Visitors to Kochi who really want to get away from it all, and have time and a lot of money to spare, could do no better than to head for LAKSHADWEEP , the "one hundred thousand islands", which lie between 200 and 400km offshore in the deep blue of the Arabian Sea.

 

The smallest Union Territory in India consists of lagoons, reefs, sandbanks and 27 tiny coconut-palm-covered coral islands. Only ten are inhabited, with a total population of just over 50,000, the majority of whom are Malayalam-speaking Sunni Muslims, said to be descended from seventh-century Keralan Hindus who converted to Islam. The main sources of income are fishing, coconuts and related products. Fruit, vegetables and pulses are cultivated in small quantities but staples such as rice and many other commodities have always had to be imported. The Portuguese, who discovered the value of coir rope, a by-product of the coconut, controlled Lakshadweep during the sixteenth century; when they imposed an import tax on rice, locals retaliated by poisoning some of the forty-strong Portuguese garrison. Terrible reprisals followed. As Muslims, the islanders enjoyed friendly relations with Tipu Sultan of Mysore. That naturally aroused the ire of the British, who moved in at the end of the eighteenth century and remained until Independence, when Lakshadweep became a Union Territory