History is said to be a detailed narrative of what actually did happen. Learning lessons from it has been of great benefit to successive generations in their overall conduct of affairs. But, what if what happened had not happened, the ‘what ifs’ of history, or, to use the terminology of academics, the counter-factuals? They too hold great lessons as they, to quote historian-author Robert Cowley, ‘can be a tool to enhance the understanding of history, to make it come alive. They can reveal, in startling detail, the essential stakes of confrontation, as well as its potentially abiding consequences.

One often asked quibble, for instance, has been whether the course of history would have been different had the nose of Queen Cleopatra been an inch longer. Or, from Cowley’s example, if the Persians had beaten the Athenians in the historic Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE, or nearer home, if the first war of independence in 1857 had a different outcome. Such instances are plenty and juxtaposing them with the actual happenings is apt to give a new insight into many of the long-held assumptions on men and matters that shaped the course of mankind.

The contextual relevance to Cochin can hardly be missed. The fame and fortune it came to acquire over decades, even centuries, would not have possibly come about had the massive tsunami of 1341 not destroyed the then booming port town of Muziris and opened up Cochin as a major port of call on the west coast of India. What enabled the latter were the bounteous quantities of mud that got deposited off the Cochin coast, creating in the process a long stretch of mudbank which subsequently helped build one of the finest all-weather, deep-water natural ports in the world. Thus began the saga of Cochin.

Arguably, the port was just the trigger that set in motion a slew of facilitating support systems-broadly understood as infrastructure-which together hastened the transformation of the cluster of fishing villages into a teeming metropolis. Indeed, it was the indomitable will and determination of a few men like Sir Robert Bristow, His Highness Sir Sri Rama Varma of Cochin State, Dewan Sankara Warrier, Sir Shanmukham Chetty and a few others who worked on their shared dream that finally made it actionable.

Bristow’s vision did not stop just at the port. He knew it well that without matching support systems-good road and rail connectivity to bring cargo from near and far, well. equipped warehouses to store outgoing and incoming cargo and a township with all the necessary amenities to house the workforce and their families, to name the more important- the port would not only be unviable but purposeless. It was with this in mind that he insisted on extending the mainland railway network to the port area, aside from improving road connectivity with both the mainland and neighbouring Mattancherry. This inevitably meant roping in official agencies like the railways, civic bodies and a host of major and minor departments. In the event, it wasn’t easy and often proved tauntingly tricky just as the detractors’ manipulations to stall the port project were challenging.

Not that these factors had not been factored in while planning for the port and the support systems. If Bristow had been able to overcome most of them, it was only because he had anticipated most of them and strategised his responses. A close reading of his ground-breaking work, Cochin Saga, will vouch for it. 

But overall, neither the East India Company nor the British Empire was averse to investing in infrastructure. Both knew that in the long run it was necessary to serve their larger politico-economic interests. The general impression in England was that improving and modernising inland communications-roads, railways, ports, etc. would eventually open up new areas of investment for enterprising Europeans. The optimism was not misplaced as India did emerge as a major source of enrichment of the British Empire. No wonder, it earned the sobriquet ‘the brightest jewel in the British Crown. All other colonies, by comparison, remained far less lustrous.

There was, however, a short interregnum in economic activity in the aftermath of the First War of Independence in 1857, largely, if not wholly, out of pique over what happened that, more than anything else, deeply hurt the British pride. ‘The Rebellion, as it was also termed by British historians, was a watershed in the 200-years-long British rule. It marked the end of the East India Company as the sole dispenser of power and pelf and the beginning of direct rule by the British Crown. The then reigning queen, Victoria, became the Empress of India. It was a major shift in the fortunes of the British Empire in every sense of the term.

Indeed, the change of guard was more in form than substance. The colonial mindset of the new rulers was no different from that of the East India Company, and it became clear at the beginning itself. In a seemingly knee-jerk reaction to the events of 1857, the new rulers decided to put all development projects in abeyance just to teach the natives a lesson. Many prime projects-the Cochin Port and allied works, the coffee and tea plantations that later became the leitmotif of British entrepreneurship and few rail and road projects were among the casualties,

But it did not take much time for the rulers back in London to realise that neglect of infrastructure-bridges, rails and other communication networks was one reason why the British army took a bloody beating in the early days of the native onslaught, as the army could not be moved in time to contain the movement. It, therefore, called for early rectification. In the event, projects that had been put on the back-burner were taken out and dusted off for quick implementation. The 250-km-rail track that had been laid down by 1856, for example, was stretched to 6400 km by 1870 and further to 16,000 km by 1880. Similarly, construction on inland and overland telegraph links was revived, taken up on a war footing and completed by 1870. That, in sum, opened up new vistas of development. Incidentally, the first telegraph link in India, commissioned in November 1850, was between Calcutta and Diamond Harbour, a distance of about 50 km.

[Niyogi Books has given Fair Observer permission to publish this excerpt from Cochin: Fame and Fables, M. K. Das, Niyogi Books, 2024.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.