ONE of the most recognisable landmarks of Kuching, the Astana, quietly celebrates its 150th birthday this year.
Sitting on a riverfront hillock overlooking the oldest part of the city, highly visible and yet remotely stately, it was built in 1870 by Rajah Charles Brooke, the second of Sarawak's fabled three "White Rajahs", who, over the course of a century, established the state as an independent kingdom with borders as it stands today.
Some at the state's political fringe today hark back to this era, which began in 1841 with Sir James Brooke carving the area around the state capital out of the Brunei sultanate as the beginning of his jungle kingdom, as signifying that Sarawak had always being a sovereign state prior to Malaysia.
Except that the Brooke Raj ended with a controversial decision in 1946 called "Cession", as Charles' son, Rajah Vyner Brooke — against rather vocal local opposition — decided against passing Sarawak to the then Rajah Muda Anthony Brooke, and instead, having Britain accept it as a crown colony.
This may be as good a time as any to revisit the Brooke era. Was it good for Sarawak? What if the Raj had not abruptly ended in 1946? Were the Brookes good for Sarawak? In a way, that may be akin to asking if it is good our parents gave birth to us.
For without the Brookes and their state-building projects, Sarawak as it is today probably would not exist. At best, the state might have continued as part of Brunei.
Or, given that several European empires had been actively carving out colonies in this region, the state or parts of it might have become colonial possessions much earlier than 1946.
With the tribal cleavages that existed even then, the result of which was a major reason why representatives of the Brunei sultan had such a hard time keeping the peace in these parts and also why James was enlisted to help, it is difficult to imagine any local leader then would have had the vision and the wherewithal for anything like a pan-Sarawak entity as exists today.
W hat had motivated the Brookes to do what they did? James was clearly the daredevil adventurer setting out further east from his perch in the East India Company.
Was personal pursuit of wealth his primary motivation? There seems scant evidence to back that up. Sure, there were efforts to tax the Chinese gold miners of Bau, which resulted in a serious revolt as they ransacked Kuching and drove James from his bungalow where the Astana stands today.
Charles, more of the administrator who busied himself as heir apparent to win over the Dayak tribes of the interior, had to enlist his new subjects to quell the Chinese rebellion and save James.
Charles was also said to be something of a socialist idealist. Having won over or subdued recalcitrant natives, he next set about inviting a group of Christian Foochow-Chinese to settle amidst the forbidding swamp lands around Sibu, which would later become known as New Foochow.
Wildcatters struck oil in Miri in 1910, but perhaps it was a combination of a rather diffident Vyner and the ravages of World War 2 which led him to set in motion an ugly confrontation with Anthony that sealed the Brookes' collective fate in Sarawak.
Anthony had a loyal following among the Sarawak Malays, whose most prominent chieftain, the Datu Patinggi Ali, even returned what he considered hush money from Vyner to agree to Cession.
The earnest Anthony might have continued with the constitutional progress began by his forebears and, therefore, preserved Sarawak's unique status. But that was not to be.
He was banished from Sarawak until Malaysia came about and, unlike the three Rajahs, chose to be permanently interred next to the Astana upon his passing in 2011. There is a lingering romanticism attached to the Brookes and Sarawak.
Foibles and all, it is safe to say they did themselves and Sarawak much credit. Anthony's grandson, Jason, who now heads the Brooke Trust and visits the state regularly, sums it up well: "When I, like my forebears, am amongst Sarawakians, recalling the old days, or talking of the future, I feel Sarawakian."
The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching, Sarawak