Freedom movement: India
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Contents |
The course of the movement
1929: The ‘Total Independence’ resolution in Lahore
Devyani Mohan, Dec 27, 2021: The Times of India
Some months earlier, Lord Irwin, the then viceroy of India, had said, in what is referred to as the Irwin Declaration, that India would be granted dominion status in the future. The news was welcomed by Indian leaders, who had long been making this demand. But, back in England, the Irwin Declaration triggered a storm. Under pressure, Irwin was forced to backtrack; he met senior Indian leaders and told them that he could not promise dominion status to India anytime soon.
A miffed Indian National Congress decided to up the ante and pitch for full independence. Consequently, it passed a resolution for 'Purna Swaraj' at its Lahore session. On January 26, 1930, a public declaration was made, marking the beginning of a large-scale political movement against colonial rule. Even as the Congress convention was in progress, Virendra, a Congress Sewa Dal volunteer and freedom fighter, was arrested on December 24. The British also arrested a handful of other freedom fighters, including Kiran Das (brother of Jatin Das, the martyr who fasted to death protesting against the treatment of political prisoners).
Why were they arrested? There had been an attempt to blow up the viceroy’s train in Delhi a day earlier. There was no way Virendra could have been involved, since he was in Lahore at the time. However, he was already a ‘marked man’, and was, therefore, arrested despite the lack of evidence against him, only to be released three weeks later.
Virendra writes in his memoirs, Destination Freedom, "While the entire city was out to participate in the historic Congress session, I was marched off in handcuffs from the Congress camp to a British prison."
While lodged in Borstal prison in Lahore, Virendra and his fellow inmates got news that on December 31, Jawaharlal Nehru, newly-appointed president of the Congress, was going to unfurl the tricolour flag on the banks of the Ravi river at midnight and raise the demand for complete independence for India in front of a huge crowd.
The prisoners were disappointed at not being able to witness this historic event in person but were determined to be part of it, albeit from afar. "We decided then that even though we were in jail, we must commemorate the occasion," Virendra writes.
And so, a plan was made to shout slogans and sing national songs around midnight on the 31st, at around the same time as the tricolour was being unfurled.
A message was sent through an undertrial to the others in another part of the jail to join them. These were associates of Bhagat Singh who were in prison in connection with the Lahore Conspiracy Case, concerning the killing of British officer JP Saunders (the main accused Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were incarcerated at the Lahore Central Jail.) They sent word back that they would. December 31st dawned. Virendra and the others spent the day imagining what the scene on the banks of the Ravi river would be like. The air was tinged with anticipation and excitement. Soon night came. "Right at the stroke of midnight," he writes, "Kiran Das started singing Vande Mataram, as only a Bengali can. Then we all started the song 'Mera Rang De Basanti Chola'. Soon our slogans rang through the cold night air."
Even as they were shouting and singing lustily on this side of the jail, Virendra writes that on the other side, the accused in the Lahore Conspiracy case gave a full-throated response. "Then almost together, all of us sang the immortal lyrics of the poem Sarfaroshi ki Tammanna...'"
So high was the patriotic fervour that night, that the entire jail woke up hearing their rendition of the songs. "The officers ran to see what was happening. The daroga (inspector) came to us with folded hands and implored us to stop, or else he would lose his job if people outside came to know what was happening inside his prison," Virendra writes.
But the daroga's plea, and later, his threats, fell on deaf ears. Virendra and the others sang for three hours straight that cold winter night, even as jail officials stood helplessly watching. "No one paid any attention to him (the daroga). He threatened to send us to separate cells. But we linked our arms and carried on noisily till 3am."
Thousands of people took the pledge for ‘Purna Swaraj’ that New Year's Eve in Lahore. It was a defining moment in India's freedom struggle and would chart the path for a modern, independent India. Back in prison, Virendra and the others did not know how events were unfolding as the Congress announced its goal of a free India on the banks of the Ravi. "But," he writes, "we, the prisoners inside Borstal jail, had proclaimed our desire loud and clear in front of the flunkies of his Majesty, the King.”
Picture credit: From the writer's personal collection
Not entirely non-violent
Guerrilla armies
Sugata Srinivasaraju, August 17, 2021: The Times of India
Although Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and Satyagraha have been the nucleus around which our nationalist history has been articulated, if one looks at the ignored local and provincial histories of the freedom struggle, and examine martyrdoms in these forgotten corners, a very different picture emerges. It exposes the flatness of our retelling. For instance, if one looks at the police archives of the Kannada-speaking areas from 1942 (they were scattered into four different regions and were put together as a single state in 1956), around the ‘Quit India’ movement that began in August of that year, we see that the regular Congress workers were impervious to the ideas of their party elites. The British had arrested Gandhi on August 9, 1942 and these events were taking place in the aftermath.
It is true that Congressmen were inspired by the ‘Quit India’ call of Gandhi, but what they did with that inspiration was left to local ingeniousness and circumstances. In many instances, they came across as a mob, and their strategies to counter the local administration was no different from that of a guerrilla army — they disrupted rail traffic, burnt post-offices, halted production at mills and factories, cut off communication lines, attacked policemen and even stole government money. They organised strikes and bullied those who did not buy into their ideas. They were not merely a subdued khadi wearing spiritual army singing bhajans. It is another matter that they eventually got portrayed in such a homogenous fashion. A small portion of these police records have been extracted and clumsily published in a 1964 volume (879 pages) on the freedom movement (currently out of print) by the then government of Mysore with S Nijalingappa as chief minister (he later became the national president of the Congress).
Sample these records: A report from the Belgaum area says that “cutting of telegraph and telephone lines has gone on almost from day one… the major destruction was, however, the burning of the post-office and the sub-registrar’s office at Nippani, for which government have imposed a collective fine of a lac and thirty thousand.” A similar report from Bangalore says: “The Bangalore city head post office and two branch post offices in the city were burnt, and Rs 5,000 cash removed.” The destruction of telegraph poles, wires as well as capture and burning of mail bags were being reported across Dharwar, North Kanara, Coorg, Bijapur and Bellary districts.
The railways were not spared either. On the afternoon of October 30, 1942 about 100 persons attacked Suldhal station in Belgaum district and set it on fire. On October 22, the dak bungalow in Dharwar district’s Aminbhavi had been “completely burnt”. A couple of days prior to this there was an attempt to set afire the Yamanur Dak bungalow during which the “wooden pillars in the veranda was all cut down.”
In a ‘confidential’ letter dated December 23, 1943 the district magistrate of Kanara to the home secretary in Bombay said that the pension due to one SP Gaonkar should be withheld because he was one of the “main instigators for burning the Forest Timber Depot at Hattikeri (Ankola taluk)” in November 1942, which resulted in a damage of Rs 12,000 to the government. In another confidential letter, a junior officer writes to the Assistant Deputy Director General of Police in the CID. in Poona, about the interrogation of the principal accused in the Byadgi Railway Station sabotage case conducted to ascertain the “underground activities of the Congress organisation.”
The records, some of them internal communication of the local Congress organisation but in police possession, also speak of firing incidents in Davangere, Mysore, Tumkur and Hassan: “The shooting was severe at Bangalore and Davangere. Nearly 150 persons died at Bangalore and six at Davangere. In Bangalore there was a pitched battle for hours on the August 16 and 17. When the cavalry charged the crowd, ragi [millet] was thrown on the tarred roads, so that the horses slipped and collapsed. One horse-man died of the fall”. Since rail lines were removed from the Bangalore-Hubli, Bangalore-Mysore and Bangalore-Guntakal lines, train services were disrupted for nearly a month. Milk and vegetable supplies to the military were stopped for a week. When they were restored, soldiers accompanied the suppliers in trains and buses.
Interestingly, among the records, there is also proof of subversion within the police ranks in Dharwar: “During the recent raids on the mail-bags, a letter addressed by the Dharwar DSP to a CID man sanctioning the necessary amount for his khaddar dress was found. The Dharwar Bulletin published the facsimile of that letter and broadcasted it.” In Ankola, one person from the crowd removed the hat of the inspector as well as the turban of the jamadar and burnt the same before them. In one case in Kumta, a lady student slapped a police officer when he tried to wrest the flag from her hand, and perhaps following this incident, thirty-two girls were severely beaten with lathis. In many places, Congress protestors picketed schools and colleges, and “offered bangles and kumkum [vermillion] to those who attended classes.”
One of the most fascinating stories of martyrdom from the time is of Mylara Mahadevappa, who was born in Motebennur, a “small village near Byadgi railway station on the Poona-Bangalore line” (now in Haveri district). He was apparently one of the 79 volunteers selected by Gandhi to walk along with him during the Dandi march in 1930. After the Dandi march, he established an ashram at Koradur on the banks of the Varda river. He shut it down later and restarted it, but in-between went to Bangalore to build his body at a gymnasium and understand Ayurveda.
During the Quit India movement, Mahadevappa gathered about 20 youth and started “a sort of guerrilla warfare against the government”. For nearly eight months this group “successfully carried out seventy-four exploits” and to capture government money in Hosaritti (also now in Haveri district) was their 75 th adventure. They wanted to “dedicate it to the 75 years of Gandhiji’s life.” The heavy government cash box that was being transported was kept in a temple with three policemen guarding it, while others had gone to the nearby stream to perform their ablutions. Mahadevappa and his team attacked and took possession of the box after “terrorising” the policemen on guard. But when they started moving the box the rest of the policemen surrounded and fired at them. They were killed instantly.
There are similar stories of adventure in Belgaum taluk by one Channappa Wali. There is also the epic tale of the Isoor village in Shikaripur taluk of Shimoga district from September 1942 when a government revenue officer and policemen were killed. In the retaliation that followed many villagers, including children, were killed. It had all started after the revenue officer and his party were asked to put on the khadi caps. Looking at these details from various corners that do not constitute the mainstream narrative of our freedom struggle should only nuance our understanding of our own history.
Sugata Srinivasaraju chronicles the south
Region-wise
Chambal
August 14, 2022: The Times of India
After Independence, Chambal and its ravines have long been the hunting ground for dacoits -Maan Singh, Paan Singh Tomar, Phoolan Devi, Nirbhay Gujjar – who preferred to be called ‘baaghis’ (rebels). However, amid a changing world order at the time of World War I in the 1920s, the region on UP-MP border was the breeding field for another kind of ‘baaghis’ who were ready to sacrifice themselves for Bharat Mata chanting ‘Vande Matram’ unleashing the war cry ‘Angrezon Bharat Chhoro’.
Reports suggest that between 1912 and 1920, Genda Lal Dixit of Mai village in Bah tehsil of Agra formed an armed group against British rule. “Though a school teacher, Dixit had pledged his life to the motherland. He started with patriotic writing but felt that a stronger message was needed. So, he formed a group of 10 men in 1912 — Shiva ji Samiti. Soon, its strength rose by 30 members, who were labelled as ‘dacoits’, and led by Pancham Singh. By 1916, Shiva ji Samiti shifted its base from Auraiya to Etawah and renamed as Matravedi Dal,” says Shah Alam, who has written Dixit’s biography.
Alam, who has also put up a gallery on bravehearts from the region as Chambal Archives, claims that Dixit was in touch with all key hardliners of the freedom struggle and supported them with money and means. Ram Prasad Bismil, the hero of Kakori train robbery, was also a member of his Matravedi Dal. This group finds mention in various accounts penned by Bismil. In one such article, published in the September 1924 edition of Prabha Magazine (Pratap Press Kanpur), Bismil writes: “By 1917, Matravedi had grown into an army of 500-armed horse riders, 2,000 foot soldiers besides having an asset value of Rs eight lakh. Jalaun district’s Konch area was their base with Dixit as the chief strategist, Pancham Singh as the implementer and Lakshmananand Bhramchari as the organisational and managerial head. They had adapted their dress code and discipline from the ways of Napoleon Bonaparte. They paid a monthly salary to their members and believed in rewarding them for exemplary work. In addition to their armed contingent, Matravedi maintained a network of over 4,000 informers across 40 districts who also spread their ideology through pamphlets. They often targeted businessmen and feudal lords loyal to the British. ”
Towards the fag end of 1918, Matravedi Dal planned to loot a businessman in Mainpuri to fund its activities (recorded as Mainpuri Conspiracy) but the bid failed and led to disintegration of the group. Citing references from Hindi book ‘Kranti Ke Mandir Mein (1929)’ and Mainpuri Conspiracy case file (1919), Alam narrates the story of the group’s fall. “In December 1918, an insider, Hindu Singh, leaked the information to the British in the quest for prize money. References indicate that at least 100 group members were hiding in the Mihona Forest of Bhind along the ravines. Many of them had not slept and had not even eaten properly for two days when Singh offered them some food. By the time the members realised that the food was laced with intoxicants, some fellows had already lost consciousness. When Bhind police launched its attack, though caught unawares, the group managed to kill 50 British men even as 38 of their own died,” Alam says.
Remaining survivors, including Dixit, were caught and lodged in the Agra Fort. In the criminal case proceedings, Dixit admitted to his crime and pleaded innocence for some of his group members who were let off by the judge. Even while the case was on, Dixit managed to escape from jail and was declared an absconder on November 1, 1919. It is said he lived underground in Delhi and worked till December 1921.
THE MADRAS CITY BOMBING & OOTY BANK LOOT
A senior British officer in the Madras Presidency make a tall claim that ‘people in my region are loyal to the Queen and under my rule, freedom fighters will never find takers in the South’. The statement, published in Civil and Military Gazette, made its way to members of the Anusheelan Samiti serving sentences in Lahore Jail for keeping weapons. Led by Dada Shambhu Nath Azad, a native of Kachaura ghat section of the Chambal
in Agra, the members decided to teach a lesson to the ‘arrogant officer’. In his memoirs published postIndependence, Shambhu Nath has admitted being an initial member of Bhagat Singh’s Naujawan Bharat Sabha. He also noted that he got initial training in guerrilla warfare and use of modern weapons and bomb making in Chambal ravines. And upon his release in 1932, he formed a committee of 13 people (called Dasta) and drew the plan to kill the British officer. The initial ‘action’ was to conduct a bank dacoity and assassinate the officer. But then they decided to pool in money and resources instead. Eventually they managed to collect around Rs 6,000. However, by the time they could use the money, they came on the British radar. Raids were conducted, the group’s cashier was nabbed and the money was confiscated. This compelled them to go back to the original plan.
According to several newspaper interviews of Dada Azad published after 1947, the group zeroed in on Ooty flower show event scheduled for April 29, 1933 in which the said officer was to participate. For this, the Ooty National Bank was to be robbed on April 28, 1933. “We entered the bank with six members at around noon and managed to walk away with Rs 80,000,” writes independent scribe Ram Singh Baghele citing Dada Azad in one of his pieces.
But the high value and daylight robbery led to cancellation of the flower show where the officer was to be targeted. And so, the rebels had to lie low in a hideout in Madras.
On May 4, 1933, the police arrested all after a five-hour encounter. After trial, Dada Azad was imprisoned at the Andaman Cellular Jail (kala pani).
COMMANDER ARJUN SINGH AND THE CHAMBAL TRAINING SCHOOL
In the 1940s, ‘Commander’ Arjun Singh Bhadauria raised an armed group targeting the British officers who lived and thrived on the banks of Yamuna along the ravines of Chambal for three years (1941-44). He earned the title of ‘Commander’ after forming the Lal Sena at the time of Quit India Movement on the lines of Indian National Army. Commander Bhadauria also penned his story of freedom struggle in a book titled ‘Neev ke Pathar’, published in two parts in the 1980s.
“A native of Luiya village in Etawah’s Basehar block, he joined the freedom movement in his teenage years. His uncle was a subedar in the British government who was grooming him with skills like shooting. But instead of choosing the side of his uncle, Arjun crossed the line and joined the group of freedom fighters,” says a newspaper clipping.
It adds that Arjun was rusticated from his school after which he was sent to Gwalior at a relative’s place for completion of studies. The change of place, however, did not root the desired change of heart and Arjun continued to serve the nationalist cause. As expected, he landed in jail. Under the influence of his uncle, he joined the gram sudhar department as an organiser in 1937 and later got promoted to the position of district scouts master. However, he could not take the conflict within for long and in 1939 he resigned from his position to follow his heart. Scores of teachers and coworkers also left their jobs and joined him.
“He worked at two levels – while on the face, he was a Gandhian but on the flip side, he founded the Lal Sena which trained people to loot British assets like revenue, food grains and weapons. While some portion of the money and weapons were used to run the group and buy food grains, the remaining money was used to feed the poor,” says Alam citing different vernacular newspapers of the times.
Bhadauria continued to serve the nation for decades after independence as a member of parliament from Etawah in 1957, 1967 and 1977. He was a close ally of Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan as well and had shared the stage with former President Shankar Dayal Sharma and Prime Minister Chandrashekhar.
The North-East
Jayanta Kalita, August 12, 2022: The Times of India
Assam, the gateway to India’s northeast, saw a series of Burmese invasions starting from 1817. The East India Company (EIC) headquartered in Calcutta sent its troops to stop the Burmese attacks on the Ahom kingdom. But the colonial rulers had an ulterior motive — they were eyeing an expansion of the Bengal Province and extracting the northeast’s rich natural resources.
The British troops eventually defeated the Burmese army and the two sides signed a peace agreement (Treaty of Yandabo) on February 24, 1826, which facilitated the annexation of some parts of the region, including Assam, by the British. But the region, with its complex geography, multiethnic milieu and vivid cultures, posed a significant challenge to the colonial regime in the initial years. Their highhandedness only made matters worse.
The Adi and Mishmi rebellion
The British introduced the Inner Line Permit system in 1872, thus segregating the people of the hills from those residing in the plains. They appointed an assistant political officer at Sadiya, the easternmost town in Assam, to introduce a basic level of administration in Arunachal Pradesh, then called the North East Frontier Tract.
The colonial administration made several attempts to set foot in the hills to exploit the rich forest resources. But the tribes, most of whom are animist, fiercely resisted such moves.
According to recorded history, one such attempt was averted by the Adi tribe (then called the Abors) at Yagrung village near Pasighat in March 1911. The villagers led by their chief Jomoh killed a British officer and his Indian subordinates. In retaliation, the British launched punitive action, known as the Abor Expedition, in which they unleashed a reign of terror.
The Idu Mishmi tribe also valiantly fought against the British troops during three expeditions in 1900, 1914 and 1919. In the first expedition, tribal warriors killed as many as 34 soldiers of the colonial regime. In 1905, villagers led by Ponge Dele and Taji Dele killed three British subjects and burnt down the government godown block house in Sadiya.
The two leaders laid down their lives, along with scores of fellow tribesmen, trying to defend their land and the people. Last year, a Martyr Pillar was erected in their honour in Elope, a small village in eastern Arunachal Pradesh. The Apatani community of Ziro Valley was also brutally suppressed when they resisted the British in 1896. Despite such punitive measures, the imperialist design to dominate these tribes did not succeed much, thereby prompting the British to rethink their strategy.
A plot to overthrow colonial rule
The Treaty of Yandabo had sowed the seeds of distrust between the EIC and the Assamese gentry who claimed that the agreement was signed without the consent of the Ahom royals. Maniram Dutta Barua alias Maniram Dewan, a powerful and wealthy aristocrat, then appealed to the Assamese youth to resist the British takeover of what used to be the Ahom kingdom.
Initially, Dewan served under the British. He is said to be India’s first tea planter and the pioneer of the tea industry in Assam.
Despite his pleas, the British refused to hand over power to an Ahom king. This made Dewan and his fellow Assamese Piyali Barua more determined to overthrow British rule.
The 1857 uprising against the British inspired Dewan to launch a similar rebellion in Assam. He organised a group of revolutionaries to execute a plan. From Calcutta, he sent coded letters to Barua, who was acting as the chief adviser to Ahom prince Kandarpeswar, urging him to launch an armed resistance against the EIC administration. The idea was to involve sepoys deployed at Golaghat and Dibrugarh in the rebellion against the British.
As per the plan, the revolutionaries would march to Jorhat, where Kandarpeswar would be installed as king. However, the local police in Sivasagar intercepted some letters and their plot was exposed. The police arrested all those who took part in the “conspiracy” against the regime.
On February 26, 1858, Dewan and Barua were publicly hanged in Jorhat, while their fellow revolutionaries were exiled and jailed. Areas in the NE region colonised by the British (Survey of India/Wikimedia Commons)
The guerilla warriors of Khasi Hills
After its takeover of Assam, a British official named David Scott proposed to construct a 230km road connecting Guwahati with Sylhet (in present-day Bangladesh) to boost trade.
At that time, Meghalaya was divided into smaller states, each of which was ruled by a syiem or a chief. U Tirot Sing, the head of Nongkhlaw, initially liked the proposal thinking it would bring prosperity to the Khasi community. But suspicion grew when he came to know that the British had an ulterior motive.
According to Edward Gait’s The History of Assam , in early 1829, a worker engaged in the road project informed Tirot Sing that the British were planning to levy taxes and subjugate the natives as soon as the road was ready.
Tirot Sing discussed the matter with Scott and others. He also urged the EIC officials to leave Nongkhlaw, but they didn’t take the matter seriously. This irked Tirot Sing and other Khasi chiefs, who resolved to fight against the British.
On April 8, 1829, Tirot Sing led an attack using guerilla tactics on a small group of British officers and killed them. This is how the Anglo-Khasi War broke out. Despite their guns and cannons, colonial troops were not trained to defend themselves against such surprise attacks.
A statue of U Tirot Singh at Mairang in Meghalaya
The Khasi warriors were finally defeated by the British troops, who were numerically superior and well-armed. Tirot Singh was captured and he eventually died in a Dhaka prison on July 17, 1835. The British annexed Khasi Hills in 1833.
The Jaintias and Garos in Meghalaya also resisted the British move to construct the road. But the British took punitive measures by burning down several Jaintia and Garo villages. Tribal leaders such as U Kiang Nangbah (Pnar) and Pa Togan Nengminja (Garo) sacrificed their lives fighting for their homeland.
The fighting spirit of the Nagas
The EIC’s attempts to explore the Naga Hills and subjugate the people there were met with stiff resistance. There had been constant raids by various Naga tribes on colonial expeditions between 1839 and the 1850s. The villagers of Khonoma and Kikruma taught some bitter lessons to the colonial rulers, prompting them to initiate a policy of non-interference in the hills.
Naga tribesmen in their battle gear (University of Houston Libraries) The 1851 battle of Kikruma was fought between spear-wielding Naga warriors and rifle-toting colonial troops. Jelle Wouters, an anthropologist who teaches at Royal Thimphu College, Bhutan, wrote: “This battle was not the outcome of colonial forces seeking to attack and subdue the village, as they had reduced to rubble and burned many Naga villages, but because Kikruma warriors had openly challenged British troops to a fight. This is the story of a single Naga village deciding to challenge the British Empire.”
Captain Reid, the British officer who accepted the challenge, gathered a strong army of 800 “friendly Nagas” from villages nearby and equipped them with guns and mortars. A fierce fight broke out, but Captain Reid’s strategy coupled with British firepower inflicted heavy casualties on the Kikruma warriors.
The Nagas may have lost the battle, but they won the war as they demonstrated a fighting spirit and a rare unity among the tribes.
References:
https://indianculture.gov.in/north-east-archive
https://ncert.nic.in/pdf/publication/otherpublications/tinei101.pdf
https://www.jstor.org/stable/44158671?read-now=1&seq=6#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.himalmag.com/the-battle-of-kikruma/
How the British empire kept its tyranny under wraps
Tamil Nadu
Before 1857
Arun Janardhanan , August 21, 2022: The Indian Express
Stalin began with the story of Puli Thevar, who ruled Nerkattumseval, near Tenkasi in southern Tamil Nadu, and who, in 1755, told the East India Company that “not even a grain can be paid as tax”.
Another historical character Stalin spoke about was ‘Maaveeran (Great Warrior)’ Marudhanayagam, a 17th-century warrior who emerged as a commander of sepoys under the British, served as the ‘governor’ of Madurai and even defeated Hyder Ali in a battle. In 1764, Marudhanayagam, from Panaiyur adjacent to Sivagangai, took on the British in a spirited battle and was killed in 1764 after he refused to surrender. Two decades ago, actor Kamal Haasan announced that he would produce and act in a historical film on Marudhanayagam, though it is now one of Haasan’s many pending projects.
Kattabomman, an 18th-century king of Panchalankurichi in Tamil Nadu, is a household name in the state, someone whose daring resistance to the East India Company is often invoked to arouse Tamil pride. In 1799, Kattabomman was hanged to death for waging a war against the British. In his speech, Stalin had quoted Kattabomman, who famously said, “Ask me to donate, I will. Ask me to pay tax, I will not.”
“The letter written by Lieutenant Bannerman to the then (Madras) Governor Edward Clive said that the great warrior Kattabomman smiled at those who betrayed him, even as he walked towards the gallows,” Stalin said.
Many other warriors and their heroism figured in Stalin’s speech. Sundaralingam, captain of Kattabomman’s army, and his cousin Vadivu, who had launched a suicide attack on the British. Velu Nachiyar, “the first Indian queen who fought the British”, who mobilised a battalion of women to capture Sivagangai from the British. Kuyili, Velu Nachiyar’s army commander, who set herself ablaze and jumped into the armoury of the East India company — and who is often called the “first woman martyr” in Indian history.
Brothers Chinna Marudhu and Periya Marudhu, who faced British cannons with their valaris (a traditional, deadly weapon shaped like a boomerang). Dheeran Chinnamalai, who was sent to the gallows in 1805, and his captain and spy, Pollan, who was shot dead by the British. “Much before 1857, in 1806, sepoys from Vellore prison had already taught the British a lesson,” Stalin added.
While Tamils and Tamil politics are often seen as having inherent tendencies of separatism and nationalism, Stalin’s speech to mark 75 years of India’s Independence was an attempt at clarifying that there was individual and organised resistance in Tamil Nadu to the British. “For some, the freedom struggle began only with the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, but Tamils had started it much before that… After Gandhi’s murder, it was Tamil reformist Periyar who wanted India to be known as ‘Gandhi Desam’,” Stalin said on August 15.
