ARNI JAGIR AND THE "TEARS OF THE NAWAB": Histroy if Fiction

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

History writing is an underdeveloped art in India and Historical Fiction remains a distant dream, While the 1857 Revolt has inspired a few credible pieces of historical fiction, South India has essentially defied the charms of a novelist. This book The Nawab's Tears is neither well written not is the historical research of a high order. The plot is weak, the dialogues flat and one dimensional, the characters are really cardboard cut-outs. Yet I would like to take this book seriously as I am connected to both Vijayanagara as a Historian and Arni as I have heard tales about the goings on in the palace.

Palace of Poosimalai, Arni

 The attractive European style   building was constructed in the l   late nineteenth century, in a "French Style" to serve as the   residence of a court favorite. The   History of the Arni Jagir goes   back  to the days of the great Emperor Shivaji who conquered Tanjavur and Senji and made one Vedaji  Bhaskar Pant the Qiladar of the area, Consisting of around 125 villages, the Jagir was quickly acquired by the Bhonsle rulers of Tanjavur from whom it passed into the hands of the Nawab of Carnatic and saw considerable shifts in its fortunes as the English East India Company and Tippu Sultan faught for supremacy. In the famous Treaties, Sanads and Engagemenrts vol X were have the confirmation that in June 1789 the East India Company entered into a Treaty with Arni in which the jagir was conferred on Tirumal Rao and his successors. After the Administration of Sir Thomas Munro, Puddukkotai and Arni were the few estates which were not under the Royatwari Settlement. A Tribute of 10,000 Arcot Rupees was fixed as the peshkush, tribute, to the Nawab of Arcot. There is no record that  this amount was ever paid as the Nawab himself ceased to be an important player in politics after the Peace Settlement of Vienna which was signed in 1815. The Nawab was the only Indian potentate who signed this Settlement. The Jagirdars were firm devottees of the Madhava Philosophy and one of the heads of the Uttaradi Mutt attained Samadhi in Satyamangalam as Arni was called.

Arni Jagirdars were educated as the Madras Administration took over the samastanam and took custody under the Court of Wards decree. Consequently the princes were sent to Bangalore for education and later Tirumal Rao and Srinivasa Rao were both educated at Presdidency College, Chennai. The revenue of the Jagir picked up after the dissoulution of the Court of Wards and the Annual Reports of the Madras Irrigation Department and the Revenue Department show that considerable improvements were made. Silk production was encouraged and Arni Silk still remains an important item in the local economy. The jagirdars were notorious spendthrifts and lived a ;life of luxury. William Pogson, the noted Scottish Architect was commissioned to design the famous "Arni House" in Halls Road, Chennai.

Arni House, Halls Road

  It is against the back drop of the history       sketched above that we must situate the   context of the Nawab's Tears. This book  has been inspired by Dan Brown's Da Vinci   Code, Willkie Collins, Moonstone, Indiana   Jones with a touch of Hercule Pirot thrown in for good measure. The novel revolves arounf Krishna a widow of the last Jagirdar who asks her college flame Aravan to help her with some secret codes that she discovered in a diary belonging to one Captain Miller. Needless to say the necklace which was the Nawab's Tears as its immediate owner Chanda Sahib had been brutally executed after being defeated. The Masonic Lodge and its rituals play a prominent part in the novel. All said and done this is an entertsining read. Now I turn to certain Historical details which are certainly open to different interpretations.

There are frequent allusions to the History of Vijayanagara in this novel. Robert Sewell's Forgotten Empire even appears in the Bibliography. First, there is an equivalence drawn beteeen Hindu monarch's treatment of images and temples in the territory of rival kings after they had conquered them and Muslim conquerors like Malik Kafur and others including the Deccani Sultanates. The Historians of JNU are primarily responsible for the false equivalence. He gives the example of the Pallava conquest of Vatapi by the King Nandivarman. The image of Ganesha was neither destroyed or descecrated. It was brought to Kanchipuram and installed in the temple. Similarly when Rajendra Chola I (1014-1044) defeated the Chalukyas he drought back as war trophies images which till today are in worship in the temple of Gangaikondasolapuram. Similarly when Krishnadeva Raya (1509-1529)  defeated the Gajapathis of Orissa he brought back the image of Balakrishna from Udayagiri which was installed in the Krishna Temple which he specially constructed for this image. Unfortunately the Historians in their desire to please the powers that be made such outlandish claims and the novelist has only repeated them. Similarly the Gilani brothers who betrayed the Ruler, Rama Raya on the Battlefield of Talikota is referrewd to in a near contemporary account by Fredrick Ceasar.

This book needs a good editor to sharpen the storyline. And the writer does show the potential for Indian History to be engaging.

Raya: Krshnadevaraya of Vijayanagara

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

Raya:Krishnadevaraya of Vjayanagara
Srinivas Reddy
New Delhi: Jaggernaut, 2020

Raya Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara

Srinivasa Reddy, a scholar of South Asian Literature trained in USA has tried his hand at writing history after a fairly successful run as a trasnslator. His earlier work Giver of Worn Garlands was an excellent translation of the putative work attributed to the Tuluva ruler Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara. The present work presents itself as a historically informed biography of the ruler but in reality it is a readable but badly researched work mixing legend, popular tradition and even cinematic renditions to create a pastice of historical narrative. Of course he has come with the proper credentials displayed prominently on the dusk jacket. It is certainly "engaging" but is it "exemplary" is a differnt question altogether.

Vijayangara history is complex in that it self consciously procalimed a template of Statecraft that was predicated upon the negation of the disruptions wrought by the onset or invasions of the turushka. In fact the trope of destroying the turushka appears even in the inscriptions of Krishnadeva Raya and to ignore the underlying political ideology animating Vijayanagara statecraft is merely a surrender to the kind of identity politics India has seen in the years follwing Independence. Turushka meant Turk and did not imply a religious identity at all and to shy away from this issue on the grounds that it may be offensive to present day sensibilities of political correctness is not merely being anachronistic by historically inaccurate.When Vijayanagara began its slow but steady march toward Empire it projected its raison d'tre as the Restoration of Worship in temples destroyed by the turushka. The raids of Kafur and the Tughlaqs had resulted in a virtual collapse of the moral order. The language of Apoclypse is deployed in an early Copper Plate Inscription: "When the sun. Prataparudra set, the world was enveloped in the turushka darkness".

Srinivasa Reddy begins his narrative biography of Krishnadevaraya with the famous Hampe Inscription which was trasnlated by Eugene Hultzsch in Epigraphia Indica Vol I. Generally recognised as a danasasana, issued on the occasion of his coronation the Inscription states in its 11th verse that Krishnadeva Raya connquered the Chera, Chola, the proud Pandyas, the brave Turushka, the Gajapathi king and others. This claim of conquest of the Gajapathi or for that matter even victory over the Turushka is merely rhetorical, a statement of intent rather than of accomplishemt an Krishdevaraya took control over the Empire upon the death of his half brother, Vira Narashimha in 1509 and there is no evidence that he had participated in any major campaign with his fater Narasa Nayaka. Again there is no hstorical evidence to suggest that Gandikota, Vinnukonda and Nagarajakonda were suggested as likely targets of Vijayanagar acquisition by Narasa Nayaka. Srinivas Reddy cannot resist the temptation of including an intersting myth, story fable even cinema  dialogues. Thus he accepts the story of Vidyaranya ad his association with Harihara and Bukka even though there is compelling evidence that this myth came to the fore only in the decades after 1565 as shown by Hermann Kulke. A historian will not allow an intersting story to structure his narrative.

The most impressive part of the book are the chapters dealing with the conflict with the Gajapathi rulers of Orissa. Reddy keeps harping on the "low caste" status of Krishnadevaraya. He calls him "dasi putra". There is absolutely no historical evidence to show that caste perceptions in any way influeced the conflict. Gajapathi, Narapathi and Ashwapathi remained the trypych around which the polity of the medieval South Indian empire revolved. And the Gajpathi king himself came fom a dynasty of usurpers and so would not have thow such caste laden invective against Krishnadevaraya. It appears tht identity politics of today and caste laden social sciences inflused with identity politics makes such outlandish interpretations not only possible but academically rspectable. The fact is that such labels were unknown in the Vijayanagara period.

Krishnadevara raya presided over an Empire that was linguistically diverse, complex in terms of religious and sectarian composition and the social structure of the Vijayanagara polity was certainly stratified. However caste was still not the deciding factor as the very diversity of the Great Captains, the amaranayankara-s. demonstrates. Only one Historian has attempted a prosopographical study of Nayakas. Krishnadevaraya bore the biruda, Hindu raya Sutrranna or Sultan of HinduKings a title which underscores the tremendous influence of the Islamic political formations of the Deccan.

The book under review is certainly interesting. But its claim to be History can be contested.