Dutch Heritage in Fort Cochin, Cannanore and Quilon

Title: Dutch Heritage in Fort Cochin, Cannanore and Quilon
Author: Bauke van Der Pol
Publisher: Darpan, 2024 (First)
ISBN: 9788119355303
Pages: 138

In the colonial race for India, the British and the Dutch joined the fray at around the same time, but the latter opted out of the race two centuries later, influenced by historical movements in Europe and a splash of red in the account books. The Dutch were not able to penetrate into the interior and remained stuck in coastal streaks where they fought the British and local princes with their backs always to the sea. The Dutch had a mission to perform in Kerala in the final reckoning. They drove out the Portuguese who alienated the locals with their characteristic religious intolerance. Kochi (Cochin), Kannur (Cannanore) and Kollam (Quilon) were the three places where the Dutch had a solid presence and this book investigates their legacy at these places. Even though the place names have been indigenised a few decades back, the book still uses the colonial names throughout in the text. Bauke van Der Pol is an anthropologist and an Indo-Dutch historian. He has written about and travelled throughout India and lectured on the historical relations between the two countries. He first visited India in 1974 at the age of 22 and has interacted with backward communities in India. He has written many books on the Dutch presence and their influence in India.

Van Der Pol begins with a survey of how the Dutch ended up in India. The company known as VoC (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie – United East India Company) was one of the first multinationals in the world and was a contemporary of the British East India Company, set up for the same purpose. Dutch history in India covers about 150 years of activity and is often mistaken for the Portuguese or the British. Being a coastal region with a rich history of trade in spices, Kerala was a major theatre of operations for the Dutch. Cochin, Cannanore and Quilon were the best kept Dutch forts in India. The Dutch conquered the Portuguese possessions in Kerala in 1663 and held sway for nearly a century. Their defeat at the hands of Marthanda Varma at Kolachel in 1741 inaugurated the beginning of the end. They were finally replaced by the British in 1795. The first agreement the VoC had struck in India was in 1604 with the Zamorin of Calicut vowing to fight their common enemy – the Portuguese. There began a colonial enterprise that was uprooted in 1795 when following Napoleon’s occupation of the Netherlands, the British took over their possessions in India. In 1825, the Treaty of London was signed and the last VoC stronghold of Chinsurah in Bengal was handed over to the British. The downfall of VoC was caused by defective bookkeeping in the Netherlands, mismanagement and corruption in Asia, growing costs of overseas administration and the Fourth English War of 1780-84. Many parts of the book are based on the letters sent home by the missionary Canter Visscher between 1717 and 1724.

Fort Cochin was the head of Dutch operations in India. The town has a variegated history. The Portuguese owned Fort Cochin from 1498 to 1663, the Dutch till 1795 and the British thereafter till India’s independence in 1947. The author remarks that what is remaining of the Dutch heritage can still be reasonably found because a lot of drawings, maps and paintings of Fort Cochin are still available in Dutch museums and archives. A striking thing to note in this context is the early colonialists’ eager initiative to re-plant the city of Amsterdam in Kerala as many street names in Fort Cochin are also found in the parent Dutch city. However, the architectural style did not seem to differ that much between the Dutch and the Portuguese. Even though he arrived almost half a century after the latter was driven out of Fort Cochin, Canter Visscher observes in 1720 that it was not always clear which houses were Portuguese or Dutch. Van Der Pol walks around Fort Cochin, visits still extant houses of the era, describes its architectural details and marvels at the still-preserved sale deeds of these properties. In addition to the old town, the author visits heritage places nearby, such as the forts at Cranganore (Kodungallur) and Chettuva. The author also comments appreciably on the slightly more tolerant form of the religion followed by the Dutch. He says that unlike the Portuguese, the Dutch chaplains did not actively convert people into Protestantism. The Catholics were forced to remove their religious idols and altarpieces to churches outside Fort Cochin after the Dutch conquest in 1663.

The book casts a glance at the innards of the society back when Dutch power was in the ascendant who rather uncharacteristically encouraged the Jewish community in Cochin to flourish by trade. It makes an analysis of the Jewish settlement and some of the persons in that community who were connected to the Dutch as confidants and middlemen in trade with locals. It was only after the arrival of the Dutch in 1663 that they developed contacts with foreign Jewish communities which ended their isolation. The author still finds some remnants of anti-Semitism and racial intolerance among the Dutch settlers. In a sale deed of 1772 of a prime real estate inside the fort, it was mentioned that the plot shall not be sold to Jews, Moors (Muslims) or heathen (Hindus), in which case the company has to approve the transaction (p.47). The population of Fort Cochin was around 2,000 by the end of the Dutch era, of which 20 per cent were slaves. Some form of discrimination based on skin colour was also rampant among the Jews as well who were split into two distinct groups such as the black and Pardesi (foreign – white) Jews. Exemplifying the marriage of two senior individuals named Gumliel Salem and Reema which had to be solemnized in a Mumbai synagogue, the author brings to light the blatant refusal of the local Pardesi synagogue to carry out the rituals because Gumliel was black. When the couple eventually returned to the Pardesi synagogue, all the women in the ladies’ gallery walked out in protest!

The author follows the same itinerary at Cannanore and Quilon as at Fort Cochin though on a reduced scale because of the scantiness of architectural evidence. He provides an interesting aside from the temple at Mavelikkara that exhibits the close association the Dutch had established with the Travancore royal family in the eighteenth century. After the battle at Kolachel, Marthanda Varma entered into a treaty with the Dutch at Mavelikkara. There is a tiered lamp in the temple at the foot of which the replicas of four VoC soldiers cast in bronze stand guard at each corner of the lamp. The soldiers in characteristic Dutch hats stand with the head humbly downwards and in their hands a gun rests on the ground with the barrel upwards, symbolizing peace. The lamp is thought to have been donated by the Dutch. Unlike the Portuguese, the Dutch had a hand in promoting knowledge about Kerala’s flora to a wide audience in Europe by commissioning a botanical compendium named Hortus Indicus Malabaricus, under the pioneering effort of Henrik van Reede, the governor. This book offers tribute to him and the native experts who took part in the endeavour. However, among the VoC personnel, van Reede was known as a maverick. His rivals complained to Dutch higher authorities that he ‘writes elaborate letters about the local plants and trees but did not know how to make Malabar profitable’. As an anthropologist, the author has close connections to the depressed classes of Kerala. He visited Cheruvathur in 1983 to live among the Pulaya caste to see how their social conditions were improved over the years and was quite impressed at the steady progress the community has made.

The book is published in hard cover format with fine, thick pages so as to feel like a collector’s item. The photographs are in colour and the paper is partially glossy making it a coffee-table book. The author notes that the roles of Indians and the Dutch have been reversed over the centuries because now the Indians are visiting the Netherlands to look for trade items. Readers can make an amusing observation regarding the racial profile of Kerala through two unrelated photographs in the book. On page 71, there is a photograph of a group of Jews who left for Israel in 1955. On page 108, a group photo of the community with whom the author stayed for some time and who belong to the Pulaya caste which was traditionally considered very backward. The curious part is that you really can’t tell the two images apart without a closer look on the attire which signify that all castes and religions in Kerala comprise of people belong to one and the same racial stock. It is worthwhile for architectural lovers to explore Fort Cochin with this book in hand as the trek would impart a lot of insight into the closely woven fabric of Indo-Dutch ties.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star