Virtual relations

Abstract

The debate on the model of the little king plays a vital role in the wider debate on state formation in South Asia. This essay contends that the imagination of a virtual great king could – and indeed did – influence the way in which little kings conducted their day-to-day routines and how they legitimised their rule. Exploring little kings and their concepts of rule in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Malabar, this paper is based on studying historical sources closely, among them the Paḻassi Rēkhakaḷ and the Colin Mackenzie Collection. Little kings of Malabar, in particular Paḻassi Rājā, arguably preferred to rule with a notional or virtual great king and to continue in their conceptual framework of participatory rule rather than concede ‛great king’ status to the British, and thus give up participatory rule altogether for becoming a British subject. Thus, this paper argues that little kings of Malabar resolved issues of social structure and Hindu kingship by referring to Cēramān Perumāḷ, the last great king, who they used as a convenient tool to legitimate their rule as equals.