He was quite correct, for by March trouble cropped up once again. This time, however, the Junior Maharani acted with greater tact and attempted to persuade her cousin through a carefully drafted representation. Noting how ‘distressing the present state of things are to me’ and that she had ‘tried all that lay in my power’ to calm her husband’s ‘nervous irritability’, the line of argument once again was his alleged mental unsoundness.31 A letter from his physician was also enclosed suggesting that he should ‘live in entirely new surroundings, free from all conditions which are to him sources of irritation’.32 And since the environment in Kowdiar Palace was far from sanguine, it was recommended that he move out. Simply put, a separation was sought post-haste.
Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, however, was not convinced by the direction the request was taking. She cautiously asked the Junior Maharani to make ‘concrete proposals’ as to what she wanted done, assuring her also that ‘any proposal calculated to promote the Kochu Koil Tampuran’s well-being will receive my sympathetic consideration’.33 The Junior Maharani also tried to enlist the support of Miss Watts in pressing the matter, who in turn advised her that if she wanted a separation, she should suggest it clearly. While she was advised to keep the tone ‘very moderate’ without ‘rancour and enmity’ in it,34 the final outcome was still quite indelicate. By the first week of April the Junior Maharani proposed that her husband be transferred to Varkala, Alwaye, Nagercoil, or Cape Comorin. If he insisted on remaining in the capital, Vadakkay Kottaram Palace could be placed at his disposal. But the crux of the proposition was that he should definitely leave Kowdiar Palace, albeit under the more dignified excuses of health this time. ‘It will be desirable,’ she added, ‘to make him agree to select one of the four places above mentioned.’35
Sethu Lakshmi Bayi had no desire to become a catspaw in this indecorous domestic squabble. Nor did she wish to take responsibility for the state of her cousin’s marriage. To a proposal that Ravi Varma should have a ‘companion’ imposed on him, she refused to act without ascertaining his views. As for ‘making him agree’ to go away, ‘I must decline,’ she asserted, ‘to be a party to the Kochu Koil Tampuran being coerced.’36 To the Resident, who was still observing the matter for the authorities, she wrote with incredulity about her cousin’s attitude. ‘It surprises me beyond measure that the Junior Maharani should be at such great pains to take my views and seek my help in a matter which is purely domestic and as such capable of adjustment without extraneous interference.’37 It appeared to her as if Sethu Parvathi Bayi simply did not want to accept culpability for the difficulties in her marriage. But in the end the decision to refrain from undue interference helped and the Junior Maharani was compelled to settle the matter between herself and her husband, like couples normally do. The two temporarily reconciled their differences and agreed to peace for some more time; when Sethu Parvathi Bayi departed for her usual tour to Ooty that summer, her husband went with her.
This marital-crisis-become-public spectacle twirled the beginning of the year into a most nerve-wracking experience for Sethu Lakshmi Bayi. Out of the blue, the royal family, which prided itself on its dignity, and confidently professed a semi-divine status, found itself humiliatingly exposed with ghastly flaws, warts et al., which was saying something for a millennium-old dynasty, however dirty its linen might secretly have been. The Maharani was appalled. She believed that if they had to maintain their royal position, they had to inspire and stand out as extraordinary. To enjoy hereditary sway over millions meant respect had to be earned every day, through personal sacrifices and stupendous effort. The monarch and her family had to exemplify all that was best and perfect according to the culture in vogue. And if they could not live up to the high moral expectations of their people, how, she asked, could they claim to be better than them?
In a most interesting fashion, the state of the Junior Maharani’s marriage served to highlight not only aspects of her own private life, but also all that was distinct and noteworthy in that of her cousin. As described previously, women and their moral character had become a subject of enormous interest in Kerala by the 1920s. In fact, had all the recent events occurred only fifty years before, they would not have prompted the slightest scandal or attracted any sustained interest locally. With a single utterance Sethu Parvathi Bayi could have disposed of her husband and banished him for good, replacing him with someone more compatible. But by the first quarter of the twentieth century, a woman in her position could no longer realistically exercise this option. A divorcee Maharani was absolutely impossible to envision, especially one confronted by unseemly (even if unreasonable) allegations of infidelity, and the lady would have faced lifelong disgrace and humiliation, no matter how cantankerous or intractable her husband might have been. The moral onus, by this time, had fallen on the woman to keep her marriage going, even if it meant being saddled with a man who could bring her little happiness.
But insofar as general gossip went, an actual divorce was not necessary and the evident drama surrounding the Junior Maharani’s marriage adequately served to excite the public appetite. It is perhaps unkind to judge her but then society generally was in holding its leaders up to exceptional, even unrealistic, inhuman high standards. And so the failure of Sethu Parvathi Bayi to feature as a paragon of post-Victorian feminine virtue was all the more criticised, just as the contrasting qualities in her cousin were positively celebrated. This was most crucial, for reputations survive the events that define them, and as late as the 1940s and beyond, many differentiated between ‘the good Maharani’ and ‘the bad Maharani’ of Travancore.38 As the Junior Maharani’s name suffered, her cousin’s seemed to assume an added lustre. It was most likely not a pleasing development for the former and very plausibly aggravated their relentlessly unhappy relations. For as one contemporary put it, ‘that her quiet, retiring and orthodox cousin became Regent was a bitter blow to her; that she won the love and respect of her people was still more bitter.’39
Indeed, in the public eye Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s moral stature was impeccable. Part of it certainly resulted from the manner of her upbringing and the discipline with which she conducted herself. She did not care for fashion and was never seen except in her ascetic, almost virginal white robes. Her only concession to make-up was a long tikka on her forehead; such austerity appealed to a severely traditional population.40 While other Maharanis of her generation, such as Indira Devi, were famed as social butterflies living lives of extravagant luxury and glamour, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was recognised for her prodigious administrative acumen and exceptional ability. While they concerned themselves with the haute couture and grand monde, she grappled with issues of communalism and unemployment. She was never seen hobnobbing with the who’s who, spending all her time instead in ceremonious religiosity, which won over the orthodoxy, or at work. In other words, she stood apart from the rest, and eminently so. The unassuming, simple yet commanding Maharani became, thus, an ideal monarch in the conception of her times and to those whose opinions mattered.
In what was more appealing to the masses, she also retained an endearing innocence and private reservation in spite of daily interacting with so many different people at so many levels. As late as 1929, for instance, when a Dutch woman, appointed to a lectureship at the Women’s College, was presented at Satelmond Palace, she noticed a ‘a very shy little woman who was really more interested in her children quarrelling in the adjacent room than in her visitor’. It did not offend Miss Ouwerkerk in the least, for the Maharani had a disarming charm about her even as she sat in a chair of state and received her. Instead she left with the happy impression of ‘a very human couple behind all the pomp of bowing attendants and the luxurious little reception room’.41 This positive impression also passed through to the public who were glad to see that for all her majesty and prestige, the ruler was still a ‘homely’ figure. She had all the ‘queenly’, ‘womanly’, and maternal qualities that the common herd appreciated.42 And so she rose in their esteem, even as the Ju
nior Maharani, despite her individual accomplishments and fascinating social unorthodoxy, was left somewhat diminished.
But in perhaps what was most important, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi took the greatest care to maintain her sterling reputation as a woman of almost Catholic good character. One of her more interesting habits, which she adhered to diligently for much of her life, was of never receiving any men alone. Whether it was the Dewan, the Resident, or even her brothers-in-law, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi insisted on having Rama Varma in attendance whenever she met them. ‘Unless he is present to act as chaperon,’ it was recorded, ‘Her Highness does not give personal interviews to anyone.’43 And, if he intended to go away somewhere, she would make an announcement to that effect so that those who wished to see her could seek an audience before his departure or wait until his return.44 This often served to irritate Mr Watts and the Resident, for she would not be available for consultations at urgent, unforeseen moments. But the Maharani sternly forbade all objections. Perhaps the most amusing testimony to her excessive regard for moral propriety was that poor Mr Cotton, who at fifty-one was a confirmed bachelor, finally had to shake hands with matrimony. The Maharani considered it bad form for the Resident to be unwed when stationed at the court of a female monarch and in 1925 he had to belatedly find himself a highborn spinster.45 Thus, next to her cousin trying to prove her husband was insane and battling charges, however bizarre, of ‘undue familiarity’ with musicians, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi prominently rose as a dignified and honourable lady of unimpeachable personal, albeit conservative, integrity. As O.M. Thomas, usually sharp-tongued, wrote of her ‘spotless purity’ in a review typical of its times in its tone:
Her crystal virtue lifts her from modernity to the Golden Age of a forgotten past. Julius Caesar laid down a dictum which Her Highness has taken to heart. Her place is with Sita and Savitri, Draupadi and Damayanti, and those other pristine patterns of primary virtue that, I hope, will save us from the inroads of flaunting flappers and blatant bobbed hair. Her Highness has a peculiar way of averting her eyes from those who are admitted to her audience … Her Highness is a pearl among Princesses and a Princess among pearls, so to say. May she be long spared to us to shed her radiance all round, to live amongst us as a shining example from another age and another world.46
Such moral power was politically most advantageous. ‘The people,’ as her cousin’s nephew would remark with resignation, ‘saw things in black and white and there was no grey area of nuance or detail. So they said wonderful things about the Regent Maharani and not as many wonderful things about the Junior.’47 Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was able to harness this perfectly for matters of reform and policy. As an icon of grace and moral virtue enjoying a maternal sway over her people, she could do away with a lot of social ills that previous rulers did not have the courage to touch. There was, for instance, a practice in some temples of north Travancore of singing poorapattus on festive occasions. Originally sung to celebrate fertility and the power of the goddess, these had evolved over time into vulgar songs involving the liberal use of expletives and astonishing obscenities about women. Sethu Lakshmi Bayi decided it was time to abolish this, even though a decade ago her predecessor had conveniently decided to ‘leave the matter alone’. ‘Orders were issued to the police and the magistracy,’ the Travancore State Manual reports, ‘to take the necessary steps to enforce [her] command.’48 Similarly, she terminated the violent custom of animal sacrifice in the state’s temples, although such rituals were once necessary to venerate her own Tiruvirattukkavu Bhagavathi. To be sure, the Brahmins fussed that she was interfering with religion when she really ought to stay aloof. ‘But once having decided upon her course,’ The Baltimore Sun reported in faraway America, ‘she stood firmly and soon the grumbling ceased.’49 Humorously enough, when anyone insisted on the need to offer sacrifices at temple altars, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi recommended the beheading of subsidised cucumbers instead. The suggestion was reluctantly accepted.50
The contemporary French writer Maurice Dekobra who visited Travancore during these years made a perceptive observation of the Maharani’s influence over her people. He noted that even the ordinary conservative ‘preferred not to stand in the way of the will of a Maharani Regent who devotes her entire time and intelligence to the good government of her subjects’.51 The strength of her maternal power combined with her hard work was such that all those in the public who objected gave way and withdrew in the end, much like recalcitrant children do before their mothers. It was a clever and an acknowledged political instrument employed by women in power across the world. In India no one would exemplify the political mother as well as Indira Gandhi at the peak of her career in the early 1970s. So too would the celebrated Evita Peron accumulate almost legendary influence as the Mother of Argentina in the late 1940s. In perhaps more modest circumstances, but not less shrewdly and sagaciously, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi too became the Mother of Travancore. It endowed her, as if by a moral imperative, not only with inspiring love and admiration but also with the deference and immensely useful obedience and loyalty of the masses. To quote O.M. Thomas again, she swayed the rod of authority with ‘generous maternal affection’ and a ‘gentle, firm majesty’ that installed her ‘not so much [as] an individual as [much as] an institution’ in the eyes of her people.52 And, wisely enough, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi ensured it stayed that way.
None of this adulation meant, however, that the Maharani was herself, despite appearances, in the most blissful of marriages, leading a life of great personal happiness unlike her cousin. Given the isolation Sethu Lakshmi Bayi had felt for years at court, she had certainly grown accustomed to depending on her husband, thereby allowing him considerable personal and political ascendance. And to be sure, she did not have a bad marriage. But it was still at best only a regular marriage, with a degree of formality to make up for its romantic awkwardness. For, after the initial phase of their life together, the Maharani and the Valiya Koil Tampuran discovered they had entirely different world views and personal traits, and would have to live together in acceptance of this. As their granddaughter would later tell,
Yes, she was of an austere temperament, courtesy her mother’s training, but she loved romance. Grandfather was not a romantic, so there was disparity there, no doubt. He was much in awe of her beauty and her intellectual capacity, but he confided to me during his last years that he refrained from expressing his admiration to her because he thought it would all go to her head. He was even afraid that with all the attention and eulogies she was getting, she would be tempted to go astray! He never truly understood her temperament, her commitment, and her integrity, but he was very much in love with her. His nature was cold and precise and practical, while grandmother, by her own confessions to me, was idealistic and a dreamer. Such a pity that he was unable to communicate his real feelings to her, because she was warm-hearted and generous to a fault. It is truly sad that though they both were fond of each other, they could never succeed in letting the other know it. Neither believed in the other’s affection.53
Here again, then, it was Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s ability to stick to the figurative rule book of good behaviour that her mother had saddled her with that endeared her to the public. She always defended her husband before the world, even if it meant that many, mistakenly, believed her to be under his thumb. And he too diligently referred to her always as his queen and as ‘Her Highness’, so that neither let their guard down or allowed that façade to slip. It is also likely that to some extent he was reassured by her determined deference to him, given his fears that she might ‘go astray’ and actually had the power and position to discard him if she ever wished. The Maharani, for her part, was conscious that there was more at stake here than personal feelings, sacrificing the latter at the altar of what she believed was her duty. She must have, as her granddaughter remarked, loved her husband in order to make such an effort to give him a sense of security, but, as will be seen ahead, such stubborn idealism and discipline could also have its disadvantages. To the peop
le, however, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was a most perfect wife, a most perfect mother and a most perfect queen.
Perhaps it was fitting then that 1926 was the year in which the Maharani gave birth to her second and last child. In April it was declared that she was once again with child and that the baby was expected in October. It was a momentous announcement, because the last instance of a ruling princess giving birth was in 1813 when Swathi Tirunal, the famous musician prince, was born to Gowri Lakshmi Bayi. Preparations began in full gusto for the event and Dr Mary was brought in to oversee everything like the last time, assisted by nurses Miss Martin and Mrs Alwin. By July parts of the palace grounds were cleared to erect sheds and other temporary buildings for the medical staff. Excitement mounted and the months passed in a flurry of preparatory activity. By 18 October soldiers of the Nair Brigade arrived at the palace, ready to fire a salute as soon as the baby was born. There was also some romantic anticipation that just like over a century before, this time too the ruler might give birth to a heroic male heir. It would, it was felt, be such a wonderful, fairytale setting.
But that was not to be, even though the rest would still befit a fairy-tale. At 1:57 on the morning of 23 October, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi gave birth to a healthy baby girl, her second daughter. She was brought into the world to the booms of a twenty-one-gun salute and Travancore celebrated the occasion with a state holiday.54 A ‘wave of public rejoicing’ broke out throughout the state, the Madras Mail reported, and large crowds of people flocked to Satelmond Palace to see the child later that morning. It was unprecedented in the royal family for a baby to be shown in public before the age of six months, but the Maharani decided to break with this custom, like the several others she had agreeably put to rest. Under her special command the little girl, asleep and wrapped in silks, was taken to the principal gallery of the palace and held up by her exuberant father for the crowds to see.55 Across the land it was then proudly proclaimed that Her Highness Pooradam Tirunal Maharajah had safely given birth to a new Attingal princess. She was in due course named Karthika Tirunal Indira Bayi Tampuran, Third Princess of Travancore.
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