Did You Know an Indian King Defeated the Dutch? Read About Marthanda Varma in God's Own Empire

Did you know that in 1741, an Indian prince did what appeared impossible and defeated a European colonial power decisively at sea? Marthanda Varma of Travancore (r. 1729-1758) is perhaps the only Asian prince to have beaten a European power at sea, but he is largely forgotten outside Kerala.

Raghu Palat and Pushpa Palat's God's Own Empire: The Extraordinary Life of Marthanda Varma of Travancore seeks to remedy this improbable prince's historical amnesia, documenting his unification of a ragtag band of petty kingdoms and his effect of the creation of a prosperous state that successfully protected itself from Dutch colonialism by the power of military command and sublime administrative skill.

Administrative Vision and Infrastructure Legacy 

Marthanda's reorganisation of Travancore into mantapathum vathukals (provinces) managed by karayakars, with villages as the smallest administrative units under the assigned adhikaris, demonstrates a complex organisational thinking that transformed a fractured set of smaller, petty kingdoms into a cohesive state.

The account of Marthanda's infrastructure undertakings is particularly compelling. The detail given to irrigation projects, the Ponmanay and Kuleep canals, the assorted dams along the Pazhaya river, show a ruler who understood that military victory could only be achieved with successful agriculture. Marthanda's personal involvement when constructing the canals is revealing, along with the description of how he was "sitting on a piece of rock from dawn to dusk" overseeing the workmen, and even had "one of the stonecutters pierce a deep hole in the rock" to hold the umbrella, lest his personal servant could join the labour. A practical king, indeed.

Martanda's Military Success and Strategic Intelligence in The Battle of Colachel

The authors create a vivid narrative of the complete victory of Marthanda's forces over the Dutch forces under Captain Eustachius de Lannoy in 1741, by siege warfare and blockade of the Dutch navy.

The intelligence on strategic military disposition was a deliberate brilliance for Marthanda. After the Dutch set up their base at Colachel", using it as their jumping-off point to attack the nearby Travancore villages", Marthanda allowed for "the use of a number of native boats, manned by the mukkuvar seamen and carrying trained sepoys" to watch the Dutch whilst Marthanda's force "maintained a flotilla of patrol boats, blockade of the Dutch supply lines". The authors illustrate how Marthanda's obtaining victory over the Dutch was "the beginning of the end of Dutch authority in Kerala and the rise of Travancore as a powerful regional kingdom."

Religious Legitimacy and Royal Authority

The authors draw out captivating elements of Marthanda's religious identity and practices, and their political importance. The ritual of the Tulapurusha Danam (danam, which is a gift), which involved the king being "weighed against gold," which was "distributed to the poor and those from lesser castes", demonstrates sophisticated conceptions of royal duty and legitimacy that could benefit from careful examination.

At the same time, the authors discuss how Marthanda decided to dedicate the nation to Lord Padmanabha and act as the deity's dasa (servant) thereafter. His approach to temple governance was similarly systematic; he prepared "a separate record of holdings called Sree Padmanabha Makanagaram" and wrote "a catalogue of all 125 priests," using the same methodical structures he brought to bear on his governance.

A Successful Biography with Scholarly Limits

God's Own Empire is a successful biography that opens up a ruler, worthy of wider acknowledgement, to an engaged readership. The Palats write comfortably and have obviously enjoyed what they were doing, and they have brought to light Marthanda's remarkable accomplishment of transforming Travancore from a position of fragility to one of strength.

Yet, the study's academic limitations quickly surface in the authors' lack of critical engagement with sources and historiographical debates. The authors seldom note the control more than account for the value of court chronicles, or how trustworthy the materials are. 

That said, this is an important and useful book because it raises awareness about an underappreciated historical figure. Marthanda Varma, who skillfully combined the traditions of military innovation, developed new models of bureaucracy, and successfully resisted European colonialism, deserves the broad profile that this accessible biography is capable of providing.