On a Shoestring to Coorg

by Dervla Murphy

  The young man smiled. ‘British people always liked those monuments – so my father told me. They reminded the Coorgs how lucky they were to have British rulers. They were put up by the last Raja, who was very cruel and mad and enjoyed hurting people. Every morning he liked to be wakened by two special elephants trumpeting under his bedroom window over there’ – he pointed across the compound. ‘Then one night he sent a message to the mahouts that he didn’t want to be wakened next morning, but they never got it. So in a temper when he was wakened too early he ordered the elephants and mahouts to be killed on the spot. But then he got his temper back and felt very sorry because they were such clever elephants. So he had those statues put up to honour them.’

  ‘And what about the mahouts?’ I asked.

  The young man gestured vaguely. ‘They were just riders,’ he explained. ‘Very clever and well-trained elephants are most valuable.’

  From the fort we walked to the other side of Mercara to investigate those conspicuous gilded domes which mark the mausoleums of two Lingayat rulers of Coorg: Doddavirarajendra (died 1809) and his brother Lingarajendra (died 1820). On a high, grassy ridge, directly overlooking Mercara and that apparently infinite turmoil of blue mountains which is Coorg, some six or seven acres were levelled to build the twin tombs. Both are massive, square buildings in Islamic style, with minaret-like corner towers surmounted by statues of Nandi, the sacred Hindu bull, and on each dome is a gilded ball and weathercock. The windows have solid brass bars and the syenite blocks of the window frames are handsomely carved, as are the pillars (representing various manifestations of Shiva) which flank the stone steps leading up to locked doors. Obviously these memorials were devised by a somewhat eccentric family and what they may lack in formal beauty they make up for in individuality and sheer impressiveness. They are, in fact, admirably suited to rulers who were power-hungry, cunning, erratic, considerably talented and religiously eclectic – or perhaps ‘omnivorous’ would be a better word.

  On the steep path up to the ridge we were overtaken by about twenty fascinated school-children who soon swept Rachel off to play on the smooth green turf around the tombs. This gave me a chance to sit in the sun studying the Coorg Gazetteer, which is quite informative about Doddavirarajendra and Lingarajendra. The former had no son and wanted his daughter Devammaji to succeed him, but she was only ten when her father died – having in his last years gone very mad and ordered the executions of many near relatives, principal officers of State and palace guards. Uncle Lingarajendra then usurped the throne and for nine years ruled energetically and efficiently, if unethically. He was succeeded by his dotty 20-year-old son, Chickkavirarajendra, who felt so unsure of his position that he soon became even dottier and organised the killing of an inordinate number of his own relations. His subjects then complained about him to the British overlords of neighbouring Mysore, who presumably were not displeased to be regarded by the Coorgs as protectors.

  Naturally, Vira Raja (as Chickkavirarajendra is usually called) was particularly anxious to kill his cousin Devammaji – the rightful heiress to the throne – and her husband Chen-nabasappa: so the young couple took refuge with the British Resident in Mysore, who refused to hand them back to an enraged Vira Raja. Vira Raja next wrote a series of rude letters to the Resident and, when these were ignored, begged several neighbouring rulers for military help against the foreign foe. If the British were looking for an excuse to annex Coorg this was it. Early in 1834 they accused Vira Raja of maladministration and made threatening noises. The Raja was then advised to surrender by his four Coorg dewans, who had long since come to despise the Lingayat dynasty and were openly pro-British – especially their leader, one Bopanna Apparanda.

  I won’t go into the earlier history of Coorg, which is bedevilled by gentlemen bearing such names as Satyavakya Kongunivarmmadharmma-maharajadhiraja and seems in any case rather obscure. But originally the Lingayat rulers were ‘outsiders’, so his subjects felt no obligation to remain loyal once Vira Raja had proved unworthy of respect. Moreover, the Coorgs had already, in the campaigns against Tippu Sultan, established a tradition of co-operation with the British and at the close of the eighteenth century a British Resident had been appointed to the Raja’s Court. So it is not surprising that satisfaction was expressed when Lieutenant-Colonel J. S. Fraser, representing the Governor General of India, met the assembled leaders of Coorg at Kushalnagar in April 1834 and informed them that their ruler had been deposed.

  Colonel Fraser then asked the leaders ‘to express their wishes without apprehension or reserve, in regard to the form of government which they desired to be established for the future government of the country.’ Without hesitation the Coorgs requested that their country be ruled by those laws and regulations already in force throughout the East India Company’s dominions. Whereupon Colonel Fraser proclaimed Coorg annexed, because the people wished to be ruled by Britain, and on 6 April 1834 the Union Jack went up over Mercara Fort.

  Thus did the British Lion acquire a valuable property without having to unsheathe his claws even once, the Coorgs being the only martial race on the subcontinent never to have taken up arms against the Raj. The Indian author of the Mysore Gazetteer for 1965 gratefully points out that ‘Coorg was under British rule from 1834 to 1947, over a century and a decade. The benefits conferred by the British rule were many and varied. The English built this state from a small loose-knit feudal principality into a prosperous and well-administered unit.’ So here we have one imperialist story with a happy ending, and I suppose most people have never heard of Coorg simply because ‘good news is no news’. While all sorts of gruesomely thrilling things were happening on The Frontier or in the Punjab, or in Lucknow or Calcutta or Sind or Maharashtra, the British and the Coorgs were being awfully nice to each other in Coorg.

  There was, however, one person for whom this story did not have a happy ending – the ‘Baddy’, Vira Raja. On surrendering Coorg he expressed a wish to be retained as Raja, though he appreciated he could never again be more than a figurehead, and he was extremely annoyed when hustled off to Benares on a pension. Having brooded over this grievance for years he went to London in 1852, with two of his wives and his favourite daughter, to complain personally to the British government. Nobody was interested, but Queen Victoria took pity on the first Indian prince to visit England and did a lot to help this forlorn little group of exiles. (Presumably she either did not know, or with regal tact pretended not to know, the status of the second lady in His Highness’s entourage.) Eventually Gowramma, the favourite daughter, became a Christian and married an Englishman. Her father died in London in September 1859 and not long after she and her only son also died – both of consumption. And thus ended the Lingayat dynasty which had ruled Coorg for 230 years.

  Looking up from my Gazetteer, I noticed that Rachel had her playmates – all of whom were 8 or 10 years old – completely under control. Everybody was doing exactly as she wanted them to do, and this is not the first time during the past fortnight that I have observed such a development. It worries me slightly that without one word of any common language a white child, who is being brought up in a totally unimperialistic environment of liberty, equality and fraternity, should unconsciously and effortlessly take up where the Raj left off.

  On the way back to our hotel I suddenly remembered, as we passed the Rotary Club, that when last heard of an English friend of mine was running a stud-farm in Mysore State. So few British residents remain in South India that it seemed likely somebody at the Club would have heard of the Fosters, and I soon discovered that their place is only forty miles north of Mercara, on the Coorg-Hassan border. Moreover, a helpful Rotarian said we could probably get a lift to Byerley Stud tomorrow with a local racehorse owner. A. C. Thimmiah – a cousin of the famous General – was then contacted by telephone and gladly agreed to meet us on the club veranda at 9.30 a.m.

  30 November. Byerley Stud, near Ballupet.

  We woke to an Irish morning; thin, drifting cloud w
as draped over Mercara’s mountains and the air felt cool and moist. ‘A fine soft day, thank God!’

  Punctually at nine-thirty Mr Thimmiah appeared, accompanied by his vivacious 25-year-old daughter, Sita. A. C. Thimmiah – who prefers to be known as Tim – lives on an estate fifteen miles south of Mercara. He has a kindly, gentle glance and an interesting smile – half-sardonic, half-shy – and for all his patrician ways there is about him an immediately endearing air of simplicity, goodness and modesty. He is one of those rare people who inspire affection the moment one meets them, before a relationship can be said to exist at all; and his hobby is expatiating on Coorg, so he must have rejoiced to find himself in the back of the car with such a willing listener.

  From Mercara our road descended gradually to Kushalnagar, winding through mile after dark green mile of coffee-estates, with Coorg’s ever-present jumble of blue mountains lying beyond a series of deep, heavily forested valleys. Tim explained that the whole character of this region changed after coffee-planting was introduced – probably by Moplah traders from the coast – about the middle of the last century. Captain Le Hardy, the first British Superintendent of Coorg, encouraged the pioneer planters and Europeans soon made it the area’s main cash crop. Finding the people and climate extraordinarily agreeable, many Europeans settled here, as owners or managers of plantations, and employed thousands of former slaves – freed when the British annexed Coorg – and further thousands of landless peasants from Mysore, Cochin, Hassan and South Kanara. Coffee-taxes provided the government with much revenue and soon cardamom jungles were being leased to the highest bidder, which meant even more revenue. New towns were built, old towns flourished and trade increased as imported articles became popular. Yet Coorgs remained the principal landowners, despite the influx of foreigners, and the whole Coorg community benefited enormously from the coffee-trade. However, there has to be a snag. By 1870 much of the forest had been converted to estates and now the annual rainfall is decreasing; even in the remaining forests the once-famous Coorg bamboo-thickets have declined. From time immemorial this region has regularly produced an abundance of rice for export to Malabar, but if the rainfall continues to decrease the paddy-crop must eventually suffer.

  Kushalnagar is a straggling, dusty little town some 2,000 feet lower than Mercara and only a few miles from the old Mysore-Coorg border. During British days it was called Fraserpet, in honour of that Colonel Fraser already mentioned, and Tim still uses this name. As we drove slowly through the crowded bazaar he told me that one of his great-grandfathers was Bopanna Apparanda – usually known as Dewan Bopu – who, as Vira Raja’s Chief Minister, was mainly responsible for persuading the last ruler of Coorg to surrender to the British. At Kushalnagar Dewan Bopu officially welcomed Colonel Fraser to Coorg, and soon afterwards became Captain Le Hardy’s right-hand man. During the Kanara rebellion of 1836-37 he led his own private army to fight at Sulya and Puttur, and then led a separate thousand-man expedition to put down ‘impostors’ in another direction. Afterwards, the British offered generous rewards to their allies. But Dewan Bopu, like every other Coorg leader, declined with thanks, pointing out that ‘We Kodavas do not require pay because to fight is our duty which we owe to our country to secure our tranquillity’. Later, during the Mutiny, Coorg volunteers stood guard at the Mysore, Malabar and Mangalore boundary posts and were rewarded for this spontaneous display of loyalty by being exempted from the 1861 Indian Arms act, which made it an offence for all other ‘natives’ to carry arms.

  As we drove into north Coorg, Tim explained that amidst the darkly tangled jungle on the steep mountains grew millions of rupees worth of teak, ebony, eucalyptus, rosewood, sandalwood and ood – a sweet-smelling wood of which I had never heard before. One rosewood tree, which will have taken sixty or seventy years to mature, is at present worth about £10,000. Pepper-vines, cardamom and various spices also grow wild in these forests, and a few timid aboriginal tribes survive in the remotest corners, only rarely emerging; but their numbers, sadly, are dwindling.

  Beyond the small town of Kodlipet the landscape changed to sweeping uplands of golden grass and low green scrub. Then, near the Coorg border, we exchanged the narrow main road for a bumpy dirt track and soon – for no particular reason, as it seemed – we had bounced off the track to drive for a few miles over open scrubland, leading apparently nowhere. When suddenly we were amidst trim paddocks, full of glossy mares and lively foals, I had the impression of a conjuring trick

  This eighty-acre stud-farm employs twenty-eight locals – mostly syces – for whom solidly built little houses are provided near by. According to Tim, the place was a wilderness when the Fosters took over; now it is a thriving example of what can be done in India with not much money but a great deal of thought and hard work. Apart from their bloodstock interests, Fred and Shelagh are keen to improve the local cattle and their approach to this problem is immeasurably more sensible than that of most international aid organisations. Like many Indian problems, this one seems insoluble at village level. Planters, landowners and state-run experimental farms can all afford to improve their stock, but what does this profit the half-starved villager and his family? Of what use is a fine sturdy heifer from an Ayrshire or Charollais bull if she cannot get the feed she needs to keep her big frame fit? Before you improve village cattle you must improve the available fodder and Fred is now experimenting to find out which of the various new strains of grass is best suited to this area.

  There is a nice sense of historical continuity about the Fosters’ present way of life. Their ancestors were pioneers in New Zealand and India and they are still carrying on the tradition in this remote corner of Mysore, much of which was originally opened up by Fred’s father. Their little bungalow is emphatically a Pioneers’ home, rather than an Exploiters’, and to our great delight the ‘guest room’ is an ancient and honourable horse-box called Genghis Khan, which has several times done the India–Britain–India round trip behind an even more ancient and honourable Land-Rover.

  Also staying here for the week-end are the Fosters’ only remaining European neighbours, David and Jane Hughes, who manage a company plantation eighty miles away, at the far end of Coorg. For the few Europeans who have not yet uprooted from rural India loneliness is obviously something of a problem, though they may have adjusted gracefully to an independent India and acquired many Indian friends. However, it is hard to imagine such people, whose families have usually been India-based for generations, at ease against any other background. They still need India: and I strongly suspect that India, though she would never admit it, still needs them.

  After lunch we strolled around the farm, which on all sides overlooks silent miles of untouched country, stretching away in green-brown-gold undulations to the lavender shadows of distant mountains. In every sense, the atmosphere here is totally unpolluted. Indian atmospheres tend to be very strong, whatever their quality. On that evening last week when we entered Mysore State from Goa, our bus passed through a village on the edge of the forest where I was quite overcome by an awareness of evil – a feeling altogether unexpected and inexplicable, but none the less definite for that. (I omitted it from my diary that night because I was still trying to shake off the unpleasant after-effects.) Similarly, amidst this tranquil isolation one is very aware of Good being in the ascendancy: perhaps Varuna dwells here.

  1 December. Byerley Stud.

  We breakfasted on the veranda (bacon and eggs, naturally) while files of almost black-skinned men and women servants passed to and fro, their bare feet noiseless on the dewy grass, their ornaments tinkling and flashing, their eyes respectfully averted from the sahibs and mem-sahibs, who were putting away more good food in fifteen minutes than the average Indian can lay hands on in a month.

  One of the stable girls is particularly striking: tall, lithe and elegant in an emerald-green sari, with ebony hair tied in a glossy, waist-length tress. Her regular, fine-boned features wear a permanent expression of faintly amused disdain and she is unmis
takably a personality. However, as a guest I would be wasting my time trying to establish contact; in India, any attempt to run with the hare and the hounds inevitably leaves all concerned feeling thoroughly embarrassed. But I can’t help wondering what she and her contemporaries make of European employers: certain subtle changes of attitude must surely have taken place during the past quarter-century. A whole generation has grown up that was born free – if ‘free’ is an allowable adjective for India’s poverty-bound millions – and even in a backwater like this the no-longer-ruling sahibs and mem-sahibs must be suffering from some loss of status. And yet – while writing these words I have remembered Rachel’s bossing of her Indian playmates, who seem never to resent the domineering white child. Plainly the British control of their Indian Empire was based on something more than Might, though I honestly do not know whether I believe that ‘something’ to have been a defect in the Indian character, or a virtue in the British, or a combination of virtues and vices on both sides that just happened to make possible the domination of millions by thousands.

  Throughout today I have felt as though I had slipped back fifty or a hundred years in time, not because there is anything imperialistic about the way of life at Byerley Stud but because much of our conversation could have been lifted straight from an Edmund Candler novel, with occasional lapses into Flora Annie Steel. And of course having servants of any kind about the place does strike the visitor fresh from Europe as too quaint for words. Their presence gives an entirely different flavour to life, which is nice for a change, though personally I should not care for it permanently. However, the villagers working here undoubtedly appreciate being well paid, housed, fed and clothed; they would never be able to comprehend my democratic distaste for the sort of relationship that is traditional in India between masters and servants and that appears to them as a right and proper extension of the caste system.