The author’s comments on the state of Kerala’s society and its economy as he saw it attracts our attention. His narration of the chores of a local Christian family on a Sunday morning paints the picture of a sound economy and a pristine, homely culture which matched perfectly well with the ecology of natural resources and climatic conditions. Transport crafts called Vallums were extremely well adapted to low draft. It could be sailed or poled or rowed or even pushed in shallow waters. Around 5 tons of cargo could be transported in it and was the cheapest local transport from pre-historic times.

 

When Bristow first arrived in Madras, the British were pursuing the possibilities of building a port at Kochi, Tuticorin or a channel port at Rameswaram cutting across the so called Ram Setu. After studying the water and shore data, Bristow ruled out Rameswaram, but identified feasibility at the other two locations. Of these, Bristow favoured Kochi, which was in the princely state of Cochin while Tuticorin was under direct British rule. Strong pressure was exerted for that eastern port on this count which was overcome by the endorsement of Lord Willingdon, who was the governor of Madras, in Kochi’s favour. That’s why the reclaimed island was named after him in gratitude. This book contains references to the colossal red tape attached to the British administration which they normalized with the self-righteous assertion that ‘you can’t rush the East’. Blatant colonialism is evident in several of Bristow’s passages. To justify colonialism, he states that ‘the moving force from first to last came from the West; the little-changing peoples of the East allowed the West to find them out’ (p.31). Directly attributing India’s progress to British rule, it is argued that ‘every phase of invasion [of India] brought something useful for the development of India. British occupation introduced a standard of probity and justice never before known in India’ (p.62). But this advocacy of the advantages of invasion and surrender runs contrary to what Winston Churchill hammered into the heads of Britons in these words during World War II: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing-grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender”! Bristow’s concern about the slow decision-making at the highest levels and the involvement of non-technical bureaucrats is grave as his lament indicates: “once the hand of the accountant is allowed to fetter local initiative and constructive imagination, the end is only a matter of time”. In fact, he remarks this about the collapse of the Dutch empire in India, but it is equally applicable to similar organizations. It is also curious to read about British bureaucrats getting upset about the Montagu reforms that granted more power to elected bodies and Indians. One district collector worried that ‘those damned politicians’ would ruin them!

 

This book is a chronological indicator of the growth of Cochin port from a meagre roadstead on the spice trade in a small native Indian state. It also provides glimpses of the interactions between native states and the commanding stake enjoyed by their neighbouring British provinces. Bristow provides a first-person narrative of the challenges paused by nature, society and power centres in the making of the port. It also includes some old photos of the development work. A drawback is that this book was written in 1959, after a long eighteen years into retirement, and the author had to rely more on diaries than fresh memories. This has evidently denied the readers some informative anecdotes to enliven the reading experience. The portrayal of his domestic life includes the handling of native servants in a very authoritarian manner. He inflicted corporal punishment on them for misdemeanors and the Hindu servants had to submit to preaching sermons by pastors looking for converts to Christianity. The re-publishing of the book seems to have been in a hurry as there are lots of errors including serious ones in printing. Proof reading from the old document has not been fool proof. This book may be considered as a prequel to ‘Ormakalile Bristow’ (Bristow Remembered), a Malayalam book reviewed earlier here.

 

The book is highly recommended.

 

Rating: 3 Star