Vellore Mutiny, July 10 1806 : A of review of Vellore Revolt, 1806

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Vellore Revolt 1806

Dr K A Manikumar

VIT 

July 10, 1806 began like any other day in a cantonment of the East India Company. The oppressive Summer heat had yielded to some light showers and as the sun rose over Vellore on that day, the Sepoys of the Madras Army rose in revolt. They armed themselves and soon gathered in the parade ground to prepare for the attack on the Quarters of their officers. By the time the sun rose, more than 250 White Officers and their families had been killed and the handful of survivors has taken refuge in the Church in the Fort and in Cellars of buildings. They soldiers hunted them from their hiding places and slaughtered them. The savagery of the attacks was numbing. What lay behind this Revolt? 

The question has not been adequately answered as most historians were keen to establish the primacy of South India in general and the Tamil region, in particular, in embracing the cause of resistance to the rule of the East India Company and hence a precocious curtain raiser to the more spectacular Revolt of 1857. There is no doubt that the rule of the Company had torn the Moral Economy of South India and the agrarian changes particularly the resumption of land and its revenue by the Company after crushing the Polygar Uprising in 1803 had resulted in considerable distress. The caste composition of the Madras Army  essentially consisted  of Telugu warriors and peasants from the dry region of the  Peninsula, Tinnevelly, Ramnad, Madurai etc and social groups which were classified as "untouchable" particularly the "paraiah" caste. To this volatile mix was added the Palayamkottai Regiment which had taken part in the recent campaingns against Tippu Sultan in Mysore and in the expeditions against the Polygars. The presence of the deposed sons of the erstwhile ruler of Mysore in the Vellore Fort added an element of conspiracy to the entire event.

The "native" troops were seething with rage at the recent orders passed by General Craddock prohibiting the Sepoys from smearing their foreheads with "caste marks" and the leather cockade that was to be added to the turban was considered unclean. While these two grievance came to the fore in the Official Inquiry conducted by Lord William Bentinck as the Governor of Madras, more serious factors were at play. The brutal punishments inflicted on indigenous soldiers for minor infractions  was deeply resented. The Company has instituted a reign of terror to keep peace in the conquered regions and the Sepoys were flogged whipped and shot without trial or appeal. The savagery with which the Sepoys fell upon the white Officers can only be explained by deep felt resentment and hatred. 

By 9:30 the killings had stopped. The Sepoys were exhausted by their physically by the six hours of nearly non stop massacre, and having found the liquor stores of the white officers proceeded to indulge themselves, oblivious to the fact that they had even left the Main Gate of the Fort unguarded and had not noticed that at least a few White Officers and a handful of "loyal" soldiers had not been accounted for. As was the case in 1857, the soldiers lacked strategic sense and the ability to plan for the consequences.

Near Ambur, nearly 30 miles from Vellore Col Rollo Gillespie heard of the disturbances in the Fort from sepoy who had broken out of the fort. https://wordcraftandstatecraft.blogspot.com/2020/05/sir-rollo-

gillespie-and-battle-of.html. Without waiting for orders from Madras Gillespie rallied a handful of men and rode towards Vellore. He reached Vellore around four in the afternoon and chivied up the curtain wall of the Fort. With the few men at his command he managed to break into the Fort and the very sight of the Officer was enough to put the fear of God in the minds of the rebel soldiers.

The reprisal was swift and barbaric. Indian soldiers were quickly rounded up and  tied to the mouths of cannon and shot. A few of the Sepoys had taken shelter in the famous Jalakanteswara Temple, a late Vijayanagara temple located within the Fort. Till this day the walls of the inner sanctum bear the marks of the terrible battle that raged inside.

Jalakanteswara Temple

  By the time the Sun set over Vellore nearly 1500 sepoys lay dead. Col Gillespie extracted a tremendous price for the alleged disloyalty of the sepoys.  Was the Vellore Revolt an attempt at ridding India of Company Rule? Was it a vain effort to reinstall the sovereignty of the deposed Mysore usurpers? Was it a reaction to the cumulative grievances of  the Sepoys? Was it an atavistic attempt at stopping the Missionaries who were very active in the area. Historians are still debating.

The book Vellore Revolt 1806 by Dr Manikumar is an excellent introduction to these and other vexing issues surrounding the traic event that transpire on that July day in 1806.

THE INDISCREET CHARMS OF ENID BLYTON; POLITICAL CORRECTNESS IN THE LAND OF THE WOKE

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Enid Blyton died at the age of 71 on November 28, 1968. Having written over 700 books and 4 500 short stories for children she ranks with Beatrix Potter and J K Rowling as one of the most celebrated writers of books meant exclusively for children. The recent decision of the Royal Mint not to honour her memory on a 50 pence coin on the ground that her work is " racist, xenophobic, and sexist " is not only misplaced but completely misses the enormous impact she had on those growing up is distant lands in a far more innocent age than our own. Racism is now a "Thought Crime" and anyone with views not conforming to the radical posturing of Wokedom is a racist and a whole litany of thought crimes are added to damn writers, politicians, actors and others. Enid Blyton is only the latest casualty of this kind of intellectual policing. Post colonial literary theories have fabricated a new aesthetic in which the anachronistic effusions of self righteousness often parade as criticism or worse a dog whistle for rounding up the proles. 

Enid Blyton (1897-1968)

I grew up reading Enid Blyton and as a child frankly did not find anything offensive in her writings. I bought a complete set of her Famous Five and Five Find-Outers and Dog for my daughter when she was 7 years old and could not resist the temptation of revisiting Peterswood, the rugged coast of Cornwall and capering round the world with Jack and his parrot Kiki in the Adventure Series even as I reread these books with my child. I can say that age has not withered nor custom staled the infinite charm of the world conjured up by Enid Blyton. To judge children's literature by a standard completely foreign to the age of the author is wrong and moral judgements can be invoked only if one sets out to propagate a set of values or ideology that one finds distasteful or abhorrent. Enid  Blyton wrote in a time and place less inflected with the pressure of flattening social and cultural spheres into homogenized wokeism.

Enid Blyton was born in 1897 in Dulwich, East London. As her daughter Gillian recounts in her biography of her mother, Enid Blyton was deeply attached to her father, Thomas Blyton who instilled in her a love for books, music, nature and animals. Enid Blyton set up several charities and trusts for animals and English Heritage must see beyond the narrow limits of self defeating political correctness while appreciating and memorializing her work. There is nothing but respect for Nature in her work. Even the baddies do not harm Nature and the lush English countryside is alive with flowers, shrubs and meadows all described in such vivid colours that to a child reading in distant India, the English countryside appears as natural as the mango tress and palm trees of his own drab world. The only instance when an animal almost comes to harm is in Mystery of the Holly Lane in which the hyper active dog, Buster, is accused by the rather unintelligent policeman Theophillus Goon of killing sheep. Reading Enid Blyton at an impressionable age will leave a child with a reverence nature and animals. 

What is the social world encompassed by Enid Blyton in her work. This is a large question. The Empire is hardly ever mentioned and it is very unlikely whether Enid Blyton had ever expressed any support or endorsed the Empire. Her characters were strangely far removed from the fast changing world that decolonization brought in its wake. The children like the Five Find-outers lived in sylvan villages in which the family was the stable unit and class determined one's place in society. Thus we find all service folk being entertained in the kitchen by the cook and even the village policeman accepts his station in life, without protest. Blyton wrote at a time when everyone knew his or her place in society. The vast changes after World War II that reshaped British Society were hardly at play during the years Enid was active writing. Britain was still a predominantly white country and it is therefore not surprising that all her characters are "white, pale and stale". 

The charge that Blyton was a racist needs to be refuted. Her character in Noddy's Toyland, Golliwog, may offend our sensibilities today. But did she intend a racial insult when she used Florence Upton's creation. Unlike Hardy Boys Series or Billy Bunter in which racist stereotypes prance around the pages, there is no overt racism in Enid Blyton. If Bylton ignores people of colour, that was because she was writing before the huge influx from the colonies flooded into England. 

The Royal Mint must honour Enid Blyton. Wokedom and its ideology cannot dictate the definition of culture and taste. Afterall Shakespeare and Charles Dickens can be read critically and wokedom can find serious thought crimes committed by these writers.