British Rule in Kerala - Kerala PCS Exam Notes

British Rule in Kerala:-

Like any other Europeans, British also had great interest in Kerala. They too were attracted by the spices and other natural treasures of the land. British supremacy in Kerala started by the mid seventeenth century and lasted for the next 200 years until independence. Though a number of wars and revolts were made against them, the British were able to suppress them quickly. This was mainly because of the lack of unity among the provinces. Kochi and Travancore were the prominent kingdoms. The rule of the British saw many changes in the social and cultural life of Kerala. Slavery was slowly abolished. English missionaries played an important role in improving the living standard of the people. During this period a number of educational institutions and hospitals were opened. Many railway lines , roads and bridges were constructed by the British. In a way, Kerala is indebted to the British for its modernization. This period also saw the emergence of a number of social reformation movements. Many reformers like Chattambi Swamikal, Sree Narayana Guru and Ayyankali played a vital role in the upliftment of the downtrodden and the emancipation of the women folks.

Following the Portuguese, the British also landed in South Indian Peninsula lured by the lucrative trade possibilities in spice, expensive gems and other resources in this bounteous country. Ralph Fitch was the foremost Englishman to visit India in 1583. British ascendancy in India initiated in the seventeenth century and lasted for two centuries till the independence of India.Kerala was formed by the unification of Malabar, Travancore and Kochi kingdoms. At the end of the Anglo-Mysore wars, that fought between the Kingdom of Malabar versus the British, Malabar came under the rule of British in 1792. During the war, Tipu Sultan fought with the British from west, south and east while Maratha Confederacyand the Nizam of Hyderabad attacked from the north. British got control over the South Kanara (which included the present day Kasargod) in 1799. Hence Malabar region came under the British Raj. By 1806 Cochin, Travancore and Malabar in the north were brought under the British Madras Presidency. However Kochi and Travancore was not under the British rule. They were princely states. British signed treaties of subsidiary alliance with King of Cochin in 1791 and King of Travancore in 1795.

What is a Subsidiary alliance?

An Indian ruler entering into a subsidiary alliance with the British had to accept British forces within his territory and also agreed to pay for their maintenance.
The ruler would accept a British Resident in his state.
An Indian ruler who entered into a subsidiary alliance would not enter into any further alliance with any other power, nor would he declare war against any power without the permission of the British.
The ruler would not employ any Europeans other than the British, and if he were already doing so, he would dismiss them.
In case of a conflict with any other state, he would agree the resolution decided upon by the British.
The ruler would acknowledge the East India Company as the paramount power in India.
In return for the ruler accepting its conditions, the Company undertook to protect the state from external dangers and internal disorders.
If the Indian rulers failed to make the payments required by the alliance, then part of their territory was to be taken away as a penalty.

Even though Tipu Sultan refused to sign such a treaty, the Nizam of Hyderabad made Hyderbad a princely state even though they had fought the Anglo Mysore wars together.

Thus, Kochi and Travancore (Central and Southern Kerala) remained as a Sovereign Monarchy which was not directly under the Brtish rule while Malabar (Northern Kerala) was under the British rule.

The British Conquest:-

The British conquest in Kerala took two different forms, because of the variation in political contexts. In the southern part of Kerala, the British had to mainly contend with the trade rivalry from the Dutch East India Company, which had acquired a large part of the pepper trade in the south. The British managed to eliminate the competition by supporting the interests of the emerging States of Travancore and Cochin and bringing them subsequently under the subsidiary alliance. Local protests against the British domination, such as that of Velu Thampi of Travancore could be suppressed not only because the State was not in favour of such revolts, but also because the conditions for popular struggles, which were subsequently to become the feature of anti-Colonial struggles, had not yet developed. The States of Travancore became subsidiary states, servile to the interests of colonialism, but retaining features of the pre-modern polity as it constituted itself during the period before the British rule. The British conquest of Malabar took place in a somewhat different situation. The British interest in Malabar was originally challenged not only by the French East India Company, but also by the State of Calicut, which was trying to carve out its own trading area with the assistance of the Mappila Muslim merchants. The establishment of the British trading interests at Surat and the subsequent rise of Mumbai adversely affected the prospects of Calicut as a major trading centre, and this gave the British the opportunity to increase their control of the Malabar trade. The rise of Mysore rulers and their relationship with the chiefs of Kannur became the next important threat, which could be eliminated only through direct warfare. The defeat of Tipu Sultan and treaty of Seringapatanam resulted in the division of territories controlled by Mysore and Malabar thus came into the hands of the British. The acquisition of Malabar undermined the pre-modern political structures. The power of the swarupams was suddenly brought to an end and the rajas were reduced to the status of landlords, and their ritual social and military privileges were eliminated. The Mappilas were reduced from an independent mercantile group to the middlemen of the East India Company and even that was seriously undermined. The people of Malabar were subjected to the administrative, judicial and revenue regime of the British that were unfamiliar as well as coercive and these resulted in a series of rebellions by the premodern ruling households, Muslims and cultivators, including the Kurichiyas of Wayanad. These rebellions were suppressed by a prolonged struggle, and only then that the Malabar region came properly under the British rule.

Rise of New Social Classes :-

British rule brought about several changes in the pre-modern political structure. The landlord –tenant relations that were based on economic and extra economic relations were now transformed into an instituted category within the British juridical and political system. The forms of property and inheritance, forms of rent and dues accruing to the landlord were all regulated by the British legal system. The revenue regime introduced by the British found the landlord or the Janmi as convenient category to ensure the collection of revenue. The Janmis now developed into a ‘parasitic’ landlord class sustained by the British legal system and revenue regime, and the intricacies of the rent payments and other obligations of the cultivators were resolved into the simple tripartite grouping of the Verumpattakkar, Kanakkar and the Janmis. The different forms of landholdings existing in temple lands, cash crop areas, forest lands and coastal regions were also formally brought under the division and the atiyar groups, who were bonded labourers and slaves were excluded. In Travancore and Cochin also, the landholdings were simplified as temple lands, Sircar lands and Janmam lands and the tenancies were settled as pattam and Kanam. The inheritance laws in such lands were now subject to the legal norms of the Government, and this resulted in litigations and settled by British law rather than local custom, which meant that the nature of the households also began to undergo change. Caste organization also underwent transformation. Instead of being a pre-modern social organization, caste now became a hierarchical institution under British legal system, and in the case of Travancore and Cochin, this was also bolstered by elements of pre-modern legal system sustained by the subsidiary states. Elements of British legal system and nature of social and economic changes meant that a number of features of the pre-modern caste organization such as the ban on walking in the roads, denial of entry to newly created Government professions or educational institutions had become redundant. Wearing caste symbols such as stone chains, continued use of language or dress codes, stereotyping caste occupations had also become irrelevant. The reticence or refusal of the Subordinate states and landlord classes to remove such impediments called forth resistance movements, which have been labeled as ‘social reform movements’. These movements were largely successful in achieving their object, and the pre-modern caste organization was broken. The breakdown of pre-modern landlord-tenant relations and caste organization was also facilitated by other features of British rule. The insistence on a revenue regime was accompanied by the promotion of trade and commerce. As the demand for the standard trade commodity of pepper began to decline, interest began to spread to other commodities such as ginger, timber, textiles and finally plantation goods. The spread of plantations along the Western Ghats take place in this context. The issues of revenue collection by the subsidiary state of Travancore was sought to be solved by the active encouragement of commercial agriculture by the Government, resulting in the emergence of Kuttanad in central Travancore as an agrarian zone. Migratory movements from other parts of madras presidency as well as the absorption of the labourers who were earlier bonded to the landlords, including the untouchable labourers formed the first generation of wage labourers in the plantations. Thus capitalism was born in agriculture, within the colonial context. The decline of pepper and other spices as the major item of international trade affected the trade fortunes of the coastal people, as well as the British. Much of the spread of plantations was the result of the quest for an alternative. This quest also marked the interest in coir fiber goods, cashew, handloom, bricks and tiles, the so-called ‘traditional industries’. The growth of these industries again with the colonial context was marked by a reliance on traditional, labour intensive forms of production, low capital input and effort to maximize profit by cutting down the price of production. The introduction of the so-called modern Industry with better resources, machinery, factory system and forms of labour that would result in an increase in the price of production, was introduced in Kerala only by the middle of 20th century, that too mainly in the public sector. These changes resulted in complex class formations characteristic of Kerala society. Under the British rule, the landlord tenant relations reconstituted under the British legal system, landlord-tenant relations under the subsidiary state, commercial agriculture under the British revenue regimes and plantation economy existed side by side, introducing elements of capitalist rationality into agriculture, but preventing an agrarian revolution. Transition into industrial economy also began in Kerala, without an agrarian revolution and necessitated by the needs of colonialism, which resulted in the creation of enterprises stuck in the middle between the classical manufactories and the factory system, where the relation between capital and wage labour came to be applied. Capitalist competition took the form of the opposition between national /regional and foreign capital with out the impetus of the change in the organic composition of capital. These changes resulted in multiple forms of social relations between the landlord and the tenant, cash crop farmer and the labourer, plantation owner and the labourer, capitalist and labourer in traditional industries and the capital /state and the labourer in ‘modern’ industry. All these were mediated by the British legal and revenue system introduced in British Malabar and the Subsidiary states with necessary variations and implemented by the executive, judicial and ‘public service’ arms of the state. This resulted in the formation of a ‘middle class’, which was not a homogeneous entity but was, in fact, a conglomeration of multiple class formations. Still, the new classes were marked by the stamp of the pre-modern social formation. The landlords, under the new guise, remained the same as the pre-modern landlords; the executive and judiciary of the subsidiary states and to a large extent in British Malabar were also drawn from the same groups. The premodern caste and family order were thus reproduced within the Colonial apparatus. The emerging groups of cash crop farmers, plantation owners, commercial farmers, traders and ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ entrepreneurs were mainly drawn from other sections, such as the Christians, Muslims and the Ilavas. The tenant cultivators and labourers, including the emerging industrial labourers were mainly drawn from the similarly positioned sections within the pre-modern society, and added to it were the sections impoverished by the revenue regimes of the British and subsidiary states.

The British Supremacy however witnessed many social and cultural changes in Kerala. English missionaries brought great alterations and improvements in the livelihood of the people. During this epoch numerous educational institutions and hospitals were raised. Infrastructure was developed including railway lines, roads and bridges. However in the 18th and 19th centuries there were numerous revolts and rebellions opposing the colonial power.

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