About the Book
Abundant source material in India, England, and Portugal, including state papers and narratives like Commentaries of Albuquerque, facilitates the study of Portuguese-Malabar relations. The book covers various topics, including Malabar's pre-Portuguese history, Vasco da Gama's voyage, struggles for land power, naval conflicts, and the final phase of Portuguese dominance, shedding light on policies, religious aspects, and factors contributing to their decline.
About the Author
Kavalam Madhava Panikkar (3 June 1895-10 December 1963) known as Sardar K. M. Panikkar was an Indian statesman, diplomat, professor, editor, historian, and novelist. Born in Travancore, he became the editor of Hindustan Times and later served as Foreign Minister and Prime Minister in princely states. Post-independence, he represented India at the UN, served as India's Ambassador to China and Egypt, and was a member of the States Reorganisation Commission. He excelled academically, publishing extensively on Indian history, politics, and international relations. His contributions extend to literature, with works in both Malayalam and English.
Foreword
Mr. Panikkar has performed a work of value to students in providing a summary of the history of the Portuguese in Malabar.
He has, however, thus confined himself to a portion only of their doings in the East, rigorously moreover keeping to this theme, and the chief value of his observations to my mind is that he gives the history from the point of view of the Indian who has been trained in historical research and is capable of bringing out the essentials of the story he has to tell. It is not a pleasant tale, but that is not his fault rather that of his subject.
He begins by showing how it was possible for the Portuguese to accomplish what they managed to do, as, when Vasco da Gama reached the Malabar Coast the country was split up into petty principalities over whom no one had any real authority not even the Zamorin of Calicut. So it did not require any particular political insight to play off the princelings along the coast against each other and establish foreign authority over small isolated coastwise areas. Mr. Panikkar has no high opinion of Vasco da Gama and does not class him with the great European explorers. Perhaps he is somewhat hard on him; but, no doubt, Vasco da Gama was not a "great" man in the sense that others of his time and later on were. Mr. Panikkar has indeed but little opinion of any of the Portuguese leaders excepting Albuquerque, Duarte Pacheco as a military luminary, and Affonso Mexia as a financier; and, indeed, these men did some wonderful things, considering the difficulties that surrounded them. He is right also in stating clearly that the Portuguese never had any power or Empire in India, that they never got beyond acquiring a little local authority, strictly confined to small areas around the forts they built along the coast line. Yet, with the fortuitous assistance of general politics in the Near East, and not of their own superior skill, they achieved for a long period their chief object the destruction of the Egyptian and Venetian trade with the East, and the concentration of it in their own hands on the sea.
Introduction
For the study of Portuguese relations with Malabar there is available in India, England and in Portugal, a very large mass of material. It consists mainly of large collections of State papers, official despatches and other correspondence, descriptive narratives, besides records of a more personal character like the "Commentaries" of Albuquerque and the biography of de Castro. Neither is there any lack of "histories," for the Portuguese writers of those days were not forgetful of the duty of singing the glory of their fatherland. In India also, there is a consider-able quantity of highly valuable material, mostly in the form of Chronicles in the Malabar temples and royal families.
A thorough examination of the documents and papers relating to India, preserved in the various libraries and archives of Portugal, was made by Mr. Danvers of the India Office Library. He also secured for the India Office translations and transcripts of the most important of these. As a result, the India Office Library now possesses a unique collection of Portuguese manuscripts. Their value would have indeed been greater if the translator had been undertaken by someone who had a better knowledge of English than the Portuguese scribe to whom the task was entrusted. As it stands, it is often difficult to make sense out of whole passages, and often it is easier to consult the original than to go to the translation. The following are the chief collections and unpublished books available at the India Office.
