The session on ‘Swadeshi Steam: V.O. Chidambaram Pillai and the Battle Against the British Maritime Empire’ was as much about the life of the freedom fighter who launched the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company, seeking to put an end to the monopoly of the British in sea trade, as it was about the paucity of biographies in India and the country’s apathy towards meticulous documentation.
Historian Ramachandra Guha began by describing writer A.R. Venkatachalapthy as the Indian historian he “most admires”. With his new book on V.O. Chidambaram Pillai, or VOC as he is popularly called, Dr. Venkatachalapathy “ventures into new domains,” said Dr. Guha. “He is a scholar of literary, social, cultural, and economic history,” he said.
The historian equally underlined the role of VOC’s wife Meenakshi Ammal in the patriot’s story. Married at 12 and with two children by 18, she did not have much of an opportunity to study, “yet she wrote such beautiful letters,” he said.
Read more: Swadeshi Steam: How an indigenous maritime company challenged the mighty British
