Coorg- Stories And Essays

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C.P. Belliappa has written extensively about Coorg (officially known as Kodagu), covering the history of the land and its people. His writings encompass the affairs of its erstwhile kingdom, which went on to become a British- administered territory, followed by being a tiny model state in the Indian Union post-Independence and, finally, its present-day avatar as a district in Karnataka after the States Reorganisation Act of 1956. In this collection of stories and essays, Belliappa has delved deeper into antiquity, covering a wide range of topics relevant to understanding the ethos of Coorg. His other books are Tale of a Tiger's Tail & Other Yarns from Coorg, Nuggets from Coorg History, Victoria Gowramma: The Lost Princess of Coorg and Tongue of the Slip: Looking Back on Life with Humour.

This compendium of essays on Coorg (officially known as Kodagu) draws from and builds on my earlier books: Nuggets from Coorg History and Victoria Gowramma: The Lost Princess of Coorg. Many stories from the distant and not so distant past of Coorg have been steadily recovered as long forgotten and shelved materials are discovered in family attics and digitized archives. This wealth of historical information is now accessible online.

One of my areas of interest that I have explored in this anthology is how the freedom movement manifested in Coorg and the subsequent events that led to its merger with Karnataka. Nearly 70 years later, this continues to be a contentious subject. Many of its inhabitants find it difficult to reconcile the fact that Coorg, which was a Part 'C' state, lost its statehood in 1956. The Karnataka government's benign neglect of Coorg has highlighted this grievance. For a dispassionate interpretation of these momentous events, I have allowed the written records to speak for themselves. I hope they shed some light on what has become a very heated discourse. The final debate in the Coorg Legislative Assembly to pass a resolution on the merger of Coorg with Karnataka, in accordance with the States Reorganisation Commission report, was held on 6 December 1955. I have reproduced this interesting debate verbatim (see the Appendix).

This book is divided into three parts: Part I: Coorg of Yore, Part II: The Victoria Gowramma Papers and Part III: Freedom, Independence, and Merger.