Madras Miscellany by Muthiah S

Author:Muthiah, S. [Muthiah, S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: S. Muthiah
Published: 2012-05-21T16:00:00+00:00

An Outing from the Cit y

2 July 2001

W hen Dr. Robert Aarse, Cultural Attaché, the Royal Netherlands Embassy, New Delhi, visited Madras recently, he brought with him good tidings. The Dutch, he told me, would be most interested in restoring parts of their first and main setdement in India, Pulicat, and helping local authorities develop it as an eco-tourism and heritage site. This interest was generated by a preliminary study the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, Tamil Nadu Chapter (INTACH-TN), had prepared at the urging of a few Dutch scholars and architects who had visited Pulicat a couple of years ago and saw in it great promise as an eco-tourism destination for visitors from abroad and an outing from Madras for local nature and heritage lovers.

The INTACH-TN study induced five Dutch parliamentarians to making a special trip to Pulicat during a visit to India and thereafter urge their Government, non-official heritage organisations in Holland, and Dutch conservationists to take a closer look at the possibility of restoring Pulicat holistically as an eco-friendly heritage town. Dr. Aarse brought with him to Madras the news that the Dutch would be willing to help with the finance and experts necessary to prepare a master plan for the restoration of Pulicat, provided the local and State authorities showed an interest in the revival of the township and conservation of its heritage.

The Dutch interest in Pulicat dates to 1609, thirty years before Madras was founded 40 km to the south of Fort Geldria that the Dutch East India Company had raised in Holland’s first setdement on the Indian mainland. Vegetable-dyed cottons from Pulicat and its hinterland, a business still remembered in a name that still lingers, Palayakat lungis , was what brought the Dutch to Coromandel shores. Pulicat remained Holland’s chief settlement in India till 1781, when the British took over. Restored to the Dutch in 1785, it was seized by the British again in 1795, then handed back once more in 1818, before it was finally ceded to the British in 1825, by which time Dutch interest in the Orient had taken firm root in the islands of the East. With Madras thriving, the British by then had little interest in Pulicat and let it fall into a state of somnolence not even governments after Independence have woken it from.

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