Key Points
V O Chidambaram Pillai, called VOC, started the first indigenous Indian shipping company, Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company (SSNCo), in 1906, against British India Steam Navigation Company, plying ships between Tuticorin-Colombo..
He was later arrested by the British government in 1908 and sentenced to two terms of life-imprisonment and was locked in Coimbatore prison where he was sentenced to hard labour...
In 1906, pained by the monopoly of the British India Steam Navigation Company, called BI, which ran shipping services between Tuticorin and Colombo, VOC decided to launch a Swadeshi steamship company which will not be exploitative like the monopolistic British company...
Competition between SSNCo and BI was so fierce it led to street fights between agents, historian A R Venkatachalapathy, who writes about it in his book 'Swadeshi Steam V O Chidambaram Pillai and the Battle against the British Maritime Empire', told TOI in January after his book was just published..
The murder was the direct outcome of the arrest of VOC and suppression of the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company, which was giving tough competition to British India Navigation Company," Venkatachalapathy told TOI..
