On December 23, 1964, one of the most powerful storms in the history of Indian meteorology hit Rameswaram in Ramanathapuram district. “The storm, coupled with high tide, brought a 25ft tidal wave, engulfing Dhanushkodi, much of Rameswaram Island, and low-lying areas of the mainland,” reports a 1965 paper by the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute. In short, Dhanushkodi disappeared.
Every December since, people recount how Dhanushkodi became a ghost town. Though a popular tourist attraction today, many are unaware of its past. How was life in Dhanushkodi before the cyclone?
Dhanushkodi, 21km from Rameswaram, is bordered by the Bay of Bengal. Sri Lanka lies just 20 nautical miles away. The earliest reference to it is found in Valmiki’s Ramayana as ‘Sethu Bandhanam’. Legend says Rama, while on the Sethu bridge, took Lakshmana’s bow (dhanush) and struck the bridge with the end of the bow (kodi), dividing the land and bringing Dhanushkodi into existence.
Copper plate inscriptions such as the 10th-century Thiruvalangadu say Cholas and Pandyas passed through Dhanushkodi during invasions of Sri Lanka. Vijayanagara ruler Krishna Deva Raya reportedly took a dip in its holy waters. A 1606 CE copper plate from Sethupathi Raja of Ramnad claims Rama Sethu as Dhanushkodi.
In modern times, Dhanushkodi was known as ‘small Colombo’. B Athmanathan, research coordinator, Centre for Historical Research, Mannar Thirumalai Naicker College, Madurai says the introduction of railways into the Ramnad zamindari was a milestone in the development of TN’s southern coast. “In 1876, the first railway line linked Madurai to Mandapam, extended to Rameswaram and Pamban by 1906. In 1908, a line connected Rameswaram Road to Dhanushkodi. The British established a port at Dhanushkodi on March 1, 1914, and extended the railway to the point by building a pier in December,” says Athmanathan.
The railway line between Rameswaram and Dhanushkodi was operated by the Indo-Ceylon Railway. In 1949, the Indo-Ceylon Boat Mail service began from Madras to Dhanushkodi. Two trains ran daily from Egmore, with the fare to Colombo at just `80. Officials in Dhanushkodi depended on these trains, sending lists of groceries that needed to be transported. “During my father’s time, businessmen from Madras would take this train to Dhanushkodi, then board a boat to Jaffna, and from there a train to Colombo,” says Tharasu Shyam, a political analyst.
The railway line from Madurai to Dhanushkodi bolstered salt and cotton trade. The British exported firewood, tortoises, rice, and dried fish to Ceylon, importing betel nuts, coir, and timber. Ferry steamers transported goods. Steamers TSS Irwin and TSS Goschen, operated by the South Indian Railway Company (later Southern Railways), sailed between Talaimannar (Sri Lanka) and Dhanushkodi. The journey from Madras to Dhanushkodi by rail took 19 hours, and the steamer ride to Sri Lanka took 4 hours. While the service continued after Independence, passports became mandatory for travel. The steamers operated even after the 1964 cyclone but stopped in 1983 because of the Sri Lankan civil war.
The railway boosted trade, and the steamer service increased migration. Though fishing was the main occupation in Ramnad, many were involved in agriculture. According to the 1961 Census, of 3,173 residents, more than 1,000 worked as cultivators or labourers. During poor monsoons, men and women migrated to Ceylon to work on plantations. “Because of a number of casualties, many were forced to return home,” says Athmanathan, who recently published a book, ‘Dhanushkodi: A Paradise Lost’. “To protect labourers migrating to Ceylon, the British set up the Protector of Emigrants office in Dhanushkodi in 1923.” In 1924, about 1,05,129 people left Talaimannar for Dhanushkodi, often sent from estates or hospitals. They were escorted to Dhanushkodi and handed over to the emigration commission, which arranged their return home.
Like many coastal hamlets, Dhanushkodi had a large Christian population. St Antony’s Church, destroyed in the cyclone, was built in 1875 by Fr Laporte using coral reef stones. In 1916, a temple was opened opposite the Dhanushkodi post office. As businesses flourished, Dhanushkodi got a customs office. Michael Chelliah, a customs officer posted there in the 1950s, wrote in a blog that officials inspected 1,000 passengers daily traveling to and from Ceylon and other eastern countries, along with clearing about 200 tonnes of export and import cargo each day. Though earning `110 per month plus `30 as island allowance — a decent sum then — Chelliah mentions that he did extra night patrols to detect smuggling simply because “there was no other way to spend time on the island”.
For I J Rao, former Vice-President of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal, his only source of entertainment in the “depressive, drab, hot, and humid” Dhanushkodi was his portable radio. “Another memory was of the full moon days and new moon days. On these days, there would be high tides in Palk Strait and Gulf of Mannar between which Dhanushkodi island was situated. Water would engulf the small area in which we all lived,” he says in one of his writings. “The few families would be evacuated to the railway platform and personal effects would be placed two feet above the floor level for a few hours. The way in which all the people helped each other is a memory I would have for a long time.”
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