Swadeshi Steam documents VOC’s struggle against British maritime empire

Explore the remarkable story of V.O. Chidambaram Pillai's battle against the British maritime empire & south India's role in the country's freedom struggle in A.R. Venkatachalapathy's book "Swadeshi Steam".

The Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company started by late V.O. Chidambaram Pillai was “propelled by patriotism and not steam”, describes historian A.R. Venkatachalapathy in his latest book Swadeshi Steam published by Penguin. The book documents the late freedom fighter’s battle against the British maritime empire and also south India’s role in the country’s freedom struggle.

At the official book launch on the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) premises in Chennai, its chairperson and former Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami released the first copy and former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi received it.

Describing the author as a prolific writer, Mr. Gopalaswami pointed out that this was the sixth book in English by Mr. Venkatachalapathy, who has also authored 15 books in Tamil, four of which was on VOC. He noted how the authored nurtured his love for VOC from the time he was a high school student.

The book, which includes details of documents accessed from libraries in Chennai, Kolkata, London and Paris, was an easy read and was a “remarkable story of a person, who combined Swadeshi and commerce”, Mr. Gopalaswami said. “It will tell us all how so many people came together to establish ‘Swadeshi’ as their birthright.”

In his remarks, Mr. Gandhi described that the book was about an extraordinary person in extraordinary times. The book was written for the sole reason that the author has made the study of this part of India, its culture, history and literature, an interest amounting to a passion, he said. The author has given the readers “a sense of the touch of Tamil on the soul of India”, Mr. Gandhi said.

Swadeshi Steam was a “book of books, which tells us what should be told and understood many times over,” Mr. Gandhi said and added it was much more than a biography and a narrative of the times which Indians owed so much to.

“This book celebrates the autonomy of the individual patriot, her/his individual contribution in a movement that was essential federal in its spirit or it brought together constituent energies from different parts of India into a great propulsion that led it finally to its destination,” Mr. Gandhi said.