Mr. Panikkar has performed a work or 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 obiect the destruction of the Egyptian and Venetian trade with the East, and the concentration of it in their own hands on the sea. Some of their Governors saw that it was in sea power only that their chances of success and greatness lay.
In judging of the Portuguese and their actions in India, one has to recollect that they were a century nearer feudal Europe than were any of the other nations that invaded the country a century further back in civilisation and political organisation. In fact, they had very little of the latter, as practically every Factor had a right to address the Portuguese Crown direct and write home what he thought fit truth or untruth, praise or slander of the Viceroy, Governor or other superior authority. Authoritative government is impossible under such conditions, and so the Portuguese officials made it. They destroyed even Albuquerque in the end. One wonders indeed that anything at all was accomplished; and the undoubted fact that trade and civilisation did flourish under them for a time supplies yet another instance, of many in history, of the truth of the dictum that human beings act better than they organise.
In their medieavalism there was little to choose between the higher Portuguese officials and their Indian contemporaries. The insincerity, dishonesty, selfishness, chicanery and cruelty were about on a par, though perhaps, the cruelty of the Portuguese was the greater, and indeed commercial and political intercourse must have been difficult when no man's word was to be trusted on either side. Yet, as aforesaid, they did manage to carry on commerce and the dealings of everyday life. The public proceedings of the Portuguese leaders, great and small, were essentially those of a mediaeval people. There was little attempt at straight dealing. It was everyone for himself from the Viceroy downwards, and every kind of official entered into private trade. The strong succeeded in their personal aims; the weak brought disaster on themselves and their following, while, as among all such people, there were individuals who were sufficiently wide- awake to their own interests. Life struggled on; wealth was accumulated in places; extravagant careers were lived through: great houses and towns were built and there was much show of success. But the whole structure was hollow, and fell before the first equally well-equipped enemy that attacked it. The hollowness was not the result only of the action of the representatives of the Portuguese nation in India.
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 translation 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.
I. The Corpo Chronologico. Transcripts 2 vols. These are translated. They consist mostly of letters addressed by Governors and other officials to the King and sometimes to important court dignitaries in Lisbon. This collection is of the utmost importance.
II. Gavetas Antigas. Translations 2 vols.
III. Translations as well as transcripts from the Cathedral library at Evora and the letters from Viceroys which are preserved in the Torre de Tombo.
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