The Travancore Connection

The Travancore Connection
Jayaram Poduval

Published by: Baroda Kerala Samajam, 2006, Baroda, India

My childhood memories are linked to Thiruvananthapuram as I did my schooling there. Then of course the city was known as Trivandrum in English, it was not the city with crowded roads with bee line of cars, Rickshaw and colored city buses as one sees now from Statue Junction to East fort. It was much greener, less crowded with only few ministers and government officials having cars. Lambretta scooter and the green Benz KSRTC city buses were only other modes of transport with powerful Grey colored buses of ISRO here there. Only place you would see the absolute rush would be in Civil Supplies Super Markets where you could get the vegetables, pulses, household items and even Sari in festival seasons. I am talking about the 70’s Trivandrum when the city was dominated with city buses. A city of middle class population; who work in the government offices, Nationalized Banks, and few Industries. The scene at 5pm in the evening at Statue Junction still gives me nostalgic nightmares. From Spencer junction, near University Collage, till Pulimood Junction, people will be waiting to catch the city buses; vigilantly looking towards the direction of East Fort. They were alert like the cowboys of Hollywood movies, ready for any consequences, holding on to their tiffin boxes and bags, thinking about the rural charm and peacefulness in their homes in Peroorkada, Vattappara, Vattiyurkavu, Peyadu or Veli. It was city in slow motion, innocent and less ambitious.

Among the sea of people opposite the Secretariat, waiting and strategizing about how to jump into a moving bus, stands a statue of a man who is responsible for the Secretariat building and who led the bureaucracy of Trivandrum for almost two decades. He is the person who is instrumental in the modernization of Travancore state; he is Sir T Madhava Rao, the erstwhile Dewan of Travancore State. When I visited Trivandrum or the present Thiruvananthapuram I spent few minutes in front of the Statue of Madhava Rao. In my school days I used to catch the bus next to this sculpture but never bothered to look at it, but my attachment with Baroda forced me to look at the Statue with reverence now.
I saw the statue of Madhava Rao not as the image of the erstwhile Dewan of Travancore but as the image of Sir Sayajirao’s tutor and Dewan of Baroda. A portion of a web page on Sir Sayajirao III reads thus, “Sir Sayajirao III ascended the gadi (throne) at Baroda, 16th June 1875 but being a minor reigned under a Council of Regency until he came of age and was invested with full ruling powers, 28th December 1881. During his minority he was extensively tutored into the administrative skills by Raja Sir T. Madhava Rao who groomed his young protégé into being a ruler with foresight and with a will to provide welfare to his people”.

The concept of welfare state remains only in academic discussions and the political manifestos and never being implemented. Consider this statement which reads thus, “ a welfare state should provide for every subject within a couple of hours journey, the advantages of a doctor, a school master, a judge, a magistrate, a registering officer and a post master”. This is the statement of T Madhava Rao way back in 1870. If one changes the hour to minute considering the elapsed 130 plus years, this statement still holds value in many parts of India. Education for all, regardless of caste and creed, upliftment of women through education all these seem to be having contemporary relevance and the vision of T Madhava Rao. His students, the Maharajas of Travancore and Baroda took initial steps in this direction through the establishment of Baroda Collage, and Arts Collage in Thiruvananthapuram.

One of the web sites on women education in India states thus, “It was in 1863 that Augusta M. Blanford, one of the earliest English Zenana Missionaries, came to Trivandrum. In July 1864, when she was introduced to Maharaja Ayilyam Tirunal, Augusta expressed her desire to establish a school for the girls of the upper caste communities. Both the Maharaja and the Dewan, Sir T. Madhava Rao, agreed to help her. In her book, `The Land of the Conch Shell', she describes how she came to start the school. "The Dewan appropriated for my use a large old palace (Vadakkekottaram) built for a former Dewan. It was within the Fort, the most sacred enclosure in Trivandrum. Though it was meant to be for a former Dewan, he explained as he walked upstairs, it was never inhabited, being thought to be haunted. You, as a Christian, will not be afraid of ghosts, he added smiling". Augusta soon occupied the building and the school was opened on November 3, 1864. The school started out with the daughter and niece of Sir T. Madhava Rao and two little girls of the Nair community.


The story sighted above was to illustrate how Madhava Rao was open to fresh ideas which would suite his ideas of the welfare state. This attitude of Madhava Rao enabled him to pioneer many projects in Travancore and at Baroda. His understanding of the local [also can be read as the native] sentiments and the British ideas gave him the position of a perfect arbitrator between the Princely states and that British administration. The financial administration of Madhava Rao was exemplary as it has been proved in the cases of Travancore, Indore and Baroda. He was appointed as Dewans in these princely states when they were going through a financial crisis. As soon as Madhava Rao came to the scene the same states recorded surplus in revenue.

He hailed from the family lineage of Dewans as his father Venkata Rao was a Dewan of Travancore himself. Madhavarao’s father Venkata Rao was a tutor of young Swati Tirunal. Col. Welsh in his Military Reminiscences states: “I have not made any mention of the present Dewaun, an uncommonly handsome, fair and elegant Carnatic Brahmin [should be understood as Tamil Brahmin]. His name is Venkit Rao and he is one of the most intelligent, well educated men, I have met with in India, and writes an excellent letter. As far as I could learn he was most attentive and unremitting in his exertions for the improvement of the country and the good of the State. Such a man to educate the young princes would have been “worth his weight in gold”.

Son of this refined Carnatic Brahmin, Madhava Rao joined the service of the Travancore Maharaja in 1857 when he was appointed as the Dewan. He started as tutor to the Maharaja when he was elevated to the position of Deputy Dewan and subsequently to the highest post in the princely state administration. He had to sort out the chaos in the financial administration and face the revolt of the Channar community in the southern Travancore right in the outset of his office as the Dewan. The relation between the Travancore administration and British Government was also at low ebb. Madhava Rao would set them all right within no time. He believed that His efforts got commented upon in the House of Commons as an architect of the “Model Native State”. Visakham Tirunal the heir to the Travancore throne would describe his efforts stating that “Madhava Rao grasped the helm of the ship of state firmly, guiding the vessel not only to safety but to glory.”

The period when Madhava Rao held the office of Dewan, the financial state of the country developed from deficit to surplus resulting in the development of public works and introduction of new colonial style of building style. The prominent colonial architects like Robert Fellowers Chisholm (1840-1915) got engaged in the building activities of the state. The main museum at Thiruvananthapuram called as Napier Museum to commemorate the erstwhile Governor of Madras Lord Napier was conceived during the fag end of Madhava Rao’s stint as the Dewan.

1872 Madhava Rao left the service of the Travancore Maharaja but the British administration asked him to look after the affairs of Indore which was in a chaotic situation. As a man now identified by the British as the trouble shooter set the records straight in no time. The rich state of Baroda was going under a crisis at that time. Again the trouble shooting job fell on Madhava Rao who joined the service of Gaekwads as the tutor to young Sayajirao Gaekwad. He no doubt inculcated the spirit of welfare state in the young Sayajirao which is proved in the able administration of this most revered Maharaja later.

Baroda was one among the princely state of western India prior to Maharaja Sayajirao III, however his rule saw Baroda being counted among the richest, best administered princely state in India with a reputation of being the centre of education, culture and arts. It was during Sayajirao’s reign, Baroda got the epithet proudly displayed as the cultural capital of Gujarat. The architecture wonders of Baroda like the Baroda Collage, Nyaya Mandir, Lakshmivilas Palace, Music Collage, Museum and Picture Gallery were built in this period. The architect of many of these buildings was none other than Chisholm who started his career as the architect of princely state in Travancore under the Dewanship of Madhava Rao. Madhava Rao also contributed to the painting tradition of Baroda introducing M C Naidu and Ravi Varma to Maharaja Sayajirao. Both served the Baroda for a long time as “artist in the court service”. The contribution of Ravi Varma, the real Malayalee to Baroda art scene need no further eulogizing.

So, next time when you are in Thiruvanthapuram, at Statue Junction just look for the statue of this visionary responsible for the modernization of Travancore and Baroda states, right in front of the Government Secretariat and the earlier Legislative Assembly of Kerala, amidst shops like Kairali, Mukkadan Wines, NBS, Current Books and DC books. The junction has become crowded with cars and two wheelers parked all around, occasional political processions walking by, with red and yellow striped city buses and white colored plush “Ananthapuri Fasts” clogging the road. Madhava Rao stands there the symbol of administrative brilliance of a welfare state, opposite to Velu Thampi Dalava who stood for the spirit of freedom in a welfare state. The politicians who aspire make the welfare state has migrated long ago. May be they could stand the stare of these symbols of good governance.