Selected Work
Shreyes Yohan Jos X NEWFORMED / Copyright 2024 / All Rights Reserved
Shreyes Yohan Jos X NEWFORMED / Copyright 2024 / All Rights Reserved
Tracing Spatial Histories and Form
within the Rural/Urban Landscapes along the Malabar Coast
History + TheoryMap of Malabar District, Pharoah and Company, An Atlas of the Southern Part of India including Plans of all the Principal Towns and Cantonments. reduced from the Grand Trigonometrical Survey of India showing also The Tenasserim Provinces, (Madras) 1854.
Following the States Reorganization Act of 1956, land was consolidated through geographic linguistic lines consisting of denizens that spoke the Dravidian language of Malayalam, and through this process, the modern day South Indian state of Kerala was established on
1 November 1956 – containing the regions of Cochin, Malabar, South Canara, and Travancore.1
Prior to this transition, Kerala through the ages confronted a series of settler colonialism through trade routes by Arabic and Islamic Merchants from the middle east in the 7th century, the Portuguese in the 15th century, followed by the Dutch and then the British – in the 17th and 18th centuries respectively. Through these exchanges and shifts manifested a certain kind of urban landscape within this region conducive to the individual mercantile / commercial requirements of these various settlers / merchants.
Emergence of Islam
Keralaputra was first recorder in a 3rd century rock inscription by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka.2 It was referred to as one of four independent kingdoms within southern India during Ashoka’s time, with the remaining being the Cholas, Padyas and Satyaputras.3 Through the agency of the Cheras, Keralaputra was transformed into an independent trade center through established trade relations across the Arabian Sea covering all major Mediterranean and Red Sea ports – along with those of Eastern Africa and the Far East.4 The ports embedded within Calicut and Cochin represented the primary gateways to the western coast of medieval South India for many foreign societies – which included the Chinese, the Arabs, the Persians, groups from Eastern Africa, various kingdoms from Southeast Asia including the Malacca Sultanate,5 and thereafter the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British.6
Prior to the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, Kerala attracted West Asian merchants towards its commercial centers due to its offerings of spices, aromatic woods and hardwoods which were native to the region. It also purchased goods from other merchants such as Chinese and South Asian products – which many ports within Malabar stocked in their role as an entrepôt within the Indian Ocean trade which stretched from the Mediterranean to East Asia. Shortly after Mecca was conquered by Muhammad, Muslim Merchants became the formidable entity within the Arabian Sea trade as Islam took dominance as a religious populace throughout the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. With this shift and the amount of commercial traffic that was predominant between merchants of West Asia and Southwest India, it has been thought that Islamic merchants visited the Malabar coast around the 7th Century.
Evidence from inscriptions suggest that Muslims were residing in Kerala by the 9th Century, but the earliest account of an established Muslim community dates only from the mid-14th century – which was corroborated by the North African, Ibn Battuta – and his observations suggested that Kerala Muslims shared the traits of Islamic culture of most Muslim communities which were scattered along the Indian Ocean trade routes that extended from East Africa to Arabia to India and Indonesia and even to Canton on the South China coast. The largest concentration of Muslims was to be found in the principal commercial centers, such Quilon in the South or Calicut in the northern central area. Calicut was then the fulcrum of the Indian spice trade and served as the center point for business activities of West Asian merchants, most of whom were, by the mid-14th century Muslims. In fact, the importance of the Muslim mercantile community was indicated by the fact that the Zamorins or Samudri, the Hindu raja who controlled Calicut and its surrounding territories, had appointed a Bahrain merchant as his Shah Bandar or Chief Port Administrator whom Ibn Battuta met while in the city.7
It was also observed that the Muslims had by the 14th century assembled institutional and professional infrastructure of an Islamic Society within the state – such as the existence of substantial mosque buildings that were present in the towns. Elimala, which translates to “high hill” in Malayalam, was the location where ships from West Asia usually made their first landfall in southern India and Battuta accounts of a cathedral Mosque situated within this town that was patronized by Muslims who had successfully completed the Arabian Sea crossing with mosque officials employed by the wealth which these offerings generated to support students studying the Islamic sciences, travelers and poor members of the local Muslim community. The references to poorer Muslims in Elimala suggest the existence of Muslims who had been born in Kerala rather than migrating there from commercial and religious centers of the Islamic world in West Asia and who participated only partly in the Arabic culture of those areas – and are presumed to be Islamic denizens who were converts through intermarriage or rituals.
The end of the 15th century saw the arrival of the Portuguese, marked by the presence of Vasco da Gama in Calicut, who was sent by the King of Portugal Dom Manuel I.8 The Samudri Maharaja of Calicut permitted the Portuguese to trade with the locals - which prospered with the establishment of a factory and fort in the territory. However, attempts by the Portuguese to enforce monopolized control over trade within the region rather than participating on equal terms with the established mercantile group led to conflicts between the Europeans and the Islamic community which was predominantly focused in and around Calicut. An ethnographic account prepared by the Portuguese commercial agent, Duarte Barbosa who lived in several Malabar coast ports during the first 2 decades of the 16th century provides more descriptive understanding regarding the Muslims that resided within this region. Barbosa reported that the Muslims in Kerala were divided into 2 distinct groups. One comprised of wealthy, expatriate and Arab Muslims who had dominated the international Indian Ocean trade before the arrival of the Portuguese and were known locally as Pardesis – which translates to “foreigners” in Sanskrit. And the second group consisted of Muslims who were indigenous to Kerala and were known to the Hindu inhabitants as Mappilas, a word of unknown origin within the Dravidian languages. He emphasizes that the Pardesis were representative of the mercantile elite of the Malabar coast and within the city of Calicut but claimed that most of them had returned to their homes in West Asia following the sustained Portuguese onslaught on their shipping. The Mappilas as he observed shared many of the cultural characteristics of Hindu castes such as the Nayars and believed that they made up more than 20 percent of the entire Kerala population, presumably the area of the northern Malabar coast with which Barbosa was most familiar.9
Antique Map of Malabar by Philip Baldaeus after an anonymous artist.
The Muslim-Hindu social relations were largely responsible for the growth of the Muslim population, but the most important driver in practices of conversion of Hindus and intermarriage between Hindus and Muslims were the dominant and restrictive caste system that was pervasive within the Hindu society in Kerala which was particularly rigid and oppressive because of ways ritually and socially dominant castes of Nambutiri Brahmins and Nayars protected their prerogatives. For example, members of several of the lowest group of castes were condemned and mandated to remain at a specific distance from individuals or groups of Nambutiris or Nayars as the lower castes were conceived as “Polluted” to come in close-proximity and have any form of physical contact / touch. Individuals violating these prohibitions have led to them being killed sometimes instantaneously by Nayars, since members of this martial caste, by practice, were always armed. As a result, members of the lower castes of Hindus had strong proclivity towards embracing and converting to Islam to escape the caste system, as they had previously done by embracing Judaism and Christianity in part of central and southern Kerala – with most of the conversion reported to have come from lower caste women who married or became the concubines of Muslims. The appeal was further substantiated by the fact that the Rajas allowed converts to enjoy the same privileges of status and autonomy which were accorded to members of the Muslim communities who already resided in their territories within the Port.
The 17th century saw continued competition and armed confrontation between the Portuguese and the Muslims merchants in Kerala which continued into the 18th century, although the 17th and 18th century also marked the gradual supplanting of the Portuguese by the Dutch followed by the British as the Muslims’ principal antagonists. By the 18th century it was recorded that Muslims had transitioned from their primary mercantile node of Calicut into the predominantly Hindu hinterlands - with one of the inland settlements that was recorded being a village called Tirurangadi – which is believed to have been chosen as settlement node due to its proximity to the coast and the ease of movement to and from the village provided by the river. Many Muslims who lived in the inland areas consisted mostly of tenant farmers or agricultural laborers, although a small number of them were also merchants and the agrarian nature of the Muslims within these regions were corroborated by census statistics produced by the British in the late 19th century. The inflow of Muslims into these hinterlands is thought to have been carried out majorly by the Mappilas, who essentially carried trade into the inner countryside bazars, establishing the settlements which ultimately attracted converts from the lower Hindu castes in the surrounding countryside – that further contributed to the growth of the Muslim populace within the state.10
Emergence of Judaism
Like the Islamic merchants, the hegemonic position of Malabar within the global spice trade in the ancient world attracted many communities towards its coast. The Cochin Jews’ (also known as Malabar Jews or Kochinim from Hebrew) arrival to this region goes back to the Biblical times marked by the arrival of the merchant ships of King Solomon (960-922 BC).11 12 They settled in the Kingdom of Cochin, now part of modern-day Kerala – from where they got their eponymous reference,13 and as mentioned earlier, the permeation of Jews within this landscape also lead to the conversion of lower caste Hindus as a means for them to escape the tyrannical social caste system existing within this region.Cochin Jews, c. 1900. From the 1901-1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, now in the public domain.
In the 16th century, following their expulsion from Iberia by the Alhambra Decree, a few families of Sephardi Jews eventually made their way to Cochin, and they became known to be the Paradesi Jews (or Foreign Jews) who did maintain some trade connections to Europe. Although the Sephardim spoke Ladino (Spanish or Judeo-Spanish), in India they learned Judeo-Malayalam from the Malabar Jews, while retaining their ethnic and cultural distinctions.14 Following the entry of Sephardic Jews, in the late 19th century, a few Arabic-speaking Jews, known as Baghdadis, also immigrated to Malabar.15 However, after the independence of India, in 1948 the Jewish nation-state of Israel was established – which consequently precipitated the emigration of most Jews in Kerala to Israel in the mid-1950s.
Judeo-Malayalam speaking communities in India (largely historical) and Israel (current) This file was derived from: Israel location map.svg India Kerala location map.svg Source: Ophira , Gamliel. “Jewish Malayalam in Southern India.” Languages in Jewish Communities, Past and Present, Walter De Gruyter, 2018.
Emergence of Christianity
Christianity laid its feet on the soil of Kerala twice. The first time, according to common traditional accounts, was when Thomas the Apostle sailed to Malabar in 52 AD and arrived at the ancient seaport of Muziris (modern day Kodungallur). He introduced Christianity through the process of baptizing the indigenous populous,16 17 and many believe that he established seven churches in Kerala at Kodungallur (Cranganore), Palayoor (Palur), Kottakavu (Paravur), Kokkamangalore (a village in Alleppey), Niranam (an ancient port city), Nilackal (Chayal), Kollam (Quilon), and Thiruvithamcode (a panchayat town in Kanyakumari).18 Many churches in modern day Kerala bear the name of Saint Thomas, with their rituals and theology derived from Eastern Orthodox traditions in the liturgical language of Syriac, an Aramaic language, through which Jesus and Saint Thomas conversed. Thomas’ name is also ubiquitous otherwise as well, appearing on baptism registers and the neon signs of jewelry stores and bakeries to the nameplates of dental surgeons and real estate developers’ ads.
The arrival of Portuguese at the end of the 15th century marked the second coming of Christianity and its permeation through Kerala. Pedro Álvares Cabral, the Portuguese captain, was accompanied by eight Franciscan priests, eight chaplains and a chaplain major and they introduced the Roman Catholic rite, which consequently split and reformed the Syrian Christian communities who had been existed within the region since the 1st century – and this reformed state of Christianity continues to be so in modern day Kerala.19
Trade, Economy, and Spatial Production
until Portuguese Colonialism
Kerala’s dominant economy of agriculture was the reason that merchants continued to visit it through the centuries. Pepper, which was commonly known as “black gold”, was the most prevalent produce, and it was highly valued in Europe, the Middle East, and other parts of Asia. It was known as “black gold” due to its scarcity and luxury, trade and economic value, preservative qualities, and culinary importance – and along with black pepper, spices such as cardamom, turmeric, and ginger were also grown in the region and exported extensively. Rice was also a predominant crop, due to Kerala’s climatic conditions that provided abundance of rainfall with numerous rivers that provided water for irrigating paddy fields and as a result, rice fields, or “paddy fields”, were highly common across the region.The dominant rulers in the region’s earliest historic periods were the Cheras, a Tamil Dynasty with its headquarters situated in Vanchi – which is situated arguably in modern day Kodungallur.20 Muziris, Tyndis, Naura, Berkarai and Nelcynda were among the principal trading port centers of the Chera Kingdom.21 Pliny mentioned Muziris as India’s first port of importance and according to him, Muziris could be reached in 40 days from the Red Sea ports of Egypt depending on the South West monsoon winds. There were harbors in Naura near Kannur, Tyndis near Kozhikode, and Barace near Alapuzha, that were essentially trading with Rome, and Palakkad pass (or Churam) facilitating migration and trade. Tyndis was a major center of trade, next only to Muziris, between the Cheras and the Roman Empire,22 with Roman establishments such as a temple of Augustus and barracks for garrisoned Roman soldiers, marked in the Tabula Peutingeriana; the only surviving map of the Roman cursus publicus.23 24
Many of the settlements in Kerala that acted as centers of trade in the ancient times, transitioned to also become key trading settlements linking Arab and Islamic merchants. Calicut / Kozhikode (close to Tyndis), Cochin / Kochi (close to Muziris), Cannanore / Kannur (Naura), and Quilon / Kollam (close to Berkarai and Nelcynda) were seats of local chieftains to Rajas – like the Zamorin or Samudri, the Hindu Raja who controlled the region of Calicut. These were essentially centers to trade various commodities and although specific locations of spice and grain cultivations have not been determined, it can be reasonably argued that the cultivation fields for these commodities were in proximity to these centers – for the ease of transportation and coordination of activities. At a synoptic view, it’s been assumed that the midlands and highlands (located along the Western ghats) were used for cultivating spices like black pepper and cardamom, with rice being cultivated in the lowland areas.
Earliest Dominant Settlement Nodes/Towns along the Malabar Coast in the Ancient World
Emergence of Portuguese Colonialism
The urban fabric / towns in Kerala’s prior to becoming centers of commerce / mercantile activity – were initially fishermen villages or seats of local chieftains and many of them were eventually fortified and garrisoned by subsequent invaders - and commerce became the most important function. It was backward in its technological configuration and was primarily an agricultural settlement until political and social shifts that were brought about by the arrival of the Portuguese in 1498 – marked by the presence of Vasco da Gama.
The established trade relations which Kerala had with the Muslim traders on the Swahili coast of East Africa and in the Persian Gulf had made them immensely rich, and this deterred them to sway away from regional trade networks that were already working very well, and peacefully. As a result, the Zamorin of Calicut resisted the attempted control of the Portuguese over trade especially due to the preeminence of Arab and Islamic merchants within the region who had established their trade dominance for over centuries.
However, in 1500, the Raja (King) of Cochin welcomed a fleet of Portuguese vessels headed by Pedro Álvares Cabral (who discovered Brazil) and supported their intent to conduct business within the region by allocating them with a “feitoria” (factory) – which marked the first progressive step towards the Portuguese presence within the subcontinent of India. The relationships between the Raja of Cochin and the Zamorin of Calicut were contentious and the former’s welcome gesture towards the Portuguese angered the Zamorin – which resulted in the Battle of Cochin in 1504. The Portuguese garrisoned at Cochin with the support of the Trimumpara Raja of Cochin, fought the armies of the Zamorin of Calicut – resulting in a Victory. This pleased the Raja who subsequently allowed the Portuguese to construct a Fort named after the prevailing King of Portugal, Manuel I – titled Fort Manuel which was the first European Fort constructed in India.25
A chegada de Vasco da Gama a Calicute em 1498 (Arrival of Vasco Da Gama at Calicut in 1498) by Alfredo Roque Gameiro (1864-1935).
Through a series of victories, the Portuguese gradually gained dominance and subsequently began to divert trade from Calicut to Cochin and Goa – with factories built at Cochin, Quilon and Cannonore along with fortresses at Thankasseri, Cranganore and Beypore. The colonial impetus of the Portuguese was not mainly driven by the need to oust leaders, dominate cultures or take control of territories but was driven more so by the need to engage in the spice trade of that time. And even though there were attempts made to Christianize the populace, the Portuguese did allow the local denizens to coexist within their own associated socio-cultural frameworks. A typical example of this outcome is Cochim De Cima (modern day Mattanchery district in Kochi) where the local indigenous population were permitted to live and practice their socio-cultural activities around the port, royal palace, and temples. The Portuguese community, on the other hand, inhabited the area around their fort (present day Fort Kochi) where they built churches and streets with Portuguese-style buildings.26
'Setima e deciziva victoria de Pacheco, no passo de Cambalão, contra todo o poder do Camorim' (trans: "The Seventh and Decisive victory of Pacheco at the Pass of Kumbalam, against all the power of the Zamorin"). Portuguese 1840 lithograph depicting the final victory of Portuguese commander Duarte Pacheco Pereira over the Zamorin of Calicut at the Battle of Cochin (1504). Maurício José do Carmo Sendim (1786-1870) - Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal
Trade, Economy, and Spatial Production
under Portuguese Colonialism
Like traders and merchants who came before, the Portuguese were also involved in the ancient world’s Spice Trade –that was focused predominantly on black pepper or black gold - which was immensely scarce and precious to the western world. Cochin (Kochi), Quilon (Kollam), Cranganore (Kodungallur) and Cannanore (Kannur) were the dominant trading centers for the Portuguese along the Malabar Coast. Afonso de Albuquerque, a Portuguese General opened the Portuguese trade within Kerala at Quilon / Kollam – through the establishment of a factory in 1504 marking the start of the Portuguese efforts to control shipping in the region and monopolize the Malabar pepper trade. And even though Cochin and Goa remained the more important centers of Portuguese power in India, the factory at Quilon grew into a substantial fort that supported Portuguese commercial and naval operations for over 150 years.27Quilon, as a commercial center, offered commodities such as betel nut, colored cotton, coral, butter, and jasmine flowers – all of which were brought into the city from external centers of production or cultivation and according to Chinese travelers, pearls were brought in from Rameswaram and then exported to countries abroad. The development of Quilon as a township opened new opportunities for employment which encouraged an influx of people from settlements outside. Various professionals settled in and around the port city which increased the demand for housing and other amenities within the city. Similarly, demand for infrastructure rose in Cochin, with the influx of people coming in search of economic opportunities. Houses were made of white stones and brick, roofed with lime clay or tiles. Monasteries and Warehouses were constructed along with schools and hospitals which not only serviced the Portuguese but also catered to the necessities of the native population.28
Apart from black pepper, spices like cloves, nutmeg, and mace were traded – along with dry food items and copper. Ships began to set sail from Cochin to the Persian Gulf, Sri Lanka, the Bay of Bengal, and Portuguese Macao, where spices and other goods were exchanged for silver, fine textiles, and rice.29 The Portuguese also supported the expansion of agriculture and introduced several new agricultural products such as Tobacco, Pineapple, Pappaya, Cashewnut, Plantation, Coconut etc. In addition to this, they played a pivotal role in augmenting the Malayalam language, contributed to the local culinary and established theological seminaries and colleges at Cochin, Cranganore, Angamali and Vaipincotta for the purpose of training Christian Priests.30
Emergence of Dutch Colonialism
Towards the end of the 16th century, the Dutch traveler Jan Huyghen van Linschoten visited Cochin and produced a portrait of the then King of Cochin mounted on an elephant attended by Nair Soldiers. Upon his return to the Dutch Republic, Linschoten published his “Itinerario”, which planted the seed within the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC in Dutch) for the impetus to set sail into the Indian Ocean and break the prevalent monopoly of the Portuguese in the East. The abundance of black pepper was another factor that attracted the Dutch to the coast of Kerala, and they anticipated its export from Kerala to Persia and Europe would promote trade and increase their profits.The Dutch strategized by tapping into the contentious relationship between the Portuguese and the Zamorins and offered their assistance to the local rulers in Calicut – headed by Steven van der Hagen who was the first Dutch to visit the region. Hagen entered an offensive and defensive alliance with the Zamorins of Calicut on 11 November 1604 through a treaty that outlined a policy to weaken and defeat the Portuguese trade and power prevailing within the region. Following the visit by Hagen, on 8 October 1608, admiral Verhoff landed at Calicut and concluded a treaty that agreed to aid the Zamorins to expel Portuguese from Kerala in return for trade concessions. Another treaty followed, between P.S. Groes and the ruler at Kayamkulam on 1 March 1643 and through this treaty the Dutch agreed to protect the ruler from the Portuguese in return for the supply of pepper and exchange of various articles. Through these initial contacts between the Dutch and the local people, the former posed as a liberator from the tyrannies of the Portuguese and were hailed by the local people and the dominant rulers alike.
'The King of Cochin riding on an elephant, attended by his Nairs', 1590s
Through the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) continued to seize various ports and forts dominated by the Portuguese. Governor Rycklof van Goens, after the conquest of Ceylon in the 1650s, vied to conquer the Malabar to weaken the Portuguese, protect the route to Ceylon and ultimately secure a monopoly over the trade of black pepper which was by now ubiquitous to its association with the Malabar Coast. In late 1662, the VOC forces laid siege to Cochin and following the establishment of a naval blockade and construction of a fort on an island across the channel, they dug siege entrenchments to cut off the Portuguese by land. In January 1663, the Portuguese surrendered, and Fort Cochin was passed onto Dutch hands.31
'Conquest of the City of Cotchin on the Coast of Malabar', Dirck Jansz van Santen, 1682
Trade, Economy, and Spatial Production
under Dutch Colonialism
The dominance of the Dutch in the 17th century further continued the spatial production of lucrative commerce along various ports in the coast of Kerala. In 1650, the Dutch East India Company possessed only the unfortified factories of Kayamkulam and Cannanore, but by the time the Portuguese were weakened and defeated in 1663, the Dutch became the new rulers of the Malabar Coast. The Kochi Fort was the major landmark where one would find large concentration of the Dutch but that soon changed with the emergence of military outposts and warehouses at Alleppey, Cheramangalam, Pappinivattam, Ponanni, Pallipuram, Cranganore, Chettuva, Cannanore, Cochin and Quilon – under the control of Dutch governor generals / chiefs.
The Dutch East India Company, being a close ally of the Kingdon of Cochin, began to make amendments and improvements to the city of Cochin. In 1697, they reduced the size of the Portuguese Fort in present day Fort Kochi and developed the harbor with piers constructed, along with houses and warehouses for merchants. The Dutch enlarged the Royal Palace built by the Portuguese at Mattancheryy for the King of Cochin, which from then on became known as the “Dutch Place – and in 1744, the Bolgatty Palace was erected on the Bolgatty Island for the Dutch Governors.32
Wouter Schouten, A battle on the Malabar Coast between the Dutch East India Company and the Portuguese, with Hindu Nairs in December 1661
K.P Padmanabha Menon, in his work ‘Kochi Rajya Charitram’ (History of Cochin) says “Land tax was introduced in Kochi in 1762 and amendments were made in the next year. Prior to then the state was divided into units called “Nadus” (agricultural settlements with their own chiefs known as Naduvazhi) for the convenience of administration with ten “Kovilakams” (essentially a large estate/mansion designated to the ruling elites) in the state entrusted under a “Karyakar” (district revenue officer, or the prototype of the modern Tahsildar). Accounts were monitored by Menons (essentially feudal landlords with some being Naduvazhis) and assets such as temples were maintained and monitored by “Yantrakars” (traditional carpenters known for their skills in crafting wooden machines). Every “Desam” (another administrated settlement unit but smaller than a Nadus) had a chieftain appointed irrespective of caste and creed – but these were still entitled and designated to certain privileged ancestral “Tharavadu” (home of an aristocratic family) – who were given the right to report to the superiors regarding the day-to-day affairs. “Kovilakathu Vathilukal” (estate doors) were classified into “Vadakke Mukham” (north facing) and Thekke Mukham (south facing) under each “Sarvadhikaryakkar” (chief administrators). There was also a “Valyasarvadhikaryakkar” (chief of all administrators), to supervise the entire “Kovilakathu Vathilukal”.33
Regarding religious beliefs, unlike the Catholic Portuguese, the Protestant Dutch did not attempt on Christianizing indigenous Hindu peoples. However, they did help the Saint Thomas Christians of Malabar, who had been around since the 1st century, against the pressures of conversion from the Roman Catholic Church. They tolerated the Malabar Jews and provided asylum to them and relied heavily on the Paradesi Jewish merchants of Cochin, who thrived during the Dutch era, for trade and diplomatic missions.
View of the fort of Cochin, from across the backwater, with the Union flag flying from the warehouse, formerly the Portuguese cathedral of Santa Cruz', anon., ca. 1800
Emergence of British Colonialism
The arrival of the British on the Malabar Coast can be traced to 1615, when a group lead by Captain William Keeling on 3 ships arrived at Calicut (Kozhikode).34
Dharmadom, an island near Kannur, along with Thalassery, is speculated to have been ceded to the East India Company as early as 1734, which was then ruled by the Kolattu Raja, Kottayam Raja, and Arakkal Bibi since the medieval period - and following this cessation, the British erected a factory and an English Settlement.35 After the Third Anglo-Mysore Ware and the Treaty of Seringapatam, in 1792 Tipu Sultan ceded the entirety of the Malabar District to the British, followed by South Kanara in 1799 (which includes the present-day Kasargod District). This was followed by treaties of subsidiary alliance with the rulers of Cochin (1791) and Travancore (1795), and these became princely states of British India, maintaining local autonomy in return for a fixed annual payment to the British.
However, Malabar and South Kanara districts were part of British India's Madras Presidency – and within these districts the municipalities of Kozhikode, Palakkad, Fort Kochi, Kannur, and Thalassery, were founded on 1 November 1866 by the British Indian Empire, making them the first modern municipalities in the state of Kerala.36
An anonymous portrait of Tipu Sultan, made during the Third Anglo-Mysore War. Kate Brittlebank's, Tipu Sultan's Search for Legitimacy, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997
Trade, Economy, and Spatial Production
under British Colonialism
The arrival of the British East India Company was a turning point in the urban growth of Kerala – which resulted in an exponential production of new towns and villages. The British took control of all Dutch factories and villages began to grow and mutate into towns due to its designation as administrative centers from which district officers of the company and eventually the British government would tour and supervise the adjacent countryside. Towns also grew out of its necessity to be positioned next to cantonments and eventually began to be ascribed with specific designated functions with transportation links established between villages and towns.
Agricultural cultivation also expanded as the British focused on staple food items like paddy, tapioca, coconut, etc. with enant farmers engaged in the cultivation of pepper, coffee, tea, rubber, cardamom, etc. and with the invested of British Capital and Christian missionaries was born the process of commercialized agriculture. The substantially increased production of agricultural yield and along with the need to connect towns and villages for commerce and the rising population within the state necessitated transportation infrastructure across the state. Road and canal networks were established from the East to West to transport agricultural produce from the hinterlands into various settlement nodes along the coast with railway lines laid mainly in northern Kerala to facilitate the movement of military troops from the coastal towns into the hinterlands. Also, the subsidiary alliance established with the princely states of Cochin and Travancore in return for protection, ensured that the British had primary access to the commercial crops and land contained within these regions. In addition to this, the British also urged the monarchies within these states to undertake a series of modernizing reforms – that included a comprehensive land tenure reform as well as the expansion of education and health care.37
As per the article “Neither Rural nor Urban Spatial Formation and Development”, TT Sreekumar alludes to a study done in 1954 that aimed to examine the influence the physical and economic factors on the function of towns in Kerala and ultimately delineate the towns into functional groups. These were (1) commercial and industrial towns, (2) administrative towns, (3) agricultural market towns, and (4) temple towns. Alleppey, Mattanchery, Cannanore, Ernakulam, Palghat, Cochin, Quilon and Nagercoil (now in Tamil Nadu) were identified then as commercial and industrial towns, with Trivandrum and Calicut serving predominantly as administrative functions. Changanessery, Kottayam and Neyyanttinkara were identified as major agricultural market towns, and Varkala, Ettumanoor and Vaikom were identified as some of the famous temple towns. A closer analysis also suggests that towns and villages, while established on functional lines, were specifically serving industrial requirements such as ports or agro-processing centers – which explains the scattered spatial distribution within the state and the nonexistence of a dominant urban node, at least arguably until the economic liberalization of India in the 1990s – when Cochin(or Kochi) began to take root as the state’s dominant economic capital. The nonexistence of a dominant urban node up until then, has been thought to have happened since the administration of the state during colonial rule was predominantly under the British Madras Presidency (or Chennai presently).38
Post Colonial Spatial Production, Land reforms, Decline of Grain
Production, and the Arabian Gulf
Following India’s Independence from British Rule in 1947, the government of India and the princely states of Cochin and Travancore negotiated on their potential annexation to the larger subcontinent, which led to the formation of the short-lived state Travancore-Cochin in 1949 which joined with the Indian Union.39 The present-day Kerala at the time consisted of the Travancore-Cochin state, the Malabar District, and the Kasaragod Taluk of South Canara in Madras State. These were all eventually reorganized and constituted together, based on geographic linguistic thresholds to form Kerala according to the “States Reorganization Act, 1956” passed by the Government of India – with Trivandrum (or Thiruvananthapuram) as the administrative capital.Swearing-in ceremony of Namboodiripad as first Chief Minister of Kerala, April 1957, photographer unknown.
In 1957, state level elections for the Kerala Legislative Assembly democratically brought the reformist, communist-led government to power, led by E.M.S. Namboodiripad – which was followed by its dismissal by the president’s rule in 1959 precipitated due to anticommunist Liberation Struggles (Vimochana Samaram) in Kerala between 1958-1959. The push back against the communist party were reactionary towards the parties attempts to curtail peasant evictions by agrarian landlords within the state – through an act that was passed known as the “Kerala Stay of Eviction Proceedings Act of 1957”. The act was a prelude to the comprehensive “Kerala Agrarian Relations Bill” (KARB) passed in 1959 with the support of the masses and the involvement of the peasantry clearly posed as a threat to the vested interest embedded within the landlord class. The bill eventually was not implemented by the ministry due to the Vimochana Samaram, organized and spearheaded by the Nayar Service Society (NSS) and the Christian Churches, backed by the dominant congress coalition of the opposition parties which brought down the ministry in 1959 buttressed by the President’s rule imposed over the state for over 6 months.40
However, in 1964, in tandem with the growing tensions between the PRC (Peoples Republic of China) and the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), a large faction of leftists within the CPI leadership, based predominantly in Kerala and West Bengal, split from the CPI party to form the Communist Part of India (Marxist), or CPI (M). In 1967, the CPI (M) assumed power as Kerala’s third ministry, and just like in 1957 brought into force the “Kerala Stay of Eviction Proceedings Act of 1967” – which was followed by radical amendments to the Land Reforms Act of 1964 (brought in by the previous ministry of Congress-PSP (Praja Socialist Part) coalition), which was passed in the assembly as the “Land Reforms Act of 1969”.
Kerala Ministers from 1967 EMS Ministry, unknown photographer.
The Land Reforms Act of 1969 consisted of three schemes to implement the larger goals of the administration. The first scheme sought to transfer land property rights through the conferment of ownership onto the cultivating tenant who had leased in land from the landlord, which translated into the abolition of landlordism, tenancy, and intermediary rights. The scheme required the tenants to pay a nominal sum as a purchase price but did not penalize (through forfeiting rights) if payments were defaulted. The act also exempted the tenants from paying any rent to the government or their landlords from the date of enactment of the act. The second scheme allowed homestead tenants (Kudikidappukar) to purchase a certain area of land from their landlords which was 3 cents in a city or major municipality, 5 cents in a municipality or 10 cents in a panchayat area. The tenants were expected to pay 25 percent of the market value of the land for these purchases but only half of that percentage if the landlord possessed land area that exceeded the ceiling area prescribed by the act. One half of the payment was subsidized by the government and the other half was payable by the Kudikidappukar in twelve equal annual instalments. The third scheme stated the enactment and imposition of ceiling laws, to redistribute surplus land area to the landless laborers and land-poor peasants owning or holding less than one acre of land. The area fixed as a ceiling was 5 acres in the case of an unmarried adult or a family consisting of a sole surviving member, 10 acres for a family of up to five members, with an additional acre for each additional member up to a maximum of 15 acres.41
E.M.S. Namboodiripad giving a speech, unknown photographer.
Although the reform’s objective was to make amendments to land property rights by dismantling the concentration of land among a few and redistributing them through an equitable means, its consequences were not entirely positive but instead manifested an accelerated pauperization of the rural masses – which was marked by the establishment of three distinct agrarian groups within Kerala. Situated on one extreme were a minority of rich farmers who sat at the top of the hierarchy and held an increased level of social and political influence. And on the other end were a large group of previous homestead tenants / agricultural laborers (or Kudikidappukar) who possessed an insignificant amount of land to be able to generate any capital gain through agricultural activities out of it. Consequently, these laborers were forced to continue seeking employment opportunities externally as waged physical laborers – which proved difficult to acquire due to the increased demand for such opportunities that subsequently furthered the economic descend of this group. In between these two ends were another large group of poor and marginal farmers who were not homestead tenants previously but gained their rights to their land-holdings due to past lease-ins through the land reforms act. This group was disadvantaged especially when their area of land owned was of insignificance to qualify for any agricultural activities and even if the area was of any significance, labor proved to be too expensive as agricultural laborers post-reform established organized labor union forces who began demanding for increased wages from landowners. The general inability for the latter two groups at the bottom to climb up financially neutralized any hopeful positive economic outcome from the reforms for the peasantry and instead began propagating the monopolization of the rich farmers who sat at the top – and further contributed to the financial disparity that was embedded within post-colonial Kerala.
Pulapre Balakrishnan in his article “Land Reforms and the Question of Food in Kerala” alludes to the decline of rice production in Kerala which began in the first half of the 1970s soon after the passing of the Land Reforms Act of 1969. He states the decline does not directly correlate to the land reforms but relates to the state’s transnational relationship with the Arabian Gulf.42 The year 1973 witnessed price hikes of oil and its consequential impact of financial boom accelerated processes of industrialization within the Arabian Gulf – which pushed the requirement for foreign labor within this region.43 As stated previously, the passing of the land reforms act, while it gave positive impacts did not equitably reduce financial disparity within the state but in fact widened it with many previous agricultural laborers and tenants unemployed and descending into poverty. The increased demand for labor in the Arabian Gulf and the heightened unemployment within rural areas created a precondition within Kerala for migration - which manifested into a population flight, seeking employment opportunities, from the state into the Arabian Gulf. The combined effect of large migration to the Gulf and the gradual conversion of arable land for infrastructural projects led to the slow decline of grain production beginning from the 1970s.
The migration of labor intersected with reduced unemployment within the state and subsequently increased purchasing power within poor migrant domestic households, supported by the inflow of remittance. Consequently, through the flow of remittance from the middle east came in increased construction activities for infrastructural development within the state which generated and opened employment opportunities within sectors such as transport, communications, trade, commerce, education, health services, banking, etc. The increased wages for migrant workers resulted in the increase in income levels within the poor migrant household in Kerala – which consequently precipitated the inflation of the prices of land, goods, and services, and challenged economically disadvantaged non-migrant households. The migration also brought in a scarcity in construction workers within the state which was countered through the gradual flow of laborers from the neighboring state of Tamil Nadu.
Twenty First Century Kerala and Future Imaginaries
Kerala’s relationship with the Middle East has always been ubiquitous, and as illustrated through this paper, goes back all the way to the 7th century when Muslims first visited the Malabar coast as West Asian Merchants. Following the migration of labor in the 1970s after the Land Reforms Act, the factor contributing to the boom to Kerala’s economy has been the remittance from the Gulf, but it’s not always been advantageous, as proven in 1996 and 1997 when huge swathes of migrant workers from the UAE and Saudi Arabia (almost 70,000) returned to the state, for various reasons, which caused a recession in the state’s economy a testament that the economic prosperity of modern Kerala is largely dependent on flows of migrants towards the Arabian Gulf and the subsequent flow of remittance that gets generated and comes in after.The inflow of gulf migrants has also intersected with the manifestation of large investments for infrastructural projects within the state which are specific conditions where Malayalis who have thrived and established business ventures within the Gulf attempt to expand their commercial operations towards Kerala – whereby in this instance material flow from the middle east between the Malabar has not just been limited by remittance flow but also through the flow of cultural artefacts, images and landscapes between the two geographic terrains that reflect the sensibilities of one another.
A real estate residential township in Puzhakkal, Thrissur - rising adjacent to agricultural fields in the foreground. Conditions like these create a disjuncture between formally realized binaries of urban and rural - whereby, in this case the rural, the urban and the agricultural coexist together in the same space and time. Unknown photographer (source wikipedia).
As Kerala continues to urbanize in an unabated manner, what are alternative forms of spatial production of urban landscapes that will emerge within this milieu that is currently densely populated and sprawls horizontally with gradual emergence of dominant urban nodes beginning to prevail such as Cochin, Trivandrum, Thrissur, and Calicut? Will urban policies evolve to accommodate the changing aspirations and requirements of its inhabitants? Will another land reformations act be required to redistribute land for the sake of a structured urban densification of its emergent nodes? Or can one think of an alternative theory for this rural-urban formation located in the southwest coast of the Indian subcontinent?
Footnotes:
1 “The Hindu : The Land That Arose from the Sea,” January 17, 2004, https://web.archive.org/web/20040117071454/http://www.hindu.com/yw/2003/11/01/stories/2003110101270300.htm.
2 “Kerala | History, Map, Capital, & Facts | Britannica,” accessed March 23, 2024, https://www.britannica.com/place/Kerala.
3 V.A. Smith and A.V.W. Jackson, History of India, in Nine Volumes: Vol. II - From the Sixth Century B.C. to the Mohammedan Conquest, Including the Invasion of Alexander the Great, v. 2 (Cosimo Classics, 2008), https://books.google.com/books?id=bP7DzXQBoM4C.
4 Philippe Beaujard, “East Africa and Oceanic Exchange Networks between the First and Fifteenth Centuries,” Afriques. Débats, Méthodes et Terrains d’histoire, no. 06 (December 25, 2015), https://doi.org/10.4000/afriques.3097.5 “Indian Ocean Trade before the European Conquest - World History Encyclopedia,” accessed March 24, 2024, https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1800/indian-ocean-trade-before-the-european-conquest/.
6 A.S. Menon, Keralacharithram (DC Books, 2007), https://books.google.com/books?id=FAlXPgAACAAJ.
7 Stephen F. Dale, “Trade, Conversion and the Growth of the Islamic Community of Kerala, South India,” Studia Islamica, no. 71 (1990): 155, https://doi.org/10.2307/1595642.
8 “Advent the Europeans - Myeduphilic,” November 7, 2017, https://web.archive.org/web/20171107004355/http://www.myeduphilic.com/about-the-europeans/.
9 Dale, “Trade, Conversion and the Growth of the Islamic Community of Kerala, South India.”
10 Dale.
11 V K Bose, “The History of Jews in Kerala” 10, no. 3 (2022).
12 O. Slapak and Muzeon Yiśraʾel, The Jews of India: A Story of Three Communities, CATALOGUE (Israel Museum, 1995), https://books.google.com/books?id=qhKGPprbQaYC.
13 Judith Reesa Baskin, ed., The Cambridge Dictionary of Judaism and Jewish Culture (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
14 Shalva Weil, “The Place of Alwaye in Modern Cochin Jewish History,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 8, no. 3 (November 1, 2009): 319–35, https://doi.org/10.1080/14725880903263044.
15 S. Weil, The Baghdadi Jews in India: Maintaining Communities, Negotiating Identities and Creating Super-Diversity, Routledge South Asian Religion Series (Taylor & Francis, 2019), https://books.google.com/books?id=05mfDwAAQBAJ.
16 “Syrian Christians in a Muslim Society” (Princeton University Press, 1971), 1–98, https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400872589-003.
17 The Encyclopedia of Christianity. Vol. 5: Si - Z (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2008).
18 “History | PAYYAPPILLY PALAKKAPPILLY NASRANI,” July 4, 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20150704231759/http://www.payyappilly.org/history/.
19 Smithsonian Magazine and Lynn Johnson Zacharia Paul, “The Surprisingly Early History of Christianity in India,” Smithsonian Magazine, accessed May 10, 2024, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-christianity-came-to-india-kerala-180958117/.
20 A. Vimala, History And Civics 6 (Pearson Education, 2007), https://books.google.com/books?id=wZyLVdkA7cIC.
21 K.K. Kusuman, A History of Trade & Commerce in Travancore, 1600-1805 (Mittal Publications, 1987), https://books.google.com/books?id=qbNuyHswr1cC.
22 Yogesh Sharma, ed., Coastal Histories: Society and Ecology in Pre-Modern India, 1. publ (Delhi: Primus Books, 2010).
23 A. Eraly, The First Spring: The Golden Age of India (Viking, Penguin Books India, 2011), https://books.google.com/books?id=te1sqTzTxD8C.
24 P.T.S. Iyengar, History of the Tamils: From the Earliest Times to 600 A.D. (Asian Educational Services, 2001), https://books.google.com/books?id=ERq-OCn2cloC.
25 Mark Cartwright, “Portuguese Cochin,” World History Encyclopedia, accessed May 7, 2024, https://www.worldhistory.org/Portuguese_Cochin/.
26 Cartwright.
27 “Quilon – Dutch Port Cities,” accessed May 8, 2024, https://dutchportcities.hosting.nyu.edu/home/quilon/.
28 Dr Thomas Joseph Parathara, “The Advent of the Portuguese and Socio-Economic Transition in Kerala,” n.d.
29 Cartwright, “Portuguese Cochin.”
30 Parathara, “The Advent of the Portuguese and Socio-Economic Transition in Kerala.”
31 “Koshy, M.O. “The Dutch Conquest of Kerala - Compulsion and Consideration” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 57 (1996): 239–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44133315.
32 Marco Ramerini, “The Dutch in Malabar (Kerala), India,” Colonial Voyage (blog), February 9, 2014, https://www.colonialvoyage.com/dutch-malabar/.
33 “Dutch in Kerala - Glimpses of World History through Kerala and Dutch,” accessed May 7, 2024, https://dutchinkerala.com/article11.php?id=03.
34 Menon, Keralacharithram.
35 W. Logan, Malabar Manual, AES Reprint, v. 2 (Asian Educational Services, 2000), https://books.google.com/books?id=9mR2QXrVEJIC.
36 Madras (India : Presidency), Madras District Gazetteers, [Malabar District,., v. 2, n.d., https://books.google.com/books?id=aUEwnQEACAAJ.37 Manali Desai, “Indirect British Rule, State Formation, and Welfarism in Kerala, India, 1860-1957,” 2024.
38 T. T. Sreekumar, “Neither Rural nor Urban: Spatial Formation and Development Process,” Economic and Political Weekly 25, no. 35/36 (1990): 1981–90.
39 “Princely States of Travancore and Cochin Join the Union Post Independence,” The Hindu, June 30, 2016, sec. Young World, https://www.thehindu.com/features/kids/Joining-hands/article14410304.ece.40 P. Radakrishnan, “Land Reforms in Theory and Practice: The Kerala Experience,” 1981.
41 Radakrishnan.
42 Pulapre Balakrishnan, “Land Reforms and the Question of Food in Kerala,” Economic and Political Weekly 34, no. 21 (1999): 1272–80.
43 B. A. Prakash, “Gulf Migration and Its Economic Impact: The Kerala Experience,” Economic and Political Weekly 33, no. 50 (1998): 3209–13.