The position was almost entirely similar to that of the Attingal Rani, who in fact enjoyed even greater privileges. But as in Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s case, the Senior Maharani of Indore was also let down and the Maharajah was permitted to coerce her into toeing his line.96 In Travancore, however, the Maharani’s plight was the culmination of a long process, and the Government of India felt justified in sanctioning this due to a number of historic and cultural factors. To begin with, the arrival of the British and the commencement of colonial rule had altered some very basic principles of the old matrilineal system. In the past, as one anthropologist noted, the senior female member in a family was its head, with the next in line her ‘Prime Minister’, and the senior male essentially acting on their behalf and in consultation with them.97 As Saradamoni remarks, ‘Until the early nineteenth century, power within the [matrilineal joint family] was more a generational privilege than a gendered right. In other words, the elders in the family—women and men—would make decisions in matters pertaining to property, authority, inheritance or residence, and often women had special entitlements within the household.’98
The colonial state, however, began to recognise only the senior male member as the rightful exerciser of power in the family. The ‘steady singling out’ of the eldest man ‘as the figure to make settlements with by the Company in the early decades of the nineteenth century created a “sexual contract” between the state and men’, with the British ‘treating “headship” as a gendered right available normatively to men’ alone. By doing so they were ‘altering the existing equation’ where the eldest female had tremendous influence, over and above the eldest male.99 It was not as though the British were unaware of the changes they were making. As late as 1830 it was stated in the House of Lords that the ‘senior male of the family is generally considered as the manager, although, properly speaking, the senior female is the lawful proprietor. The Cannanore Beebee, for instance, also the Ranny or Queen of Travankore, under the name of Attingal Umma Tamburattes. Treaties, everything of importance is or should be done in her name, though the Rajah, her son, is the ruling Rajah.’100 But this was all in theory. In practice now, as Saradamoni concludes, ‘the senior woman was no longer the head of the family, having given place to the eldest male’.101
One of the reasons for this Western tendency to vest the male, rather than the female, with power was plain Victorian prejudice. In royal families particularly, the British viewed with enormous suspicion any hint of influence being granted to women. Females in royal households were determined, they were certain, to thwart their best intentions and the forward march of what they were convinced was ‘progress’. As Viceroy Lord Lansdowne declared in 1890, ‘In all cases where a very young ruler succeeds to a Native State, the widows of his predecessor give an infinite amount of trouble. Their object is of course to get hold of the boy and to bring him up under conditions, which in a few years will convert him into an imbecile and leave the power in their hands. Our object is to prevent such a state of things arising.’102 Thus, in Mysore, when a Regency commenced in that decade, the Maharani was dismissed as ‘a lady of domestic tastes who has not concerned herself with events beyond the range of her family and the palace walls. The palace is, as it ever was, a hotbed of petty and mischievous intrigues, and a lady living in seclusion might with the best of intentions be moved by evil influences to exert her authority in a wrong direction.’103 Having given her a chance, however, the Government of India were surprised to find that she was really ‘a woman of decided opinion and of considerable strength of character’ and ‘anyone who supposes she is going to prove a puppet is likely to find out his mistake’.104
Almost exact words were also employed in describing Sethu Lakshmi Bayi at the beginning of the Regency as being of ‘the pious, domestic, orthodox type’ before successive Residents realised she was, behind all that, a singularly capable woman. But the Government of India were never compelled to take a kinder view of women in royal families, because intrigues did transpire: in Travancore, for instance, courtesy the Junior Maharani. But intrigues and factions were features of courts and palaces across the world, with the only difference in India being the wholesale application of imported Victorian prejudices upon the situation so as to justify constant interference by the British. As Caroline Keen remarks, ‘rules of descent could be and were manipulated’ by the colonial state to fit their own needs, and powerful Residents held ‘the balance of power’ to determine which course the future would take.105 Under the same policy, internal traditions and customs, as in the case of the Sripadam dispute in Travancore or the Khasgi Estate in Indore, could also be dispensed with and replaced by what the Government of India deemed best in the interests of the state and its own influence over the ruler. By interfering with and amending the internal affairs of a family, promoting one group over another, and then doing just the opposite sometime later, Indian Maharajahs were not only taught that the British had the power to do so, but that their own royal authority was ‘a favour, not a right’.106
In Travancore, to be fair, however, the decline of the Attingal Rani had begun even before the British assumed supremacy. It was Martanda Varma who first commenced the process through the Silver Plate Treaty, and though Munro would, decades later, recognise that the Attingal Rani still sustained great influence at court and in the state, her power was really much reduced. He would specifically point to the intrigues of Chathayam Tirunal in the 1790s and the illegal adoption of a male heir despite the Attingal Rani’s opposition as proof of the latter’s diluted status. So while she was still revered, her ‘authority appears to have gradually been weaker and less respected’.107 Munro then unilaterally decided that instead of resuscitating the Attingal Rani and returning her to her original glory, since the involvement of the British now was with the Rajahs, ‘it appears to be expedient that we should continue the same constitution of Government’.108 At the same time, however, it was essential not to relinquish too much authority to male members in the dynasty. So, he added, ‘it may also be expedient that we should endeavour to augment as far as may be possible the dignity and consideration in the State of the [Ranis]; as their influence may be expected to temper the rash and inconsiderate resolutions of the Rajahs’.109 It was, in other words, the maxim of divide and rule implemented within a royal house.
It was held that since the Attingal Rani resigned her powers officially in 1731 through the Silver Plate Treaty, and because by 1810, despite theoretical primacy, she had no actual influence at court, any future position she enjoyed would be the gift not of tradition but of the East India Company. That is why when Gowri Lakshmi Bayi gave birth to a son in 1813, it was within Munro’s province to decide whether or not the Attingal Rani should be allowed to continue ruling. He recommended, for the reasons mentioned above, which would ‘be in part accomplished by vesting Her Highness the Rani with the charge of the Government during the long minority of her son’,110 the constitution of the first Regency rule. His superiors agreed that the ‘influence of the [Rani] in the State should be upheld to a certain extent with a view to temper and moderate the Proceedings of the reigning Rajahs’, and gave their blessings to the new arrangement.111 They were perfectly aware that under matrilineal law there was no concept of Regency, and that the senior female member of the dynasty was free to rule in her own name. They were also conscious that Queen Ashure, in a similar circumstance over a century before, had exercised full powers. But that letter and spirit of the law were changed. In 1814, thus, when Gowri Parvathi Bayi came to the throne, she too was denied the title of a reigning ruler (though she was styled ‘Uttrittadhi Tirunal Maharajah’). For, it was felt, ‘although perfect reliance might be placed on the natural affection of the [Rani] for the children of her deceased sister, yet it must be kept in mind that in the event of their decease, the right of succession would devolve on Her Highness or her offspring’.112 In other words, they would let the Attingal Rani rule, but only in theory as a trustee of the minor ruler, an
d on terms determined by the East India Company.
It was a similar consideration that the Government of India entertained when the Regency of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi (albeit as ‘Pooradam Tirunal Maharajah’) began in 1924. The Maharani apprised the Resident that were it not for these peculiar historic considerations, typically under the law she ought to have been ruling as a regnant queen and not as Regent. But this claim, though only mentioned in passing, was promptly quashed, stating that ordinary ‘Hindu Law does not and cannot apply to regalities’, i.e., princely houses, whose destinies had to be guided by the Paramount Power alone.113 Besides, as in the case of Gowri Parvathi Bayi a century before, it was ‘at once manifest that a system by which the senior lady of the family, who (as in the present case) is not necessarily the mother of the minor Ruler, conducts the administration in her own right and not as a trustee of the minor’s interests, is liable to abuse and is not one to which the Government of India could readily accord its approval’.114 Queen Ashure might have ruled in her own name. But a ‘safe precedent’ to be taken into account now was the one created by the British in the last century.115
That said the Government of India could not, all the same, ignore the unique position custom and traditional law granted the senior female member of the royal house in such a position. In 1814 when Gowri Parvathi Bayi came to power, she was only recognised as a Regent. But, as it was informed to Munro, ‘You will observe that the Governor in Council has not … assumed the power of appointing the [Rani] to the office of Regent of Travancore; but on the ground of your report, has acknowledged her right of accession to it, as the senior member of the reigning family. Her Highness has accordingly been addressed as if she had actually succeeded to the Regency.’116 In other words, while they did not accept the right of the Attingal Rani to succeed to full powers, she could succeed (as opposed to being appointed by the British) to the title of Regent (a British invention), as a compromise entirely of colonial vintage. Her powers were not curtailed, and as Munro stated, ‘the people were accustomed to regard her with the reverence and respect which they had paid to their Rajahs’ and ‘saw her occupy the place of the Rajah and scarcely found any difference in the constitution of the Government’.117 In Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s case too, she explained that while she was willing to accept she could never claim the title of regnant ruler, she wished for recognition that ‘the right of Regency is inherent in her and that she has as good a right to succeed to that office in the event of a minority … as has a natural heir in the direct line to succeed to the [throne]’.118
It took nearly four years of deliberations on the subject before the Viceroy in consultation with the Secretary of State in London reached a decision in 1928. While Mr Cotton was sympathetic to the Maharani’s claim, the Acting Resident, Mr Vernon, in 1926 advised the Government of India against it. He agreed that Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was the head of the royal family, with her own sign manual, and was ‘looked on in consequence in the State as holding ruling powers.’119 He also confirmed that ‘a hereditary right of succession [to full powers] on the failure of male heirs, and of Regency during a minority, is vested in the [Senior Rani] of Travancore, and that right was acknowledged and a precedent established’ in the nineteenth century. But now in the 1920s, he felt, this should not be allowed and the Maharani ought to be treated like all other ‘appointed’ Regents elsewhere in India and not ‘in her hereditary position as head of the Ruling Family’. For ‘the consequence,’ he declared in what was brazenly sexist, ‘will ensue that at any time the reins of power in Travancore may pass into the hands of a lady, totally inexperienced in statecraft, liable in the course of nature to be incapacitated for months together from attending to the business of the State, and not infrequently predisposed to lend too ready an ear to the advice of a husband whose position as consort of the Ruler is at best an anomalous one’.120
The Government of India, however, decided against tampering any more and creating a new precedent, not least because by this time Sethu Lakshmi Bayi had proved her administrative capabilities. And so late in 1927 the Viceroy wrote to London for permission to sanction the Attingal Rani’s right to succeed as regnant ruler when there were no males at all in the dynasty, and ‘to exercise by right (unless disqualified) the powers of Regent during a minority’.121 The Secretary of State gave his consent to this, and it was confirmed early in 1928 that she was ‘recognised as Regent by right and not by appointment’ in Travancore.122 But while the British were somewhat generous to Sethu Lakshmi Bayi during her rule in the 1920s, the crux of the matter was that all precedents and rules could, and were, altered and modified by the Government of India as they deemed fit at any moment. That is why in 1938, less than a decade after she relinquished the Regency, she found, like the Maharani of Indore, the Paramount Power sanctioning the Maharajah’s assumption of control over her estates, placing her firmly under his control. As a telegram from the Resident to the Government of India shortly after the dispute was settled noted, the ‘Maharani has now informed Maharajah that she will act in conformity with his directions in Sripadam affairs and matters relating to the family.’123
After battling Kowdiar Palace for nearly a decade, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was by now simply exhausted. And so she accepted defeat.
17
The Villain of the Piece
‘Darlingest, dearest, omanest mummie,’ rambled Princess Lalitha to her mother from Kovalam. The newly-wed was evidently missing her family and sought some maternal sympathy from the Maharani, who did not, she protested, write as frequently as she ought to have. Scribbling in her supremely unladylike scrawl, she went on to ask for some eminently more ladylike advice about her wardrobe:
Won’t you write a letter to me? I simply dance with excitement and do the famous stunt of standing-on-my-head and waving-my-heels when I receive letters from you Omane [i.e., dear one] … Now to come to a little business. Tomorrow we are supposed to present ourselves at KP (Bless it!). And you said that the light pink georgette will do. But I think it is too dull. I mean its colour. So why not the blue French sari or the dark green affair? Or the orange georgette with its heavy black border? Don’t you think it will suit?1
Sethu Lakshmi Bayi is bound to have been amused by her daughter, so happily acting the carefree bride, whose sole concerns in the world were clothes and her adoring new husband; at her age, the Maharani herself was coming to terms with having lost her baby son and venturing into her early battles with the palace bureau at Mulam Tirunal’s court. Now that Princess Lalitha was married and had come of age, as it were, she was expected to make separate courtesy calls at ‘KP’ to the Maharajah, along with her husband. Her rebelliousness had not abandoned her altogether after marriage; soon she would provoke a minor scandal in the Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple. She told bewildered priests, who wouldn’t treat her husband in the exalted fashion they did her, that she wouldn’t accept their obeisance until they welcomed Kerala Varma also in an equally befitting manner.2 ‘Like mother, like daughter,’ they probably mumbled since Sethu Lakshmi Bayi too in her day went out of her way to honour Rama Varma with an eminence higher than consorts could traditionally claim.
At Kovalam, days passed in a romantic breeze. The couple rode beside the waves in the mornings, played tennis and spent hours talking about their favourite topics as they walked barefoot on the beach—with the ubiquitous household guards in tow. Visitors called often to pay their respects. These included members from Kerala Varma’s family who were ‘completely overawed’ by Princess Lalitha and her sunny energy and zest for life.3 She could not visit them in Kilimanoor, due to court conventions, and so she welcomed them with all her warmth at Halcyon Castle. ‘She could ignite joy in any gathering,’ a cousin recalls,4 and she employed her famous charm to its fullest in a bid to win over her husband’s relations. ‘She encouraged father to take the front role, and made him feel rather more important than he was traditionally meant to be,’ their daughter tells. ‘In fact, she quite spoilt him!’ And realising how she
had no desire whatever to act the haughty princess, Kerala Varma’s family also became considerably more comfortable with her after an early phase of reverential obsequiousness.
Then in April 1939 Sethu Lakshmi Bayi heard from her daughter that she was unwell and nauseous with what, she presumed, was a reaction to being so close to the sea for many months. The Maharani knew better, and immediately commanded Dr Mary to examine the Second Princess. To her great elation, her suspicions were confirmed when it was announced that Princess Lalitha was expecting a child. The Maharani promptly wrote to her ‘to be very careful and not to allow her exuberant high spirits free rein so as to endanger the life of her baby’. A lot of bed rest, a healthy diet, and a suspension of dangerous outdoor sports were sternly advocated. She need not have fretted, though, for the young girl had severe bouts of nausea ‘and nothing was further from her thoughts than exuberance or high spirits’.5 Three months later an entourage arrived from Vellayini to escort her to the Maharani, under whose direct supervision she spent the remainder of her pregnancy.
It was around the same time that the Sripadam dispute reached breaking point. And this was precisely why Sethu Lakshmi Bayi was vexed by the suspension of her allowances, of household provisions, with even access to all her money barred by intimidation. With a pregnant daughter to care for, the problems that naturally followed this rancorous policy of the authorities assumed an added gravity. ‘Another anxiety which weighs heavily on my mind,’ she informed the Resident, ‘arises from the continued cessation of religious rites which used to be performed daily for the well-being of my daughters, and which as a result of the new Palace attitude, have been suspended. This is particularly regrettable at this juncture when special rites are customary owing to my elder daughter being an expectant mother. To a devout Hindu these rites possess great significance, and therefore their neglect causes me much uneasiness.’6
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