Pride & prejudice
Sheila Kumar, Jul 10, 2016
The Ivory Throne,
Manu S Pillai,
Harper Collins,
2016, pp 694,
Rs. 699
Manu S Pillai,
Harper Collins,
2016, pp 694,
Rs. 699
Once upon a time in god`s own country, there lived two cousins. Plucked
from their peaceful childhood home in their preteens, they were adopted by a
royal house and soon enough became the senior and the junior maharanis.
Eventually, they married and the race to produce the next ruler of the house began,
bringing with it enough plotting, planning and conspiracies to fill a few
potboilers.
Except, this was real life, dynasty
politics in the House of Travancore. The elder of the cousins suffered
miscarriages, the younger produced the next heir to the Ivory Throne, walls of
suspicion and fear sprang up, and the
battle deepened in shade and tone. It did not help matters that the Senior Rani
ruled the state of Travancore in the name of the Junior Rani`s son till the
latter came of age.
That was a period of seven years and arguably, the golden period of Travancore. An exemplary administrator, Regent Maharani Sethu Lakshmi
Bayi had laws such as the Village Panchayat Act of Travancore passed, and
helped boost education, law, employment. She did with animal sacrifice in the
state, banished devadasis from the temples, and controversially, helped usher
in the end of the matrilineal system,
and imposed the Newspaper Regulation law. The lady wielded the scepter
with sagacity and compassion, and made a
mark with both the ruling British overlords, so much so that they invested her with the Order of the Crown of
India, as well as with Mahatma Gandhi who was much struck by her `severe
simplicity and exactness of manners.` On
her watch, Travancore become one of the most prosperous and leading principalities
in India.
However, apart
from the running feud with her cousin, the Rani`s reforms had garnered for her quite
a large contingent of foes who gathered in the shadows, awaiting their chance; as
soon as she stepped down for Chithira Tirunal to take over as king, the slights
and affronts began. In her early sixties, the rani decided to leave the state and
the five million subjects she formerly ruled
over, to start life anew in Bangalore. And thus, Her Highness
Sri Padmanabha Sevini Vanchi Dharma Vardhini Raja Rajeshwari Maharani Pooradam Tirunal
Sethu Lakshmi Bayi C.I. went on to become just Smt Sethu Lakshmi Bayi.
While the pivot is la revanche,
the story gives an overview of how the
Travancore state came into being, eclipsing the Zamorin of Calicut as well as
the Cochin royals; how this family`s unifying king the 18th century
warrior, Marthanda Varma, established their primacy, their sovereignty and
soon, their perceived supremacy over their subjects, even as he consecrated himself
as Regent Caretaker of the powerful Lord Padmanabhaswamy.
Pillai touches on political, social, cultural and economic
points. The state, its people, its deep-rooted caste biases, the body politic,
all of it is taken apart and laid bare for the reader. We read of the Portuguese
coming to Kerala; the arrival of the early Christians; the syncretism that
prevailed in those times; the polyandrous tradition of the Nair women of that
time; the education and freedom levels enjoyed by the Kerala women that were a
precursor to the later Travancore queens ruling the land so adroitly; how this
freedom was curtailed the moment Victorian moral codes made their advent into
the state; the move to throw open temples to all castes; the rise and decline
of the Nairs.
The book is 694 pages long, which is a lot of painstaking
research, six years to be specific, underpinned by documents from the India Office Archives at the
British Library in London. Delicious old-fashioned terms like `dragooned` and `stooge`
find their way in here. As for the language used in the British dispatches,
it`s a right royal treat! One British Resident writes on the running battle between
the two ranis thus: ``Her antipathy to the Maharani Regent has become an
article of faith with her and she is afraid that the Maharajah, if
disinterestedly advised, may recognise
the futility of the feud between the two Palaces and ….. end by sending his
mother to Coventry.``
Pillai tries to stick to a factual narrative tone all through and
succeeds, up to a point. My only problem,
if you can call it that, with this distinguished piece of work, is how the author`s bias towards one rani tends
to overpower his objectivity towards the other. But then every story has to
have its heroine. And Sethu Lakshmi Bayi is clearly this book`s heroine.
The last time I so relished such a voluminous book was Vikram Seth`s A Suitable Boy. Drastically different
tale but The Ivory Throne is every
bit as compelling.
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