AR Venkatachalapathy is a rare historian with an enviable publication record in both Tamil and English. His recent efforts to communicate to the English language-reading audience have been sizeable, marked by extensive primary research and lucid writing. These have included Who Owns that Song (Juggernaut, 2018), Tamil Characters (Pan Macmillan, 2019) and The Brief History of a Very Big Book (Permanent Black, 2022).
Each clarifies aspects of modern and contemporary Tamil history. His latest book, Swadeshi Steam , is the most substantial of these efforts. It tells the story of VO Chidambaram Pillai, or VOC (1872-1936), mythologised in Tamil cinema as the proverbial “Kappal Ottiya Tamizhan,” in the poetry of Subramania Bharati, and in multiple hagiographies.
Chidambaram Pillai set up the short-lived Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company (SSNCo) in Tuticorin to provide passage for labourers and cargo on the Tuticorin-Colombo route across the Palk Strait in the early 20th century. In so doing, VOC and his associates challenged the monopoly of the English-owned British India Steam Navigation Company. There were formidable obstacles in making such an attempt.
The swadeshi in the capitalistic modern industry The Swadeshi movement originated in Bengal in opposition to its Partition, which took place in 1905 but was later reversed. It attempted to tackle head-on the metropolitan economic domination of the colony by boycotting British goods and starting home industries. As Venkatachalap.
