Nmml Talk Nov 27 Abstract
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Transcript of Nmml Talk Nov 27 Abstract
Historical Fiction and the Questions of Sovereignty:
Aesthetic Form and Memory Making
in Early Twentieth Century Travancore
Udaya Kumar
This paper considers the fictional and political writings of C. V. Raman Pillai
(1858-1922, widely known as C. V.), whose trilogy of historical romances
Marthandavarma (1891), Dharmaraja (1913), and Ramarajabahadur (1918-19)
presented celebratory accounts of two eighteenth century Kings of Travancore
Marthandavarma (reg. 1729-58) and Ramavarma (reg. 1758-98). In the two
decades that separated his first two novels, C. V. published several essays of
political criticism under the title Videshiyamedhavitvam (Foreign Rule) opposing
the appointment of non-native Brahmins as Dewans of Travancore. Although his
three historical romances were ostensibly focused on Travancore Kings, C. V.
saw Dharmaraja and Ramarajabahadur as the first two novels in a planned
trilogy on the eighteenth century Nayar Dewan Kesava Pillai (1745-99), better
known as “Raja Kesavadas” after an honorific conferred on him by the British. In
addition to this shift in focus from the King to the Nayar Minister, a new level of
complexity is found in C. V.’s fiction in its recurrent, obsessive preoccupation
with a family of rebel Nayar chiefs (Madampimar) who rise from the ashes, novel
after novel, to confront royal power. While images of Nayar loyalty, valour and
governance appear as direct objects of celebration, the novels also manifest a
subterranean strain of heroic mourning for forms of Nayar power destroyed by
Marthandavarma’s consolidation of the Travancore state. The paper argues that
tensions between these two configurations of sovereignty underlay C. V.’s
fictional and political projects. In his historical romances, through a deft use of
stylized narration and visual and performance schema drawn from classical and
folk traditions from the region, C. V. created modes of characterisation and
discourse that brought together praise and mourning, Nayar assertion and
ritualised royal acclamation. The paper analyses some aspects of the aesthetic-
political work performed in C. V.’s historical novels.