British and Native Cochin

Title: British and Native Cochin

Author: Charles Allen Lawson

Publisher: Asian Educational Services, 2001 (First published 1861)

ISBN: 81-2506-1574-1

Pages: 176

Kochi, formerly Cochin, is a picturesque coastal city on the western coast of Kerala. It carries memories of many centuries of military history, but the formative period begins on 24 December 1500 when Pedro Alvarez Cabral of Portugal landed on its shore from Brazil. The coast then becomes the battleground of European powers, the Dutch gaining the upper hand in 1663, and finally, the British vanquished them in 1795. Charles Allen Lawson, later knighted, was the secretary of the Madras Chamber of Commerce and worked as the editor of several newspapers there. He has also written a few books on related topics. This book was first published in 1861 and is a delightful little account of the state of Cochin, under the control of the British and the native raja. Lawson delves into the details of the geography, history, physiography and climate of the land, the people, their occupations, and their appearance, an analysis of the social milieu and the economic indicators of the country. He is very observant and intelligent in order to deduce the nature and character of the objects of his study, whether it is men, merchandise or the political ramifications of a native state tightly reined in leash by the colonial bureaucrats. Lawson dedicates an entire chapter on the coconut tree, which is an elixir of life in this part of the country. There is no other tree or article which is so abundantly useful for the owners. He brings out so many valuable trinkets of information about the coconut tree which is unknown to even a Keralite living in the present age. How many of us know the technique to estimate the age of a coconut tree? Read this book to know the answer.

Lawson begins with a succinct history of Cochin, which is the first European township in India. Cabral, Vasco Da Gama and Alphonso d’Albuquerque landed respectively in 1500, 02 and 03. The Raja of Cochin gave all assistance to the Portuguese as a counterweight to the Calicut Zamorin who was the raja’s arch enemy. The Portuguese could not find much leeway in Calicut, due to the strong Muslim presence and settled at Cochin. They were a religiously bigoted race and soon alienated the natives with their wantonly cruel religious practices and wicked schemes to convert the natives. Local Christians were also tortured by the foreigner’s narrow, sectarian doctrines. So, when the Dutch appeared on the horizon, they were welcomed eagerly. On 6^th January 1663, they militarily defeated the Portuguese and made Cochin their base. It was also a time of territorial expansion of the English East India Company. They edged all other European powers out from the coast and captured Ceylon in 1782 from the Dutch, who were further weakened by the subjection of their home country by the French republicans after the French Revolution. On 19^th October 1795, they humbled the Dutch by the explosion of a single shell on the premises of the Governor’s palace and held it till India became independent.

The book was published in 1861, near the time when the British put a ruthless end to a challenge to their hegemony in 1857 and contains derogatory references against the natives. For him, the local people were only a parameter that affected the prospects of Europeans, like the weather, diseases, weapons and soldiery. If they manage it well, the business was bound to prosper. Lawson’s criticism of the Portuguese for their bigoted shortsightedness in not due to any sympathetic considerations towards the natives, but at the disastrous impact the policies had wrecked on the country. And the narration is sometimes plain racist. While describing the plight of the Portuguese people who continued to stay in Cochin after the city’s fall to the Dutch in 1663, Lawson says, “such of the inhabitants as had the opportunity returned home, whilst the remainder and poorer submitted to their conquerors and were gradually degenerated by contact with native blood, their descendants being now only recognizable by their grandiloquent patronymics” (p.10). Degeneration by mixing with native blood indeed! And then, see how Lawson describes the people of Kerala, “It must be allowed that they are an inferior race, small, weak and debased.” (p.57)

After describing the incidents that led Cochin to become a base for the British, Lawson wonders how long they could hold on to it. He says “it might any day be destroyed by an invisible enemy, in steel-plated frigates armed with Napoleon guns.” Hardly nine decades after writing this, British vacated the land, but in a way the author could not even dream of. The invisible enemy’s weapon was not a frigate, but a silent weapon, Satyagraha and its captain was not an admiral, but an old man who might have been considered insignificant, had Lawson seen him then. This portion made for delighted reading.

The author being a protestant looks askance at the bigoted and ignorant ways of the Roman Catholics, who made the large portion of the inhabitants of British Cochin. He says, “their bigotry is something approaching to the ludicrous, and their devotion to the ‘cloth’ to idolatry. The priests are, with a few exceptions, under-educated, conceited, small-minded men, such as are the pest of a town like this, and are the obstacles to the introduction of salutary reforms. Excommunication and penance are frequently sentences for the most trifling opposition to the priestly will, and an inquisitorial confession required, that, it has been proved, has sometimes been shamefully directed to immoral purposes” (p.34)

Lawson’s description of the people is immensely witty. He finds a hilarious but apt metaphor to describe the skin tones of the native inhabitants. He says, “The colour of the people differs greatly, and can be best imagined by taking a cup of coffee undiluted as the standard of low life, and pouring in drops of milk as higher rank is desired, until the white predominates in the liquid, which is the tint of the aristocratic classes” (p.58-59). He discloses a startling remark that Malayalees’ hair turned grey at the tender age of thirty, probably as a result of excess application of medicinal oils and unguents. The hair of the working classes turned grey only at about forty. He ridicules the physical stature of the natives on account of the bulging stomach most of them carried, “The stomach, besides its cast iron nature of digesting almost anything in the animal and vegetable kingdom, appears to have, in India, a power of expansion which might make even an Irish man stare with a recollection of his feats over a cauldron of potatoes” (p.66).

The book is a must-read for history aficionados and people who look for the footmarks of history in a city which is bustling at its seams in its bid to acquire the status of a metropolitan city. This short but immensely informative book must satisfy the thirst of a good many readers. Lawson’s racist comments may be forgiven if we take a closer look at the ethos of the age.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star