Queens of Travancore and Mysore
Champions for Universal Education and
Immunisation against Smallpox
Health and education are important markers of progress in any society. Two specific goals that independent India aimed for were universal immunisation against Smallpox and universal education. Both these issues were on the radar of many rulers and the British Indian government before 1947 too.
Today India sees mixed results - the efforts for universal immunisation and the eradication of Smallpox in 1975 have seen resounding success. Universal education has also made great strides - more than 90% of urban children and more than 85% of rural children go to school. However, we have a way to go before every child in India goes to school and every adult is literate.
Efforts at smallpox immunisation by vaccination and universal education were given a fillip by the pioneering Queens of Travancore and Mysore in pre-independent India.
Gowri Parvati Bayi of Travancore
Uthrittathi Thirunal Gowri Parvati Bayi (1802-1853 CE) was ruler of the state of Travancore in the years 1815 -1829.
Travancore followed the matrilineal system of succession in which the eldest daughter of the family was the ruler, with executive powers being with her son. Gowri Parvati Bayi was only 13 years of age at the time of her ascension to the throne but had the counsels of her brother-in-law and her husband to manage the affairs of the state.
Gowri Parvati Bayi’s reign is known for the several pathbreaking reforms that she carried out in the territory of Travancore. Two among them are universal education and vaccination.
Universal education was introduced in Travancore by Royal Rescript on June 17, 1817. Gowri Parvati Bayi was just 15 years of age at the time. This decree had far-reaching effects on the education system in the kingdom, whose impact is still being felt more than two centuries later.
Today the present state of Kerala (of which Travancore became a part after State Reorganisation on November 1, 1956) has achieved near 100% literacy, an achievement no other state in India has been able to match.
State funding for education in the State of Travancore
The Travancore Royal Rescript was the first ever attempt in the world to provide complete state funding for education.
The concept of universal education was novel in 1817, with very few governments ensuring that their citizens - regardless of gender and economic standing - were educated. This was due to several reasons. One, education was simply not considered a priority. Two, many kingdoms did not have the resources to ensure universal education. Three, the British who ruled over large sections of the Indian mainland were only interested in providing just enough education to ensure workers who were Indian by race but British in their thinking, in order to further their own colonial agenda.
The rescript (decree) of 1817 on universal education issued by Gowri Parvati Bayi clearly states “The state should defray the entire cost of education of its people in order that there might be no backwardness in the spread of enlightenment among them, that by diffusion of education they might become better support and public servants and that the reputation of the state might be advanced thereby.”
The rescript decreed that every school would have two trained teachers paid by the state.
Education in Kerala down the ages
The modern state of Kerala was founded after the amalgamation of the princely states of Travancore, Cochin and Malabar, after Indian Independence in 1947.
In the Sangam Era (approximately 3rd century BC to 3rd century AD) the women of the areas that comprise the modern state of Kerala were well educated. In later times there was a drop in literacy due to a decrease in women’s status in society.
It is to the credit of Gauri Parvati Bayi that the tide started to be reversed with sound state patronage for universal education.
Popularisation of vaccination
The second important reform, introduced by the earlier ruler Gowri Lakshmi Bayi, was of vaccination against Small Pox. It was the first ever large-scale public health measure to combat the historically dreaded disease.
Gowri Parvati Bayi took it forward by introducing new initiatives and policies, avoiding coersion.
She thus did not hesitate to introduce and take forward reforms that were revolutionary for the times, but were much-needed for the benefit of the population at large.
Three Queens of Mysore
The history of Smallpox vaccination in India
Edward Jenner discovered the smallpox vaccine in 1796 in England. Within six years the British tried to introduce inoculation in the areas in India governed by them.
However the task was not as easy as it seemed. They met with vigorous resistance which grew stronger as time went by.
People resisted the idea of being injected with cowpox bacteria to build resistance and were unwilling to listen and be convinced with the scientific reasoning behind vaccination.
They were also very wary of foreigners tampering with their health and introducing strange invasive processes such as vaccination.
The British were oppressors in all aspects of the people’s lives. Hence the distrust carried over to any and every measure that was proposed by the government.
A native version of ‘vaccination’ was already in place in some parts of North India. The scabs taken from an infected person were first washed in the Ganga and placed on healthy people to develop Smallpox pustules. This was the non-invasive and well-known method, but not always effective.
Another method of inoculation entailed extracting pustules and spots from recovered patients which were ground to dust and blown on the noses of people not yet infected. This process was called variolation.
This early vaccination process was arduous and involved painful lacerations, and of having to wait a week for a pustule to develop on the arm of the person to whom it had been transferred. Once it developed, the lymph from the arm of the infected person had to be dried to be transported in a sealed container for further vaccinations. Very often the smallpox germ being transported died due to heat, nullifying all the earlier effort.
The British effort to overcome vaccination resistance
The British, in turn, were determined to vaccinate the population because of several reasons.
Firstly they wanted to prevent smallpox among the several Europeans who lived among the civilian populations in India.
Secondly, they wanted to safeguard the working population in India so that the hugely lucrative British commercial enterprises which exported goods to England would not be impacted by smallpox epidemics.
Traditional caregivers were not convinced about vaccination and tried to discourage people. The British solved this problem by pensioning off many caregivers to reduce their influence.
The dilemma was how to convince people that vaccination was the way forward to battle the ancient scourge of smallpox. It was then that the British hit upon the idea of involving Indian royalty who were literally worshipped by their subjects. The reasoning was that if the rulers adopted vaccination, why would the general population not agree.
Vaccination in Mysore
Among the kingdoms generally amenable to the British was that of Mysore (now known as Mysuru) ruled by the Wodeyars.
Devajammani was a young girl who had been betrothed to the crown prince Krishnaraja Wodeyar III (1794-1868CE).
Involving royalty in the vaccination effort
The Mysore royalty was known to be scientific-minded and friendly with the British. Hence the kingdom of Mysore was considered to be an ideal testing ground for a countrywide vaccination programme.
Around 1805 three women of the Wodeyar royal household were chosen to be the torchbearers of the vaccination effort. The king’s two wives, both named Devajammani, were a part of the effort. The third person was Lakshmiammani, another relative of the king.
A fillip to the vaccination effort
The effort was widely publicised. Inoculating the royalty of Mysuru gave confidence to people that the vaccine they would receive was effective, and worth taking due to the royal bloodlines of the persons from whom the pustules were taken.
Over time, this strategy worked safely without endangering life. It proved effective enough for the British to persuade other Indian royalty to also undergo inoculation themselves and influence their subjects.
At the time the Wodeyar royalty agreed to be inoculated, vaccination was still a nascent procedure, with equipment which was extremely rudimentary and primitive by today’s standards. It took courage to be among the earliest recipients ever of a procedure which had still not been completely tested. Yet these three women agreed to be pioneers and the early recipients of the vaccine, with no guarantee that it would not be fatal.
The impact today on these initiatives in India
These royal women from Travancore and Mysuru helped to take forward ideas and revolutionary procedures, bringing a sea-change in the public discourse on education and health.
In 2023 India has made huge strides but has not yet achieved universal education. That goal is yet a couple of decades away. However, inoculation against Smallpox for the entire population nearing 1.38 billion is a massive success story. Smallpox was eradicated in India in 1975 and a very successful programme is in place today for regular immunisation at all age groups and across demographics.
Universal education and universal vaccination against smallpox started with a germ of what seemed like an impossible idea a couple of centuries back. Colonization kept India shackled, and its population at the mercy of epidemics and ignorance.
A few intrepid women willing to walk new paths started the process of improved general health and education, transforming Indian society in many ways beyond recognition.