5 - A Perilous Port

Summary

The final chapter turns to developments in the last decade of colonial rule. It will examine how wartime changes gradually diluted the Cochin State’s authority over the port of Cochin rendering its separate existence increasingly untenable. The Cochin State would thus become one of the first princely states to accede to the independent Indian state after zealously guarding its sovereignty for decades. This chapter explains this turnaround and examines how the transition to post-colonial sovereignty affected the Cochin State’s relationship with the harbour. It then discusses the post-colonial Indian state’s policies towards the port of Cochin, which has continued to attract significant investment to this day. We will analyze the extent to which development projects around the harbour have continued to bolster state authority in independent India and how this has served to obscure the divisive history of port development at Cochin. The resulting erasure of the long history of coastal transformations and uncertain technological interventions around Cochin has not only facilitated more reckless development over the last few decades despite protests, but it has also recently begun to allow successive governments to downplay the role of these local.