On August 8, Kerala Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar issued a circular to vice chancellors of all universities in Kerala to observe August 14 as ‘Partition Horror Day’. He wanted the VCs to direct the educational institutions under their command to organise seminars and even street plays to evoke the trauma of Partition.

Governor Arlekar, a Goa-based RSS pracharak, was perhaps unaware that a man he reveres, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, had played a part in Kerala's biggest Partition-related horror incident. Savarkar was the only national leader who, other than Muslim League supremo Muhammad Ali Jinnah, had supported Travancore Dewan Sir C P Ramaswamy Iyer’s declaration of Independence from India. 

Sir CP made the declaration of Independence when, in his own words, "the Indian National Congress accepted the Partition of India". Historian A Sreedhara Menon, in his work 'Triumph and Tragedy in Travancore' quotes Sir CP as saying that "Travancore would have joined a united India, but now that the country was going to be divided, the princely state could not join the Constituent Assembly of a divided India."

Savarkar's misplaced vision
Savarkar saw in independent Travancore an alternative, a counterweight, to secular India. The Hindutva ideologue's hope stemmed from his feeble grasp of the mighty influence the Congress-led national freedom movement and the home-bred Communist uprisings were having on the people in the southernmost tip of the country. He mistook Sir CP for Travancore, forgot its highly literate revolutionary-minded people.

In a telegram to Sir CP on June 19, 1947, Savarkar said: "The Nizam, Muslim Ruler of Hyderabad, has already proclaimed his independence and other Muslim states are likely to do so. Hindu states bold enough to assert it have the same rights... I am supporting the maharaja and the far-sighted and courageous determination to declare independence of our Hindu state of Travancore."

Had Savarkar, who had always called himself a nationalist, known of Sir CP's secret designs, he would have perhaps hung his head in shame for having said this. By the time Savarkar valorised him, Sir CP had struck a covert deal with Britain to sell a critical natural resource found in Travancore's monazite sand: thorium.

Spell of A-Bomb
The cosmic blaze from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (in 1945) had lit up the ambitious regions of Sir CP's brains. It dawned on him that there was more to thorium than just lighting up the mundane petromax lamps.

Itty Abraham, in his highly acclaimed essay 'Rare Earths: The Cold War in the Annals of Travancore', reproduces Sir CP's words to the Travancore king days after the dropping of the atom bombs. "If thorium can be utilised for the manufacture of atomic bombs (there is no reason why it should not be), Travancore will enjoy a position very high in the world."

Itty then quotes Sir CP's biographer, who said that his subject believed that the atom bomb would revolutionise all industry and power production. "If the cost of breaking up the atom could be reduced by further research, all steam engines and power projects would become unnecessary and the launching of new power projects would stop across the world," Itty quotes the biographer.

Trade envoy to Pak
It was thorium that emboldened Sir CP to declare independence from India. In pursuit of independence, Sir CP did two things in early 1947. One, he initiated steps for a treaty between the "independent Sovereign State" of Travancore and the Government of Pakistan. He named Khan Bahadur Abdul Kareem Sunhrawardy, a former inspector general of Travancore Police, as Travancore’s trade envoy to Pakistan.

And two, he struck a monazite deal with the British crown. He saw in monazite, Travancore's chief source of revenue.

Savarkar was aware of the first, though he did not seem bothered. He, however, was completely in the dark about the second one. Not just Savarkar, even Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and the Indian National Congress were clueless about this covert deal. Sir CP had told the Travancore Legislative Assembly that there was a ban on sand export.

In public, he had also taken the bold stand that any country wanting Travancore's minerals should first establish production plants in Travancore: Sir CP's 'Make in Travancore' project.

Covert and deal
Then, the lid on the Travancore-Britain deal was blown off by an expose by K N Bamzai in the news weekly 'Blitz'. Nehru, who was already livid at Sir CP's unbridled ambition, had even seriously considered using air power to make Travancore fall in line.

The Blitz article only spoke of a trade deal with Britain, which in itself was an embarrassment for Sir CP. But certain other details, which were far more damaging to Sir CP, was handed over exclusively to Nehru by Bamzai.

The future Prime Minister was aghast to find that the trade deal was heavily skewed in Britain's favour.

It was revealed that Sir CP had allowed Britain to cart away 10,000 tonnes of monazite sand, contrary to his claims of a ban on export. And his seemingly non-negotiable 'Make in Travancore' clause, which he had used to paint himself as a tough negotiator, was only an afterthought in the deal. A negligible part of the sand, it was agreed, would be processed in Travancore.

Coup de grace
When he went to meet viceroy Lord Mountbatten on July 22, 1947, Sir CP had no inkling that his secrets were in Nehru's possession. At the one-to-one, Sir CP poured out his contempt for India. 

In his 'Viceroy's Report' dated July 25, Mountbatten states that “CP declared that Travancore would never accede to the Dominion of India: he had indeed already made preliminary terms with Mr Jinnah, including a trade agreement."

Mountbatten then directed Sir CP to V P Menon, then the Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of the States, under Sardar Patel. Nehru had armed Menon with CP's secrets. If at all the subtle blackmail of exposing his sell-off did not work, Menon also told the Dewan not to expect any help from India if the Communists rise up in revolt against him and the Travancore king.

Three days later, on July 25, a young socialist named K C S Mani made a violent attempt on his life at a music concert. By the time he was whisked away, the Dewan had seven deep cuts on his face and body.

Three days later, he wrote to Sree Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma advising that accession to India was the sensible option.