Book Review : The Ivory Throne by Manu S. Pillai (Rating ****)

This book specifically concentrating on the history of Travancore kingdom, a southern part of Kerala, also gives in-depth information of general history of Kerala, The famous Zamorins, The Vasco Da Gama etc. The story starts from 16^th century when Portuguese first succeeded to reach India. The rulers were rich through trade with Europe since thousands of years, but were fools not to create a good military force to counter aggression by external forces and also divided among small states within states, each fighting with each other to gain control over the region and trade. The great mistake they had done was partnering with European forces like Portuguese, Dutch, French and the British. These foreign forces took advantage of divided India to slowly swallow the whole India under British flag. For 200 years they used India as their source of free raw material and labour force to feed their factories in England. They used some of Indian Rajahs and Princes to help them control India and in return they allowed them to rule small patches of land under the watchful eyes of British residents. Travancore was such a small state under full control of British. The book gives in-depth information about those British ruled period of India and how they managed this vast country with small number of intelligent and adventurous force.

 

The book is largely a biography of one of the Travancore princess Sethu Lakshmi Bayi and is biased towards her as a hero of the story. Her counterpart Sethu Parvathy Bayi is portrayed as a villain. The author seems to be a family friend of Lakshmi Bayi family from whom he has derived a large part of the story of this book. The book gives detailed overview of the Travancore Kingdom from the period of the King Martand Varma till present day. The book seems to be taking advantage of the sudden news of the Padmanabhswamy Temple treasures revealed in the newspapers all over the world. The story of Sethu Parvathy Bayi and her son Chithira Tirunal is neglected and we find very little detail about them. The Sethu Lakshmi Bayi is portrayed as a maker of modern Kerala in her small period of power as a regent of the state, supported by British rulers.

The writing style of the author is very smooth and lucid. His command on English is good. He have done good research on the subject and received good support from Sethu Lakshmi Bayi family. The book have good pace in the beginning but looses pace in the middle half and then again gets good pace at the end. The biography is much extended and contains unnecessary details. The book is little pain to complete due to its large size. The author could have limited the book to half of its current size.

The book is highly biased towards Sethu Lakshmi Bayi and looks like is created on her behalf to tell the story of Travancore through her lenses. The book could have balanced this bias by telling the story of Parvathy Bayi in detail. Some sub stories like that of Sir CP could have been reduced as the person is eligible to be described in a completely different book. Though author have praised the Travancore rulers it is a fact that these so called Rajahs and Princes ruling in British raj were actually no more than British agents. They helped the British to consolidate their rule in India and worked against freedom fight of India. The decision to allow them to be Rajah or Prince, and giving them huge pensions even after Independence was unfortunate. The system should have been dissolved completely and their no meaning in calling these peoples the Rajah or Prince, while rest of their country mates are dying in poverty.

Manu Pillai is a young writer, yet the quality of work he has delivered is really admirable. The book is very big, yet hat he have managed to keep it a smooth reading experience till its last page. The pictures of all the characters of book give it a life. The author have done proper research on the subject and have left no stone unturned. Overall this book is highly recommended for history lovers in India.