Timelines for Hindu heritage and history often have proved challenging to the human mind and are often an expose of the limitations of mind. So too are the details of the appalling tragedies inflicted by greedy Europeans on Hindu civilisation as well as the earlier Muslim rulers. They have cleverly been erased by the invaders along with stupendous hindu achievements. Worse is that today hindu achievements are ridiculed as non existent while anything western is hailed as progressive including adultery.
So, it happened to one of the six abodes of Lord Karthikeya popularly known as Lord Muruga, at Tiruchendur. A temple believed to have been carved out of rock on the style of Ellora now appears to be a shade of its wonderful past. The main guilty were the Dutch known today to the world as Netherlands. The Dutch after facing repeated defeats by Portughese were limited to Ceylon. In February 1649, the Dutch attacked Portughese in India and occupied Tiruchendur and Tuticorin. After the usual loot of gold, silver and precious stones from the Temple in the style of Muslim invaders, they fortified the temple as a garrison to fight the Portughese. When King Tirumalai Naicker intervened, the fearing Dutch took away the main deities of Siva Natarajar and Shanmukhar into the seas and beyond while they retreated as they thought they were made of pure gold.
It was such acts of piracy that enabled the Dutch East India company to famously become the first MNC with high returns to investors. The company is now hailed as the pioneer in corporate led globalisation, World’s first formally listed company on a stock exchange and forerunner to modern corporations. Ethics and FairPlay were impediments to business successes as they were political power. Despite the British East India company being formed two years earlier, the Dutch had the approval of their Christian rulers of their country from day one. It was a government backed military commercial experiment akin to Communist trading today.
The primary Portughese settlements were chosen for attack by the Dutch in Asia. With the exception of Jakarta and Deshima, all Portughese colonies were taken over by the Dutch. Malacca, Colombo, Ceylon, Nagapattinam, Cranganore and Cochin fell to them. They were unsuccessful with Goa and Macau.
The people of Netherlands popularly known as the Dutch were yet another Christian white skinned race that screwed the world by piracy and loot. The modus oprandi was the same for all. Enter through a port, request locals for a trading post, build a Church along with the post, break local rules, when questioned attack the ruler and people with explosives and guns, loot, trade, cheat, occupy, convert and suppress people physically, culturally, morally and favour those who converted to Christianity and set them as enemies of locals. This game of religious conversions to set converted people as enemies to those who follow local heritage and traditions are followed till today. The impact of Dutch was worse in East Asian nations like Indonesia. Genocides, slave trade, dacoity became commonplace with the Bible on another hand. A gross contempt for local cultures and armed with the Bible, such nations with grievous criminal record now amusingly claim to stand for pluralism and pat themselves as role models for a racism free world.
The Dutch were in India during 1605 through 1825. A long period . Though in patches. But monopolised spice trade throughout 17th century, claim Dutch archives. While archives give information on Dutch perspective and their efforts and human losses but details on Indian casualties, their attack and loot of Hindu temples went totally missing . We need to connect many ends to arrive at conclusions as much as circumstantial evidences to understand the Dutch rowdyism in India.
The Dutch East India company was established in March 1602 to trade with India and Indianised South East Asian companies, claims Wikipedia. The Dutch government gave the company a 21 year agreement to monopolise spice trade. After getting early access to East Asia, India was needed both as a conduit and as a source for trade by Dutch. Dutch had to fight the Portughese, the Spanish and British throughout. A series of diplomatic engagements in 1620s brought peace but the Amboyna massacre which saw British casualties made British retreat Indonesia to other nations. Dutch thus sort of established monopoly in the area.
The Dutch East India company were the second to arrive in India to raise settlements and trading posts. Never a complete successful political authority, the Dutch India was divided as Dutch Ceylon and Dutch Coromandel, with Commandment in Dutch Malabar and Directorates in Dutch Bengal and Dutch Surat. Yet, Dutch factories were established in Agra, Ahmedabad, Balasore, Baranagore, Bimlipatam, Bombay, Broach, Burhanpur,Chinsura, Cochin, Karaikal, Kasimbazar and Patna. A wide reach across many provinces indeed.
The Dutch mastered the art of exploitation, use of violence, colonialism, slavery and monopolistic methods. Their first exploratory mission with four ships led by Fredrick de Houtman in 1895 to Java earned considerable profit to scale up their greed, despite half the crew dying for various reasons including a war. In 1598, many fleets were sent and despite losing huge material loss, made profit. In 1599, a fleet of eight ships to Spice islands of Malaku earned them 400% profit. These successes and their battles with Portughese and British in their region turned their attention to India. The creation of Dutch India company facilitated their militarised monopolistic trading. It can be claimed that the Dutch East India company was the blue print by which the Britih East India company set about their businesses and inspired the English throne to crush nations across the planet with their brutal fire power.
Wherever they went, the Dutch used military to further trading. Japan was the only post in Asia without soldiers. So it lead to wars with every nation they entered. Wars were waged with China, Vietnam and almost every country in Asia. They had launched their Dutch West India company too. But in the 18th century, the Dutch influence began to wane after they lost to British in the Fourth Anglo Dutch War of 1780-1784. However Dutch influence remained in some parts of the world till the end of Second World War in Indonesia (East Indies) and in the Caribean (West Indies).
The good thing about the Dutch today is that they do not celebrate their gruesome Colonial past like the English or the French. The areas they colonised have no traces of their culture and language.
Comments
Post a Comment