Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Reject the alibi

Sir, — Travancoreans of my generation would have been amazed to read the report of P.C. Alexander's speech on January 21 at the C.P. Ramaswamy Memorial Foundation in Chennai. Dr. Alexander presented Sir C.P., late Dewan of Travancore, as one of the greatest sons and benefactors of modern India, unjustly vilified and hated by the people and sure to be vindicated by future historians.

Dr. Alexander is reported to have said that Sir C.P. suppressed the popular movement for responsible government in Travancore, only under the orders of the Maharaja and Rani Parvati Bai. And that it was his loyalty to the royal family that motivated his actions.

Dr. Alexander's arguments are neither logical nor supported by any historical evidence. They are not even original. A similar defence was made in 1949 by Abdul Karim (who served the Dewan as IG of Police and Prisons and later as Tranvancore's ambassador to Pakistan) to my father, late C.P. Matten, who was one of the numerous victims of Sir C.P.'s reign of terror. In his book "I Have Borne Much," my father records that Mr. Karim requested him not to involve Sir C.P. in any retaliatory proceedings as "he had been only the unwitting tool at the hand of his evil genius (the Maharaja)."

Sir C.P. himself, as an eminent lawyer, must have known that this alibi was not valid. Had the Travancore triumvirate (Sir C.P., Rani Parvati Bai, and the Maharaja) succeeded in destroying all their targeted victims and institutions and had created a banana republic in Travancore, there would have been no recrimination among the members of this unholy alliance nor any necessity to engage advocates posthumously.

Omana Mathew,

Chennai

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