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Literary Review
PEOPLE
More questions than answers
BAGESHREE
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This book is the first account of Kodava history from a non-colonial perspective.
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Nuggets from Coorg History, C.P. Belliappa, Rupa & Co., Rs. 195.
C.P. Belliappa’s book raises interesting questions on Kodava history, but does not always interrogate them rigorously. His earlier book, Tale of a Tiger’s Tail and Other Yarns from Coorg was a charming collection of ess
ays on the little, delightful details of Kodava life that drew from folklore, quasi-historical anecdotes and personal experiences. With Nuggets from Coorg History the author attempts a more academic documentation of a phase of the history of the region.
Belliappa, however, still fights shy of venturing into a full-fledged historical account and lays two caveats in the introduction. He says that he has only “gleaned interesting episodes” from the period between 1600 and 1956 and that he has “dramatised the stories to some extent” to render them interesting even while keeping the events and dates factual. By not claiming to present either a complete or a strictly factual account, he wards off any possible question on representation or authenticity.
What makes Nuggets from Coorg History important is that there have hardly been any accounts of Kodava history from a non-colonial perspective. As the author acknowledges in the introduction, the only extensive account by an Indian is a book in Kannada by D.N. Krishniah.
The first few pages are a little sluggish, with too many inconsequential details about genealogy hampering the pace. But the narrative gets interesting as the stories of the two significant kings of the Haleri dynasty which ruled Kodagu — Dodda Veerarajendra and Chikka Veerarajendra — begin to unfold. The complex political equations of the time, the baffling family intrigues and the idiosyncrasies of the kings add up to make a gripping narrative.
Particularly interesting are the accounts of some Kodava women narrated in the book. While the story of Doddavva is striking for amazing strength and bravery, the story of Princess Victoria Gowramma, Chikka Veerarajendra’s daughter whom he ironically wanted brought up as a Christian and completely Anglicised woman, is a sad account of a free-spirited individual struggling to adapt to an alien land with straight-laced Victorian values.
The book sets a reader thinking on several interesting questions. For example, what were the historical and sociological factors that made Kodavas, who resisted the “foreign” invasion of Hyder and Tipu, accommodative when the British took control? In fact it is even worth asking if they were, indeed, as accommodative as they were made out to be by the colonial accounts.
Ambivalent attitudes
For instance, the book talks of a “highly provocative” proclamation by Chikka Veerarajendra in 1834 to rally together “the Hindus, Muslims, peasants, merchants and the people of other castes in Hindustan to rise against the foreigners on a mission to convert the people of the land to their religion.” Can one dismiss his defiance of the British as simply a selfish and politically misguided move or is it possible to read strains of an anti-colonial resistance into it?
A very pertinent observation the author makes is that the Kodavas, who welcomed many English ways, doggedly refused to move away from their own traditions. They stoutly resisted the efforts of the British to convert them to Christianity. What are the sociological factors at play behind this ambivalence towards the Western culture?
These questions demand a more rigorous interrogation than Nuggets from Coorg History attempts. They need to be handled with sensitivity too because the contemporary context in Karnataka holds the potential to skew them in dangerous directions. A statement on how Tipu “threw his secular credentials to the wind when there was any opposition to his authority” (p. 47) cannot, for instance, be made without contextualising it in a specific historical time with adequate references.
Let us hope Belliappa writes a third book on Kodagu that engages with the region’s history in an even more meticulous manner and on a broader canvas.
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