Cochin and its twin city, Ernakulam, have resurfaced many times in my life. When I was still in my teens, my parents and I would travel every year from Delhi to Trichur (now Thrissur). My mother’s tharavadu house was located there, a palatial mansion close to the heart of the city with floors of Italian marble set amid acres of land.
On every trip, we had to make a mandatory visit to the Hill Palace at Thrippunithura not far from Ernakulam. My mother was distantly related to the Maharaja of Cochin, and it was obligatory to visit him and pay our respects. Parikshit Thamburan, as he was widely known, had no administrative responsibilities after India gained independence, but he was well regarded by the people for his great learning and simple ways.
My relationship with Cochin did not stop with that early association with the Hill Palace. Shortly after I was allocated to the Kerala cadre in the IAS, and after I had completed my first stint of two months in the Devicolam subdivision, I was appointed sub-collector of Fort Cochin in 1972.
I was newly married and it was a great experience staying in the old Dutch fort called Bastion Bungalow, located at the mouth of the harbour, watching large ships pass by blaring their horns. Bastion Bungalow is now a museum, meticulously curated by my friend V Venu, who was the chief secretary of Kerala not too long ago. We revisited it a couple of years ago, paying the modest entrance fee. Parts of the house retained their old shape, while the museum had expanded.
My relationship with the twin cities didn’t end with my first assignment either. I returned for three years as managing director of Kerala State Civil Supplies Corporation, a tenure that was very successful for me. My next stint there, which lasted a full five years, was with the Union ministry of commerce, as chairman of the Spices Board.
All these memories came flooding back when I read Cochin: Fame and Fables by M K Das, editor of the Indian Express and, later, The New Indian Express in Cochin.
As Das writes, Cochin’s growth really started with the expansion of the port, which happened after a tsunami in 1341 CE destroyed the ancient port of Muziris. The great Greco-Roman navigational text from the first century CE, Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, refers to the older port in the following words: “Muziris, of the [Pandyan] kingdom, abounds in ships sent there with cargoes from Arabia and by the Greeks; it is located on a river (the Periyar), distant from Tyndis by river and sea five hundred stadia, and up the river from the shore twenty stadia.” The precise location of Muziris is now a matter of hot debate among historians of Kerala. In Kerala, archaeology moves at a snail’s pace, and hence the debate may not reach a quick resolution.
Das’s book covers many facets of this historic city, which, over time, attracted people from various parts of India and the world—not just to visit, but to strike roots and generate trade and prosperity. I am focusing on one particularly fascinating chapter: the growth of the port. It is fascinating because I see that its development faced the same challenges that still plague Kerala today: conflict, resistance, protests, and delays.
The first known mention regarding the possibility of a port came from one Captain Castor in the middle of the 19th century, when he noticed the Narakkal mudbank that protected a ship during a furious storm along the coast. The construction of the Suez Canal significantly reduced the cost of shipping from Europe to the East and made the Cochin port yet more attractive to traders.
The Cochin Chamber of Commerce, led by the indomitable J H Aspinwall, took up the port’s cause. The inland backwaters could be used to shelter large ships that, at the time, unloaded their cargoes into lighters, which brought them to the mainland. I was reminded of container traffic into India, 70 percent of which used to pass through Colombo, Singapore, and the ports of West Asia, and is now being targeted for diversion to Vizhinjam near Trivandrum, which faced similar teething troubles as Cochin.
The lighters mounted a strong resistance and the British government in Madras hesitated. The situation began to change only when Robert Bristow arrived in Ernakulam on April 13, 1920. He recognised the merit in the proposal and went on to exemplify how work can get done in Kerala—how one determined individual, fighting all odds, can prevail. He battled against the shipping agents, particularly the lighter operators, dealers aiming to profit quickly by selling land to him, and the ‘rich and powerful residents of Ernakulam’ who opposed having a port nearby.
I was once again reminded of the fight against land acquisition for the Airport Authority of India in Trivandrum, which was argued on the grounds that ‘airports benefit only the wealthy,’ until the then chief minister put his foot down.
Three stages of the Cochin port were completed in eight years. Das quotes an elated Bristow: “What was considered impossible nearly seventy years ago has been accomplished. They trusted me, and I had not let them down; for eight years, we fought off every attempt to sidetrack Cochin and found a way through every engineering and other emergency.” The fourth stage was even more complicated; even the Cochin Chamber of Commerce lost confidence. Nonetheless, Bristow stood firm. The final signature came from the Maharaja of Cochin.
Every achiever in Kerala has had to struggle. Verghese Kurien once told me that he would never have been able to build his vast network of milk cooperatives had he started in Kerala. Yet another Kurien, an IAS officer, battled his way through to make a magnificent, fully-solar-powered airport at Nedumbassery near Ernakulam. And now, Adani Ports, supported at all stages by the state government, has built a container port that could change the face of Kerala’s economy.
In Kerala, determination is the name of the game.
K M Chandrasekhar | Former Cabinet Secretary and author of As Good as My Word: A Memoir
(Views are personal)
(kmchandrasekhar@gmail.com)
