Syphilisation of Calicut

When Vasco Da Gama reached Calicut, his audience with the Zamorin was delayed as the gifts he had brought with him were considered worthless by the Palace hangers-on. In place of gold and precious stones, the visitor had brought cheap trinklets and wash basins! It took all the charm that Gama was capable of to persuade them to permit him to have an audience.

But, while the Nairs and Muslim merchants were squabbling over the gifts, Gama's mariners were distributing a gift among the women folk which their husbands would remember for a long time. Starved of female company for more than a year, the Portuguese sailors rushed to the fleshpots of Calicut -there were many, according to contemporary accounts- and infected the Calicut women with the dreaded Great Pox, as Syphilis was then known.

Syphilis was a relatively new disease, but one which was spreading with devastating outcome, much like the AIDS during the late 1980s. Its origin is disputed (as indeed of HIV/AIDS) but most agree that it flared up in Europe during the last decade of the 15th century. The first reported epidemic was in the Spanish port city of Cadiz to which Columbus had returned in 1493 and had dismissed his crew. The expedition had reportedly picked it up from Haiti. Within the next 15 years the disease had killed 10 million people in Europe.

It was Ludvico Di Varthema, the Italian adventurer who had reported the spread of Syphilis in Calicut in 1505 - just 7 years after Gama had landed. Varthema called it the 'French' disease, although the French were to reach the shores of Calicut much later. Varthema being Italian, called it the French disease, as it was known in Italy and Germany. The French, however, called it the Italian disease. The Turkish called it the Christian disease or the Frank disease from which the Malayalam name Parangippunnu came about.

The disease did spread quickly, and if Varthema were to be believed, it did not even spare the ruling Zamorin, Manavikrama Raja (1500-1513). Varthema could not meet the Zamorin in 1505, 'in consequence of his being at war with the King of Portugal and also because he had the French disease and had it in the throat'.

The Ruler of Calicut was in august company: King Henry VIII, who had been crowned King of England in 1509, was also suffering from Syphilis and had passed on the disease to all his children, except the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I.

Varthema attempts to soften the blow of his revelation: You must know that I have seen the disease three thousand miles beyond Calicut, and it is called 'pua' and they say it is about seventeen years since it began, and it is much worse than ours.

Whether the Zamorin did indeed have Syphilis or not, we can say on the testimony of Alfonso de Albuquerque that he died of poisoning. Writing to the King of Portugal shortly after the death of the Zamorin in 1513, Albuquerque calimed credit for this: I hold it for certain that the Nambiadiri slew the Zamorin with poison, because in all my letters I bid him do so and that in a peace treaty I will come to an agreement with him...

Albuquerque died in 1515 in Goa and there is no record of his having paid back the Nambiadiri. Just possible that the Zamorin did indeed die of Syphilis and the Portuguese general was claiming credit! Anyhow, the era of syphilisation of Calicut had begun with the first Portuguese mariner rolling in the Calicut sand!

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The Land of Many Hills

Calicut is famous as an ancient Port City, also known during the Zamorins' heyday as The City of Truth. But one would not ordinarily describe Calicut as a city of many hills - till one gets either an aerial view of the city as the plane maneuvers to land on the Karippur runway OR a view of the city from the Arabian Sea in an approaching ship or boat.

This is the view described by early mariners who would approach the shores of Calicut. They would first sight the Nilgiri hills at a distance and Wynad hills further to the north. As one gets closer, the undulating hillocks in and around Calicut come into focus. This is the impression of Calicut port as portrayed in contemporary paintings and engravings of the 15th - 18th Centuries. The accompanying engraving which figures in the Oriental Memoirs by Forbes (1810) is an instance.

A graphic description of Calicut from the sea is provided by Richard Burton in his book, Goa and the Blue Mountains (1851) : Seen from the sea, all the towns on

this coast (of Calicut) look like straggling villages, with a background of distant blue hill and a middle space of trees, divided by a strip of sand from the watery plain. He explains further what he meant by the 'distant blue hill' in a foot note : The mountains distinctly visible from the sea off Calicut in clear weather, are the Koondah range of the Neilgherries, or Blue Hills.

Come to think of it, Calicut has a large number of places with 'hill' suffixed - the most obvious are West Hill, East Hill, Silver Hills and Florican Hills (Florican, incidentally is a bird of the bustard family which is virtually extint now in Calicut). Then there are the vernacular names : Pokkunnu, Eravath kunnu, Katcheri kunnu, Kariyakkunnu, Kalathilkunnu etc.

Interestingly, there is an ancient Nair family in Calicut called Palakunnath (literally, Of Many Hills). Its original location is near Chevaur (Kovoor) and the many branches of this family used to hold possession of several hillocks around stretching from Chathamangalam to Kuttikkattor.

Today, the hillocks of Calicut have been overshadowed by the high-rise apartments, as seen in the accompanying picture!

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Gama Ko Gussa Kyon Aaya? (What Made Gama Angry?)

A 17th Century engraving of vasco Da Gama

Although Gama was feted in Lisbon as the conqueror of the east, he was still seething with ager at the lukewarm reception that he got from the Zamorin and the hostile treatment at the hands of the Moors. The instructions to the second expedition led by Cabral were clear and unambiguous: if the Zamorin would not quietly consent or give sufficient lading to the ships, he should wage cruel war upon him for his injurious conduct to Vasco Da Gama.

Cabral's impetuous actions further eroded what little goodwill the Portuguese had in Calicut. Cabral's report on his return to Portugal was not very encouraging, but King Manuel was still hopeful that apart from financial rewards from the voyage, it would also bring spiritual dividends through conversion of the infidels into Christianity. He turned once again to the great Captain Major, Vasco Da Gama to lead another expedition. Thus it was that Gama landed in Calicut once again on the 29th October 1502 - eager to wreak vengeance on a people who had fooled him into believing themselves to be Christians.

This time, there was no mistaking, for he was carrying on board Catholic priests to ensure that the heathens were shown the true path. King Manuel had also made his intentions clear: in a despatch to India he wrote - we are sending (in this expedition) religious persons and men well-versed in the Christian faith and religion that they may celebrate the divine worship and administer the sacraments, so that you may be able to see for yourselves what is our religion and faith which was established by Jesus Christ.

Gama's cruelty to the people of Calicut has been characterised by the Encyclopedia Brittanica (1953 edition) as 'savagery too horrible to describe'. He set the standards for dealing with the heathens in the name of the Chruch. Sir James Tennant, in his work, Ceylon quotes from a contemporary account of Portuguese cruelty : Jerome Azavido, a soldier less distinguished by his prowess than infamous for his cruelties, was despatched to Ceylon in 1594 to avenge the iniquities endured by his fellow countrymen ... In the height of his success there, he beheaded mothers after forcing them to cast their babies between millstones... He caused soldiers to take up children on the point of spears... He caused many men to be cast off the bridge at Malwane for the troops to see the crocodiles devour them, and these creatures grew so used to the food, that at a whistle they would lift their heads above the water!

Portuguese government was shamed into punishing Commander Azavido. Sitting in his Lisbon dungeon, Azavido pondered upon the fickleness of a system that condoned similar behaviour earlier by a patriot called Vasco Da Gama but used him as a scapegoat to appease public conscience!

Not too long after the massacre and the vigorous effort to Christianise India, landed Francis Xavier, the co-founder (along with Ignatius Loyola) of the Society of Jesus. He was scandalised as much by the Jewish wickedness of not observing the Sabbath as by the Muslim abhorrence for pork and Roman Catholics.

He was kept so busy converting the heathens of Malabar (Cape Comorin area) into Christianity, that he wrote in one of his prolific letters: ... it often happens to me to be hardly able to use my hands from the fatigue of baptizing; often in a single day I have baptised whole villages. Sometimes I have lost my voice and strength altogether with repeating again and again the Credo and the other forms.

He realised the truth of the dictum, catch 'em young, and recruited infants and young children into the proselytising mission. He wrote: The fruit that is reaped by the baptism of infants, as well as by the instruction of children and others, is quite incredible. These children, I trust heartily, by the grace of God, will be much better than their fathers. They show an ardent love for the Divine law, and an extraordinary zeal for learning our holy religion and imparting it to others. Their hatred for idolatry is marvellous. They get into feuds with the heathen about it, and whenever their own parents practise it, they reproach them and come off to tell me at once. Whenever I hear of any act of idolatrous worship, I go to the place with a large band of these children, who very soon load the devil with a greater amount of insult and abuse than he has lately received of honor and worship from their parents, relations, and acquaintances. The children run at the idols, upset them, dash them down, break them to pieces, spit on them, trample on them, kick them about, and in short heap on them every possible outrage.

source: Wikipedia

Not content with this, Francis Xavier wrote on May 16, 1545, to D Joao II, King of Portugal: The second necessity for Christians is that your majesty establish the Holy Inquisition, because there are many who live according to the Jewish Law and according to the Mahomedan sect, without fear of God or shame of the world.

The anger of Gama at being duped by the Malabaris into believing them to be Christians, seems to have played out for a long time, leading to frequent massacre of innocent lives and forced conversion. Trade was all but forgotten in this proselytising zeal. This perhaps hastened the eclipse of Portugal after 1580 when it became part of the Spanish empire and inherited all the traditional enemies of Spain like the Netherlands and England.

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