An amazing phenomenon of human history is the manner in which the English people ventured to India’s shores, waited partiently for over a century planning their trade as humble merchants till its political fortunes began to wane and then subjugated the country.
The English East India Company entered into treaties, sanads and engagements with the native states of India as per the charter of Charles II. One of the earliest treaties signed by the English Company with an Indian power was the treaty of 1723 entered with the princely state of Travancore.
By the treaty the contracting parties agreed to be “in league and united in good friendship”. From the status of a trading concern, the company gradually rose to one of the most important territorial and political power in India after its victory over Siraj-ud-daula. From the time of the last Perumal until the rise of Martanda Varma (1729-58) the political structure of Kerala had remained more or less the same.
When the Dutch conquered Cochin there were only four kings but there existed forty-six petty chieftains. The kings were the Rajas of Venad, Cochin and Chirakkal (Kolattiri) and the Zamorin of Calicut. Then there were small states like Desinganad, Karunagapally, Kayamkulam, Purakkad, Poonjar, Thekkumkoor, Vadakkumkoor, Karappuram, Alangad, Idapally, Parur, Palghat and Kottayam (Malabar). Ignoring the traditional ideal of kingship long existing in Kerala, Maratandavarma of Venad, conquered and annexed the principalities as far as Cochin.
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Thus by 1763 the Kerala coast had three main political-cum-territorial divisions, namely Travancore, Cochin and Calicut. This redrawing of the map of Kerala into three political divisions had far-reaching effects on the polity and society. It crushed the power of the Nayar nobility for every the change led to the establishment of the modern type of centralised bureaucratic governments under the monarch.
The rise of Mysore Sultans in the middle of the 18th century turned the isolated Peninsular India into an area of vigorous political and military activity in 1789, the English, the Nizam and the Marathas formed a coalition to combat Tipu’s expansionism. The subsequent catastrophe ended in the treaty of Seringapatam, signed on the 18th of March 1792. It freed Kerala coast from the menace of Tipu.
The state of Travancore which had contributed considerably in men and money to the war efforts of the British was no longer assailable by any native power. The state of Cochin was freed from its humiliating vassalage to Mysore. The area north of Cochin, which originally belonged to the Zamorine of Calicut, was ceded to the British.
Like England out of the Wars of Roses, Malabar emerged from the pangs of the old order. East India Company now assumed the role of the overlord of the coastal strip. However it took some time for the company to make its sovereignty effectively felt throughout the country.
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In about 1800, most of the chiefs were deprived of their last vestiges of power and after 1807 the whole of Malabar began to be systematically governed by the company. The great royal families of Malabar, from the Zamorin downwards; were by executive acts reduced to the position of mere landholders and powers putting an end to their age-old political independence.