Indian Steamship Ventures, 1836-1910

This book retraces the history of Indian Steam Navigation Ventures since 1836 upto 1910. The pioneers of Indian Steam Navigation were Dwarkanath Tagore and his grandson Jyotindranath Tagore of Bengal. As far as southern India is concerned, **Darmanathan Prouchandy of Pondicherry** was the first man to indulge in steam navigation business since 1891 until 1900 in French Indochina. He ran two steamers called 'Alexandre' and 'Prouchandy' in the Mekong for ten years. **P. Darmanathan is south India's first 'Kappal Ottiya Tamizhan' (the first Tamil steam navigator).** He was also the first Tamilian and Indian to attempt to run a passenger line by sea from Saigon to Thailand. But unfortunately permission was denied to him by the French colonial authorities of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh ville). **His name is not remembered or honoured neither by the Tamilnadu goverment nor by the Pondicherry goverment as the pioneer in Steam navigation in south India.** It was only much later in April 1906 tht the Si.Va Company of Turicorin floated a steam line connecting Turicorin with Colombo. When this company floundered in a few months, V.O.Chidambaram of Tirunelveli initiated the Swadeshi Steam navigation Company connecting Tuticorin with Colombo, in which he was assistant secretary. The major shareholder in this company was **Haji Fakir Mohammad Sait & sons. Pandi Thurai Thevar** was also a shareholder.This company lasted only for a couple of years, unlike the steam navigation line of P. Darmanathan which lasted for 10 years.