Udayor Blog

P R J Pradeep

When independent India celebrates the heroes who fought the British the earliest uprisings against the British in South India are not given their due place. Velu Thambi and Paliath Achan in Travancore - Cochin (1805-09), Pazhassi Raja in Malabar (1785-1805) and Kattabomman in Thirunelveli, Tamilnadu ( 1795-99) were most important among these. Despite being an Islamic tyrant Tippu Sultan of Mysore ( 1795-99) also fought the imperial British. Most of the historians consider the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 as the first major opposition to British rule in India. This is an anomaly in history as the stratagems the British used and the role of Christian faith in that remains unaccounted for. For one and a half centuries after 1800, India, what was the richest country in the world, came under organized loot. What indirectly continues. Post-colonial India had accepted secularism, a product of the Christian west, as state policy. It was now immoral and such debates were tabooed. To add on to this was the North- Indian bias in Indian history. How India continued to commit the same mistakes and the Indian state took a soft approach to Christianity and the west with calamitous effects. Impact of this neo-colonisation is still not fully realized.

It is not a coincidence that the famous `Kundara Vilambaram' a proclamation by Velu Thambi on January 11, 1809 calls on the Hindus to be aware of the designs of the Christian British and defeat them. He categorically states that `they will put crosses on temples' and 'dishonour the faith and the Brahmins'. Thambi was instrumental in attacking the British forces and the Syrian Christians of Kerala who supported them. Once refugees to Kerala given shelter by the Hindu kings they plotted for a Christian kingdom. Many Christian priests were killed in the Hindu uprising and sunk in the back waters. A major population of the Christians from Kollam, once capital of Venad, fled from the place. But at the end of the day Christians won the game and today the same Christians have come to rule Kerala. Legendary Malabar, Kerala now, has become the world capital of suicides. The ecosystem is devastated. Rich and clever Syrian Christians have captured most of the Kerala lands. The temples are indeed under the Christian rulers, what Velu Thambi predicted with uncanny precision. Paliathachan of Cochin also joined Thambi and gave a call to the `Nayars and Theeyas' to fight the British. Whole of south- central Kerala rose in revolt. British called in troupes from other regions and they were surrounded. Travancore kings also gave a call to arrest Velu Thambi and send forces. How they remained as the insiders thereafter. After a heroic resistance Velu Thambi committed suicide at a goddess temple at Mannady in 1809 as British historians later told. Dead body of Velu Thambi was brought to Kannammoola at Thiruvananthapuram and insulted, where a Christian monastery, United Theological Seminary, now stands in all majesty. Paliathachan was sent out on exile.

The game plans and lessons the British learned in this phase is of crucial importance in the later history of India. A company from a far off little island called Britain who came to trade in spices became the rulers of India with the help of crude tactics and Christianity. Where the faith and the local Christians played a central role. In Kerala having been here for long they knew the values of the local people, what came handy for the Europeans. How Tippu Sultan also targeted the local Christians whom he called `spies of the British'. In Travancore it was a triangle of faiths that clashed, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. When Tippu Sultan and his father Hyder Ali tried to forcibly convert people, what all other Islamic rulers of the time did in India, the Hindu kings of Travancore sought British help. Initially the British did not help as promised but Travancore defeated Tippu. Later the British asked for `protection money and expenses of war', impossible sums from the small kingdom. They trapped Travancore in debt and took over the rule. Not paying back `debt' was painful for the values of the place. They created that `debt' and made the rulers feel guilty. It was a clear psychological device, later versions of history tell that the British took bribes from Tippu as well. These officers were put under punishment and a famous English novel has this story as its theme.

Now the process of conversions to Christianity began, efforts to neutralize the Hindu faith were also under way. Community owned temples were taken over and brought under the British government, what continues to this day. Temple rituals were altered by `laws'. Famous temple centred Kalari culture of the martial people Nayars, where decentralized armies were part of Kerala, was dissolved. What kept the place impossible to colonise so far. Christian institutions of justice replaced the local ones, where the local Christians were pushed in by state orders. They spread exaggerated stories of upper caste oppression and got the lower castes converted. Converts stood by them. Obviously the caste Brahmin phase had created severe caste divisions and these were cleverly used by the missionaries. The refugee population of Syrian Christians and the new converts were given many privileges. Exorbitant rates of taxation, to pay the British, broke the local economy. Fleecing tax was entrusted to the old nobility Nayars who had to face punishment if the quotas were not met. Obviously they became enemies of the ordinary people. Conversions gave tax exemptions and people flocked to Christianity. Many of the British officers went back to Britain and became leaders at the Christian support missions for conversions in India like the Church Mission Society. It was a long term political plan more than faith.

In Malabar where Pazhassi Raja rose in revolt the scene was very similar, on one side was the threat of Muslim rulers from Mysore whose cruelty to the `kafirs' was beyond description. Younger one of the ruling family in Kottayam, which extended from Tellicherry to Kudaku including the tribal belts of Wynad, Pazhassi Raja too sought the help of the British to fight the Muslims. Had to repent this later and here again faith was central. He wrote to Ayilyath Nambiar, a Nayar chiefton around 1800, `the whites have desecrated Manathana, the abode of Perumal and Bhagawathy (God and the Goddess) and firings have taken place there, I have decided to oppose them'. The early clashes of Pazhassy Raja were also related to faith and heavy taxation. Emboldened by the presence of Tippu and the British the local Muslims started building places of worship at Kottayam bazaar without taking permission from the Raja. Pazhassi ordered its demolition and this angered the British now assuming sovereignty. They plotted to make the small kings to fight each other and made them pay huge taxes. Unable to pay the unbearable taxes many farmers abandoned their villages. Where Pazhassy, who swore by Porkali Bhagawathy, the family deity, took up armed struggle.

The Nayar chieftons, local Nambiar families and the warlike tribals like Kurichiar and Kurumbar stood by him. It was one of the longest revolts that the British had to face in India and lasted for around ten years. Large number of British soldiers and officers had to pay with their lives and the Raja and his tribal warriors had the forest tracks of Wynad to their advantage. The British plotted giving various advantages to the local kings and made them enemies of each other, Pazhassi Raja refused to oblige despite offers of peace. He stood his ground and demanded that the taxes be waived. Later phases of the clash saw the Raja going to the old enemy Tippu himself for alliance. The Moppila Muslims of Malabar, mainly descendants of the Arabian traders and those converted to Islam, now supported Pazhassi Raja. They realized the British motives and forgot the differences. But the British defeated and killed Tippu at Sreerangapatnam in 1799. Pazhassi Raja was their next target. The British famous for their planning was buying time and making preparations in the region for a final assault. Their positions in Sreerangapatnam was reinforced and the plan was to attack from different directions what they did with Velu Thambi in Travancore as well. The small kings had valour but did not have the broad frame of operation in India as the British had. The British officers, called Collectors, since their main job was collecting taxes, took several steps like waving the oppressive taxes from selected people and winning them over. But majority of the people stood with Pazhassi. As a reminder of the colonized minds fossils of the `Collectors' still remain in India.

When the final war came they offered prices for catching the leaders of the `rebels'. The rates were Pazhassi Raja, and his two nephews - Pagoda 5000 (around Rs. 15000/), four people from the Edachena Nayar family - Pagoda 2000. Kurichiar tribals, Palloor, Ittikombath, Mundottil Nayar families were also associated with the revolt and offered prices for heads. Pazhassi called on the people to fight in the name of the hill deities of Wynad and the final assault was planned based at the Seethadevi temple at Pulpalli. But at last they were defeated by a team under the Collector T H Babar and Pazhassi Raja was killed on 30 Nov. 1805. It was Babar who also captured Thalaykkal Chanthu a Kurichia tribal leader. When killed Pazhassi had his wife from the Avinjat Nayar family with him. Getting the reward money kept Babar plotting again and he reported that only a gold dagger and waist band was all that he could put hands on. Pazhassi's dead body was given due honors by Babar who wrote about the great man with respect. Perhaps they had learned the lessons after Velu Thambi's dead body was subjected to insult. Soon the British promoted their own people in the region and made all efforts to keep the war like tribals in control, the forests where they could hide were made British reserves and white officers put in charge. Settlements of Christian in Wynad, mainly the Syrian Christians begins from the south, begins here. As a British officer himself wrote about the time ` the traditional social controls have broken down, any one can loot anything here'. Today Wynad and the hill areas are almost totally under the Syrian Christians and the tribals are thrown out of their own lands. The many of the old Nayar families have been made laborers of the Christians in most places. With the state ruled by a Christian Muslim coalition they flex their muscles and have also destroyed the rain forest ecosystem. Pulppally is a mafia center of the Christian eco-criminals who remain out of the law enforcement mechanisms. Poaching and cultivation of Indian hemp, Gunja, is the core activity here. Where the Christian politicians in the capital have their stakes.

The other uprising in south India, that of Kattabomman in Thirunelveli was also similar and had in it almost all the ingredients and inhuman taxation was at the core. Unlike Kerala region Tamilnadu did not give refuge to the Syrian Christians and there was no immediate Christian connection here. What was taken care of by the British who send hordes of missionaries to the Tamilnadu villages, what continues to this day. Kattabomman who infuriated the British by shooting down a British official at the residence of the British Collector at Ramnad took to the forests of Pudukottai. The British who helped the Thondaiman kings of Ramnad against the Muslim invaders took his help and Kattabomman was caught in the forests by the Raja's forces. Legendary Kattabomman was handed over to the British by the king Raghunatha Thondaiman and was hanged at Kayathar in the presence of the Palayakkar of Thirunelveli on 17 Oct. 1799. As a warning to those revolting. Thondaiman got a horse and a Khillet for the service rendered and they continued to rule under the British as a principality, like Travancore, till independence. Where the descendants of Kattabomman and the warlike Thevar community have succumbed to misery and destitution. The British treated them as a criminal community, later known as the `Maravar', meaning guerilla fighters, this community is now in dire straights.

The early uprisings against the British in the South have important lessons for India though these are least understood even after half a century of the British leaving the Indian shores. The European Christian nations and the Arab Muslims were fighting for the trade supremacy in the Indian ocean. Where Hindu India was caught in between. Even after freedom the far sighted British had ensured that the lids remained intact and the Indian union became a member of the British Common Wealth, a crowd of old colonies owing allegiance to Britain, and continued to be an open forum for Christian missionaries and western loot. Only the devices now came in other names and shapes. If it was the East India Company then it is the World Bank and the WTO now. Indebted India continues to pay off the heavy debts, what if the poor in India have not enough to meet their daily food expenses. With its colonial hang over India is run by those who are trained by the west, the successful politicians are those from the London School of Economics. An institution set up during the period of colonization, with its biased theories of the western hegemony. Indian `Collectors' still haunt people, though they don't collect anything now. Within India the hierarchy of caste and the caste Brahmin supremacy are still intact and in many regions untouchability is widely practiced fuelling Christian conversions. Interestingly both Velu Thambi and Pazhassi Raja evoked the ' Protection of the Brahmins' as their major motto. The Hindu – Muslim divide which was broadened by the British eventually lead to the trifurcation of the country but is still alive and helping the western conspiracies. But Indian scholars or the media refuse to look at these central processes of faith as yet, they are afraid. The sagas of Velu Thambi,Pazhassi Raja and Kattabomman are rarely taught to the new generations in the south leave alone the North. Where historians of independent India have failed.