Culture Wars in Tamil Nadu A New Beginning?

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

It is still too early to say whether the few swallows fluttering against the dead morbid skies of Dravidianist parties marks the beginning of a New Spring. Neverhteless the fact that the master narrative of Dravidianism is being challenged on its own turf by ther likes of Maridas and Kishore K Swamy. The dravidianist master narrative was founded on three pillars all of which remained essentially unchallenged which led to dravidianism becoming the dominant hegemonic ideology of the Tamil society. Though there have been bitter personal and political battled between thr three factions of dravidianist political formations--DK, AIADMK and the DMK--there was no challenge at the level of ideology. All three were quite content arguing with each other within the margins set by the dominant ideology.

In the mid nineteeth century, a Protestant cleric called Rober Cauldwell propouded the racial theory of Dravidian exclusivism based on his study of the Tamil Language. In his bookComparative  Grammar of Dravidian Languages he argued that (a) Tamil and Snaskrit do not share any common heitage and Tamil language arose independent of Sanskrit (b) from this he went on to identify the Tamil speaking population as Dravidian and (c) Tamil Race with its exclusive culture is opposed to other Cultures/World Views/Social and Political Formations. To execute this exclusive ideology based on a contrived misreading of History politcal actors like E V Ramasamy Naikkar and his group launched a vicious violent and ferocious campaign against Brahmins who were identified as (a) Aryans therefore not Dravidian (b) Sankritic Culture which they allegedy upheld was ant Tamil therfore anti Dravidian and (c) their Religion is uncivilized and barbaric. Ramasamy's deranged rhetoric did not end with these three propositions. But they form the cornerstone of Dravidianism and that has been the ruling ideology of Tamil Nadu for nearly a century and with the DMK coming to power in 1967 was in a position to translate them into policy and the Brahmins and the SC Population bore the brunt of this sort of political fascism.

The 67% Reservation in medical, engeneering and other professional courses, including jobs essentially excluded the Brahmins from employment in Tamil Nadu and they migrated to the North leaving the field open for depradation. The few who were left, like the Kasturi Group which runs the Hindu m,ade their peace with Dravidianism and were quite content to lend the weight of their Newspaper for the propogation ofthe Dravidian ideology. Any dissent from the dominant ideas was branded "castetist" "fascist" and more recently "anti subaltern". There was no space fo dissent from the dominant ideology. History was distorted to subserve this end. The SangamAge was valorized as a "pristine age" before the fall brought about by the advent of Hindu religion. The fact that many Vedic deities are mentioned is conveniently ignored. The role of Sanskrit in shaping the culture and civilization of Tamil Society is often ignore. The fact that medieval dynasties like the Cholas and the Pandyas issued their inscriptions  in bothe Tamil and Sanskrit is suppressed and only the meykritis of the Cholas were regarded as historical evidence ignoring the large volume of Sanskrit Inscriptions. Medieval Inscriptions were written in Grantha, the true script of the Tamil Language. The Temple and its ramifications around the historical space of Tamil region was quite falsely and in a way tragically misrepresented as "sinful" "irrational" "savage" a line of thught derived from the early sixteenth century Europeans who visited India and were quite shocked at the open and exuberant dispaly of sensuality in Temples. E V Ramasamy Naikkar in fact advocated a sort of iconoclasm against the Vaishnava tradition and is best seen in positioning a statue of this man in his iconic squatting posture with beard and upper cloth smack outside the Great Srirangam Temple. Tamil language and script was mutilated by the removal of what they thought were varga letters or symbols
from the writing system altogether and today that mutilation is celebrated as liberation. The Tamil Printing Presses were forced to aboandon the grantha letters and a strange script without the intermediate vowels was thrust down in the name of Pure Tamil.

The Brahmins bore the brunt of the fascist attack just as the Jews bore the brunt of the attack in the German incarnation of fascism, the Nazi Party. And as long as the target of attck was the Brahmin community, tgheir values, their religion and culture the domiant backward castes which formed the backbone of the dravidianist movement did not stir. Of late the attack has shifted to a general attack on the indigenous faith and its culture by a group that calls itself Karpagu Kootam. A few months back a vulgar "poet" Vairamuthu made some obscne comments on the Vaishnava Saint, Andal who was revered even by Krishnadevaraya who composed the Amuktamalyada in her honour, the Giver of Worn Garlands. The son of the dead Patriarch of the dravidianist polical faction, DMK, one misnamed, Ayyadurai aks Stalin, made some nasty remarks about Hindu wedding rituals and when the beloved God of the Tamil region Skanda/ Muruga/Subramania was attcked the worm turned. Now the culture war was on.

The Tamil Media has been a handmaid of the dravidianist parites and there are credible accounts that news broadcast is based on ideology and money. The narrative was exclusively one sided: the dravidianist side and no other voice was heard. Against this hegemony of Sun TV, Jaya TV, Vijay TV,Makkal TV etc each an arm of a particular dravidianist faction, two youn men Maridass and Kishore Swamy have emerged as credible voices of dissent. Using Social Media Platform like UTube and Twitter they have raised certain vital issues that hit at the very root of the dravidianist ideologies. First, while they attck Hind faith in general and Vaishnava faith in particular, do the dravidianist have the courage to call out the Semetic religions. The answer is No. They have questioned the legitimacy of E V Ramasamy Naikkar being given the honour of being a "Socretes" that is "teacher" and "philosopher". The land scams of his followers stand exposed. They have enen questioned whether Ayyadurai aka Stalin, the son of Karunanidhi was ever a MISA detainee. It has been an article of faith that this misnamed man was in jail as a political prisoner during the Emergency. The challenge is to prove that he was in prison for political and not crimianl reasons. And the response of the DMK has been pathetic. When Dr Subramaniam Swamy raised the 2G Scam, Karubnanidhi tried in vain to turb it into a brahmin vs high caste non brahmin issue and he failed and his daughter spent 11 months in jail and the case is still going on.

This time around the attck is happening where it hurts. And the attackeras are from within the tradition and hence we must take this counter narrative that is slowly being crafted seriously.

Puritans and Royalists in seventeenth century Madras: The Sir Edward Winter Coup 1665

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

The Company Building in Fort St. George

Old Madras was turbulent. The coup against Lord George Pigot in 1776 was preceded nearly a century earlier by an extraordinary set  of events whose place in the history of Old Madras has not been appreciated or understood. They seem to defy understanding and interpretation. The East India Copany has had an implacable record of "good goverance" in that its employees did not usurp the authority of the "Government" and stray beyon the limits of the Charter governing its corporate structure. Yet in the decades following the estblishment of fort St George we find a series of events unfolding, which even in hind sight defy comprehension. In this essay we deal with one such event.

Sir Edward Winter was Governor of Fort St George twice: 1661 to 1665 by right and from 1665 to 1688 by usurpation and force. This event remains singularly difficult for historians to understand as records are few and the protagonists of the unseemly sequence of events were less than savory. Sir Edward Winter was partonizing a set of Cloth Merchants whose names are, Timanna and Verona Kasi. It was the system of arbitrary purchase that Pitt tried to stop by allowing the merchants to bring their wares directly to the Sea Gate Market for sales. This system essentially by passed vested interests and made he procurement more transparent. And we have already witnessed the back lash in the form of Left and Right hand castes, in an earlier blog. These two Chief Merchants close to Edward Winter were given the authority to buy cloth on behalf of the company and these two in turn outsourced the contract to 16 weavers thereby making enormous profits and obviously Winter and his two agents became enormously wealthy. The East India company in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was an elaborate set of intricate relationships that nested between social grioups, individual ties of clientelle and professional associations. While prosopographical details do suggest such a pattern in London, the same is the case in George Town and research into this aspect has not yet begun. When compaints about these two particular merchants reached London and suspicions of rent seeking and corrupt dealings were made public, the Company decided to recall Sir Edward Winter and replace him with George Foxcroft. Foxcroft had faught in the armies of Oliver Cromwell and perhaps carried his Puritan ideology with him.

The time line against which the events in Madras played themselves out is significant. The Civil War had ended with the beheading of Charles I on January 30, 1649, the short lived experiment of God's Englishman, Oliver Cromwell had ended and the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 was mere five years in the past. John Milton another Puritan said: What stirs as Englishman sooner to rebellion is violent heavy hands upon their goods and purses". Foxcroft had set out from England with explicit orders to curtail the notorious Private Trade carried out by Interlopers and he was even authorised to seize them and consficicate their goods. And from the records it appears he intended to do just that and men like Sir Edward Winter were obviously going to be hard hit. In fact the Company sent out Nicholas Buckeridge to investigate Sir Edward Winter and his trading activities. However, nothing came of this venture as Buckeridge hmself was guilty of similar misconduct both at Surat and Persia, So the Inquiry was discretely scuttled. A sign of weakness that Sir Edward Winter did not hesitate to exploit.

If George Foxcroft was a Leveller, Edward Winter was a Royalists and given the charged political climate, a Puritan Governor and a Royalist second in command would find the going tough. A peculiar decision taken by the Board was to retain Sir Edward Winter as the Second in Council which essentially made him, a former Governor, as powerful as the incumbent one. What happened in Fort St George within the span of three short months is not quite clear. A clear factional division solidified in the Council which consisted of William Blake, William Jearsey, Charles Proby, John Neclaks, and Jeremy Sambrooke with Winter as Second in Council. In addition there was another man whose role even in death was significant, William Dawes. This Dawes was the husband of Ascentia Dawes whose murder of an Indian woman was one of the first trial by jury brought before the Mayor's Court and in the previous essay on the Mayor's Court we dealt with this issue. An interesting set of men on a collision course is how we can see the train of events as they unfolded.

The early chronicler, John Bruce saw the conflict in terms of personality traits: the intemperance of Sir Edward Winter and the imprudence of Mr Foxcroft were driving the conflict. The immediate provocation was an exchange of words between Winter and Nathaniel Foxcroft the son of the Governor and an appointed Factor of the company. He declared much to the chagrin of the Royalists assembled around the Company Table that no King had any right to the Throne except that confirmed by might. This innocuous statement contained within it the gist of the political philosophy of the Levellers and as Christopher Hill has argued Levellers rejected Monarchy as unChristian. And Nathaniel went on to add that private interest superceded the interests of the Sovereign. Taking exception to these or rather using these statments as the pretext, Sir Edward Winter on September 14, 1665 Edward Winter along with his conspirators Fransis Chuseman, the Commander of the Guards,attacked George Foxcroft and the Council when a Meeting was in progress. In the melee William Dawes was killed Foxcroft wounded and the regime of the duly appointed Governor was over. Sir Edwars Winter ordered that Foxcroft and his son be arrested and they were cofined, perhaps in the building that I have shown.

Immediately after this bloody Coup, Sir REdward Winter wrote a long letter and curiously enough he directed the letter to the King and the Archbishop and cleverly insinuated that he acted in defence of King and Church. His strategy succeeded as for over three years he remained the Governor and only when rumours began circulating that he was in correspondence with the Dutch in Ceylon for handing over the Fort that the Company acted and sent a fleet of five ships to remove Winter and reinstate Foxcroft.

This episode clearly demonstrates what we have been arguing throughout that the Company in the Asian world was riven with factional and political rivalries that often erupted into open confrontation and this trend is again seen a century later when Lord George Pigot was deposed.

The Mayor's Court in Old Madras: Sovereignty, Law and Justice

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

An arial view of Fort St George

A Street view of Fort St George 1785
Dr Hawes on twitter

Urban scape, Madras White Town
twitter Dr Hawes

The early chorincles of Fort St. George refer to the Mayor's Court which was constituted in 1672. The location of the Court was somewhere in the area known as Sea Gate adjacent to which was the Choultry Court. There are references to the both the Courts and though the exact location of these institutions have not been identified we learn a graeat deal from the availbale historical records. I have access only to the public records as the rest of the archival material is found only in the British Library, London. Streyensham Master, the Governor was eager the have institutions thta could settle disputes and render the emerging settlement a tad governable.

The problem faced by the Company then for which legal precedents did not exist was: What laws can be used to administer Justice and by whose authority. In the Eighteenth Century, the Company was faced with a real dilemma: Did the Company have legal power over its employees and by extension over its "native" subjects living within its terrotorial limits. And how is Crminal Law to be administered. Treat "natives" equally or was a racial difference invented to discriminate between the English/European and the indigenous population. And the Company itself was not sure about the extent of its powers. Did the Charter given by Elizabeth, James I and later Charles II allow the Company to excercise judicial power over serious offences, including ones that called for or deserved the capital punishment. As a prelude to settling this  legal concumdrum, a beginning was made by establishing the Mayor's Court in Madras.

Let me just a century in order to give some persepctive. In the nineteenth century when the ideology of Racism and White Supremacy became the established credo, violence by the Britishers against the "natives" was treated very lightly. Te Sahib's boot only ruptured the malaria infected spllen of the native and the killing of an Indian was treated at best as "man slaughter" not murder. Again, it was the much reviled  Lord Curzon who insisted on Indians being treated fairly under the law. In the Eighteenth century George Town, Madras,  as indeed was the situation i n England too, violent crime was frequent and the Mayor's Court gradually won jurisdiction over grave and serious crimes.

Institutions were still  in their infancy and so we cannot expect well developed Juridical doctrines ' The Company bought a set of Law Books which included Coke's Digest to instruct its Mayor and 12 Aldermen who sat with him on the Bench. The Court met twice a week and strangely enough Trial by Jury was introduced as a procedure of administering Justice. In 1686 a Court of Admiralty was also established to adjudicat cases involving Ships, Maritime Commerce and the conduct of Sailors. This Court was ssentially a Company Court and the surviving records show that it tried to fulfill its mandate against great odds. Obviously differences over Jurisdiction between the Mayor's Court and the Admiralty Court did exist and eventually the Admiralty Court began to function, inexplicably, as the Appelate Court.

There are two episodes in the early history of the Mayor's Court in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries  both of which involved English defendents and "native" victims. One of these cases in well known. Ascentia Dawes killed her slave girl and was tried by Jury which found her guilty. But the Governor confused over the jurisdiction over the case eferred it to the Directors in London and Ascentia Dawes was set free. In perhaps the first of several"boot and spleen" cases in India, in October 1676 Manuel de Lima killed his servant. Spent 2 years in Jail and as equired by the then existing law, six of the jurors were of Portuguese origin sourced from Sam Thome, a Portuguese settlement close to Fort Saint George. He was found guilty and Strenysham Master ordered the execution of the man.An interesting legal argument was advanced by the condemned man in his appeal and one that bedeviled Colonial Jurisprudence for centuries. Hr claimed that neither he nor his victim, Pero Rangull, wer subjects of "His Majesty" and therefore the Mayor's Court had no Jurisdiction. In the eighteenth century the Mayor's Court tried to act in a fair manner, ostensibly without racial or cultural bias. An English pirate, Roger Bullmore, was executed after a Trial presidd over by the Governor and Council. Here the Governor was excercising Martial law delegated to him by the original charter. It was a different matter if civilians were involved.

In yet another serious incident, two white employees of the Company killed  a merchant in a Garden House. They tried to implicate the Dubash of the Merchant in the crime and escape punishment. The Governor and Council established that the men had indeed committed the crime and not the Dubas and though he was sentenced to death, the Governor commuted the punishment on the ground of jurisdiction. Without a positive regulation empowering him to carry out the death sentence, the Governor was reluctant to carry it out.

Throughout the Eighteenth century we have a number of interesting cases. Mostly the litigants who came before the mayor's court were Indian merchants who used the Court to enforce the settlement of debts and legal instruments. Disputes over carrigage of goods emanating even from Burma were settled in the Court. However, all was not well within the Institution itself/ As we have shown in an earlier Blog on Sir Strange, there was a lot of interpersonal problems among the Aldermen which could not be settled. In 1754 four aldermen--Percival, Edwards, Fairfields,and Browning compalined that their colleague, Ephrain Issac had cast serious aspersions on their professional competence and by implication their integrity. In spite of all efforts to bring about order the Governor and his Coucil failed as Ephrain insisted that as an Alderman the Local Government had no jurisdiction to try him even on a minor charge of "misdemenour'. The Report states that Ephrain was mischievous and "turbulent'.

I have given just a glimpse of the legal issues prevailing in 18th Century Madras. Problems among the "native" population were settled by the age old method of arbitration by community leaders acting under the direction of the Peddanayakkar. Breach of contracts, circulation of forged cowles/ intruments, property disputes were settled using the traditional institutions which relied on Customary Law. Towards the end of the Century, however with the establishent of the Sudder Adalat a degree of consistency was introduced.

We have not been able to determine the location of the Mayor's Court. But it was certainly within Fort St George, near the Sea Gate  and hence I have included two contemporary paintings of that are.

The Statue of General James Smith-Neill and its Removal in Madras

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

The recent flurry of activity all over the Western World, particularly in USA and UK, surrounding the sudden discovery that many of the heros of the Western World had a different history in pats of the conquered non white world. This demarcation between White and non White world is absolute an race was indeed the foundation of the ideology that sustained domination and conquest. For over foue hundred years Asia and Africa were subjected to untold horror--Slavery, Cultural Subversion, Racial oppression--among others and the result of western hegemony was the degradation of a whole segmen of Humanity. Unfortunately the so called "post colonial" "social science and literary theory' informed "scholars" do great harm by completely neglecting the real issues at hand and diverting their attemtion to Ideology, Identity and Imagination. Human suffering cannot become a mere discourse, a trick of language as it has in recent works. I recently read a book about the Religious policies of the Portuguese in Goa and there was no mention of the Inqusition that claimed more than 55.000 lives and was endend only due to the pressure from the East India Company Administration in Bimbay. History has to engage with truth and Memory and cannot we cannot erase the horrors of the past by resorting to censorship of public memory, It is a very cheap way of sanatizing History. The example I have chosen is the Memory of one of the most brutal Generals of the East India Company, General James Smith-Neill (1810-1857.

The Statue of General Neill standing on Mount Road, Madras

The photograph on the left is of the statue as it stood on Mount Road (now Anna Salai). The statue was inaugurated by Lord Harris, the Governor of Madras to honour the memory of James Neill who was killed on September 25 th 1857 just as he was reconquering the city of lucknow for the British from the hands of the Indian soldiers who had rebelled against the Company. The record of General Neill as a soldier is horrendous and by contemporary standards he would be quite honsstly called a "war criminal" But the English in their time saw him as an avenger who retored the dignity of the White Race and chaistised the rebels for the crime of killing women and children at Bibighar. Kanpur or Cawnpore as it was spelt in the days of the Raj.

The Uprising of 1857 remains a very contentious subject till this day in India. For one thing the Rebellion was crushed using Soldiers from Punjab, Madras and Nepal a fact that Indian historians have to expalain away in order to sustain the narrative of a Grand Revolt. The British reponse was brutal i the extrme and General Neill exemplied the Terror Tactics deployed by Lord Cannng and his Military to beat down the Indians. Neil may have been a hero to the Raj but he is certainly no hero to his victims. The question is: Does removing his statue really an act of retribution or does it play int the hands of such monsters whose record of horror is very son forgotten. Neill must be remembered for his atrocities. But today he is forgotten and Indian Historians do not even mention them. I am the only Historian who has catalogued the crimes of Heneral Neill as part of my contribution to the Commemoration f the 150th Anniversary of the Mutiny. History has the task of Memoria or remembering the past. not censoring it for the sake of virtue signaling.

James Neill reached Allahabad almost straight from the Crimean War where his unit was posted and he participated in the attack on Sebastapol. From Allahabad he marched the Madras Fussiliers toKanpur and this march was marked by brutality. Suspected rebels were rounded up and hanged without any remorse. Indian vilages were set abalze to terrorize the native population. Women and childen were not spared and it was just blood and gore all the way from Allahabad to Kanpur and thence to Lucknow. The extreme brutality of Neil's March to Lucknow is seen as revenge for the Bibighar massacre in which a Muslim butcher acting on the instigation of his lover killed the women and children who had escaped from Lucknow under the safe passage granted by the rebel leader Nana Saheb. There is absolutely no evidence to show  that Nana Sabeb was either involved in or was even aware of the event. But in the public memory of the English, Nana Saheb was Satan incarnate. On 25th September General Neill was killed by a sniper as he was entering Alam Bagh.

General Neill.'s unmarked Grave in Lucknow

General Neill was burried in an unmaked grave and the exact lcation is still a mystery and that was to protect his remains from being vandalized by his victims. The photograph on the left is the only photo showing the grave but its identification is still controversial. The Memorial set up to honour the dead of the bibighar Massacre was torn apart in 1947 soon after Independence, ninety years after the event itself. With such deep imprint, politicians and organizers of populist movements like the Black Live Matter movement have to tread cautiously.

For several decades the statue of General Neill occupied the very strategic location outside the Spencers' and on Mount Road. Severl visitors have remarked without a trace of irony about the salience and relevance of General Neill. But the advent of Nationalism changed the narrative. The blue eyed boys of the Raj became the villiams of the Indians who were keen to reinscribe themselves in History by claiming the great force of Nationalism, And Gandhi endorsed the idea in his own confused and inarticulate way: He said that the removal of the statue will not cure the "disease" it will alleviate the "agony" and "point the way to reachig the disease". How the removal of a statue will achieve all this Gandhis does not elaborate. But in his typical style of using exaggeraed and expansive hyperbole, he lit the fire. And it caught on.

The Neill Satyagraha in which the hret leader Kamaraj cut his political teeth was the first salvo for freedom fired in Madras which was slipping into an abyss even as this agitation unfolded. In 1937 Rajagopalachari had the Statue removed and today it stands as a museum piece in the Egmore Museum.

Mathew Noble cast two identical statues. The other one stands in Ayr, Scotland and it is on the list of statues whose removal has been deaded by the radical groips in UK. A question that we in India can legitimately ask: Who owns the Past the Pepetrators or their Victims

John Bruce: From Armagon to Madras Historical Explanation and Realities

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

The East India Company, for all its notoriety, well deserved or imputed by the hind sight of History, was indeed a global trading organization with the capability to raise Capital, outfit ships and undertake perilous voyages across the world in quest of pepper, cloves and other condiment. Sitting in their palatial rooms in Leadenhall Street the Directors lorded over a large maritme empire beset with all the problems that commercial enterprises face: supply chain impedimants, rivals in competition, local adventurers out to make a quick killing, political instability and a host of other challenges. From 1600 when the Company was chartered by Queen Elizaben to 1708 when the united Company was formed to the abolition of the East India Company in 1858 was charecterized by momentous events that needed a faithful chronicler and for the first phase of its History, the Company found one in John Bruce (1745-1826).

Headquarters of the East India Company, London

John Bruce along with Rober Orme were the only two official Historiographers of the East India Company. Both were Scots and both were appointed by Henry Dundas, the Earl of Melville, the unofficial Tsar of "india Interests."Henry Dundas has been accused f favoring his fellow Scots in app  political conflicts over the Constitution, Conduct and Character of the East India Company. And the influence of Adam Smith in the field of Political Economy added intellectual strength to the crtics of the Company who wanted the East India Company to be stripped of its trede privileges, particularly the monopoly over the India Trade. And with Lord Macartney.s visit to China, the trade over China as well. To deal with the political, leagal and commercial challenges, Henry Dundas created the Office of the Historiographer whose job was to provide public defenses of Company Conduct and Character as demanded from time to time. John Bruce did his job in an admirable fashion and his work is still worth reading. His prose is rather poor while his subordiante at Leadenhall, Charles Lamb was certainly a superb essayist, Bruce wrote a heavy turgid bureaucratic prose but regnant with facts and details which makes his Annals of the Honourable East India Company published in 1810 valuable. He had at his disposal two assets:Lemon, his assistant and a veritable treasure trove of primary records under his custody. And from the sources under his custody John Bruce created a narrtive that stretched from the creation of the East India Company to the merger of the London Merchant company in 1708 and beyond almost till the Battle of Plassey, 1757.

The Board Room

The character of the East India Company bafflesd contemporaries even as it continues to facinate contemporaries. Was it a "sovereign" power? Was it a Military Power? Was it an exclusive trading Power with monopoly over the most lucrative market of the contemporary world, India? And so on. The Annals is as its name suggests, an annual yearly record of the "transactions" of the  Company both at the London end as well as the commercial end'. Based on the Reports sent to the Headquarters and the Correspondence with the factors of the Company John Bruce strings his narrative along. A minute eye for detail makes the Annals a fascinating work. My question here is simple: How does John Bruce account for the establishment of Madras. What context does he give for the momentous decision and how does he explain the shifys in Company strategies and policies towards India in general and the Coromandl coast in particular.

A feature of John Bruce's metodology is to place that East India Company squarely in a global context, a Wheels of Commerce method in the early nineteenth century. The earliest settlement of the Company was the Presidency of Surat which commanded the trade of India and even sought to enter Persia. Here the Company faced local hostility in spite of the favorable response from the Mughal Emperor Jehangir, opposition from the Dutch and resistance from the Portuguese. Hormuz held by the Portuguese wa the prize both sought. The polical climate not being conducive toward English interests, the Company established a second settlement in Masulipattinam in 1614' Once again ill luck followed the Company as the local Nayaka who was favorably disposed towards the East India Company was defeated by the Sultan of Golconda. The reason for the shift to the West coast as we can glean from the Records provided by John Bruce is clear: the callioe of the East coast had a market in Bantam, Sumatra and that invstment alone could finance the acquisition of Spices without the need for the outflow of any bullion from the Cmpany. The Dutch, in spite of the alliance in Europe through the Treaty of 1619 were in no mood to accomodate English interests and in 1623 the Amboyna Massacre made the situation difficult for the Company which had to fall back on the Coromandel Coast. With Masulipatinam abandoned, the Company set up another settlement in Armagon but here again difficulties in procuring the trading commodities prevented the Company from establishing itself. The Raja of Tanjore offered a site but bythenFrancis Day and Cogan had identifed Madras and in 1639 the Company formally took possession of the strip of Coastline on which they built the Fort later called Fort St. George.

John Bruce in spite of the distance and lack of documents embodying diverse perspectives constructed a good account of the vissistitudes of fortunes.

The Social Landscape of Peddanaickenpet in Old Madras: Land, Power and Society

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

The earliest Map of Peddanaikenpet

The abandonment of Armagon, as the pre emminent emporia for the trade of the Coromandel Coast by the East India Company within a mere 15 years after the establishment of the settlement and serach for a new site, a task accomplished by Francis Day and Codgan, has not been explanined adequately. From the records that survive, Armagon was doing well and its trade was flourishing. Except for some tension with the rulers of Golconda, it did not face any major threat and the pressure from Golconda followed the Company even to Madras. By 1639 the site, three miles broad along the Coromandel Coast had been bought and the Factory and Fort name for St George, the patron saint of Englnd was built. While the Governor and his Council and the Chief factors, agents and merchants lived within the Fort, the native poplation was clustered around the Fort walls and we can trace the Native settlement by follwing the fortunes of one important part of Old Madras: Peddanaikenpet. The Map of Madras illustrated above is a good place to start. The map was drawn by a Dutch cartographer whose brother was an employee of the East India company establishment at Madras, Hermann Moll. It was obviously drawn after the survey made by Pitt as the social composition of the settlement reflects the changes that took place durng the early part of the Eighteenth Century.

When the Fort was established around 1639, the popuaton of Armagon or at least the importnat weaving community, the kaikkolars migrated and were given lease over Company Land. We also have migrants coming in from San Thome, Pulicat and Triplicane. A socially diverse community grew up around the vicinity of the fort. In 1766 a large area of the Company land was assigned for the creation of two native settlements: Peddanaikenpet and Mutialpet. Interspersed in these settlemnts were large Gardens which were on 51 year lease or greater. In  the early days of the Company efforts were made to take over leased property but with mixed success. The topography of the area has changes considerable and it is difficult to imagine what Madras may have looked like during the days of the Company. Within the fort itself was ituated large structures which were imposing and though built with native Chunam other traditional material were European in execution and design. Here we have a fine example and is an illustration from the ink and pen sketches drawn by Gantz.

The sea front by Gatz c 1764

Since the whole area is now restricted it has not been possible for this Historian to search for traces of Eighteenth Century structures within the fort area. The most important part of the Fort was of course the Governor's Mansion and the Sea Gate which faced the Ocean and was heavily armed. Other sections of the fortifications included St Thomas Point, Half Moon, Fishing Point and there are references to a Choultry Gate that provided access to Peddanaikkenpet from the Fort. A River flowed around the City like a garland and though there is no trace of the River now, the Historical Documents give us some idea and in the Map given above (left) we have clear evidence. The Elambore River skirted the entire settlement, almost creating an Island whose location now is indispute due to several changes in Land Use over te past two centuries. Canals from the River fed water to Garden Houses and we have references to several Garden Houses. Streynsham Mastee established a Company Garden in Peddanaikkenpet in the land Langhorn had given to the Washermen of the company. Permission was sought and obtained for a "handsome structure" in which to receive "native envoys". This reception hall was located in the Island and Talboys Wheeler identified the site where the statue of Sir Thomas Munro stands today as the site where the reception hall/building stood.  Buckley's Garden was also part of Peddanaikkenpet.

Ekambareswara Temple

Malikeswara Temple, Peddanaikkenpet

The temple marked as Allingals Pagoda on the Map can be easily identified unlike some of the other temples found therein. It is the Ekambareswara Temple. Another important temple going back to the early days of the settlement, located in the area designated as Peddanaikkenpet was the Malikkeswara Temple. In some of the early records the temple figures as Malikarjurna Temple. And after the riots of 1652 and more particularly after the 1707 Rebellion of the right hand castes, this temple was assigned exclusively to the Left Hand and should there be any breach of the agreement the Right Hand would have to pay a fine of 12,000 pagodas.  The temples in Peddanaikkenpet were sites of immense tension and was the outcome of a society in change: the social and economic policies of the East India Company guided by its commercial interest favoured the weavig and mercantile castes and groups leading to cosiderable friction with groups having ascriptive rights over temple resources. There was another major temple situated in Pedanaikkenpet, the Chenna Keshava Perumal Temple. Unfortunately this important shrine was pulled down duing the French Attack and on the site of the temple stands the High Court of Madras.  Leading merchants who traded with the Company such as Sunku Rama, Bala Chetti, Kalavai Chetti and Kalasri Chetti and their dubashes lived inthis sector.

The organization of social space in the area followed the traditional Indian pattern with occupational segregation of habitation. Thus we have streets set aside for weavers, potters, garland makers and palenquin bearers etc'. Paupiah Brahmny who formed the ubject of an earlier blog was also an inhabitant of this settlemnt. A temple for Kalyana Varadaraja was also established. By and large theRight hand groups lived in Peddanaikenpettai while the Left hand in Mutialpettai. This distinction was sharply enforced intheEighteenth century but i the 19th as memories of earlier rivalries and tensions gradually receded the settlements became more inclusive. One feature that we notice is that Christian, Jewish and Armenian cemetries were all located in Peddanaikenpet.

A number of streets are named in the Records dealing withPeddanaikenpettai. Elambore Street, Peda Naick Street, Great Bazzar Street, River Street, and Elephant Street are some of the streets we come across. The Venetian traveller who visited India in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century lived in Peddanaikenpettai during the time when Pitt, the Governor, acquired the famous Pitts' Diamond. In the Map that I have given above there is a alrge Garden named Manucci's Garden obviously named after the Venetial jeweler and traveler who lived in Madras at that time. Cornelius Garden and Co Co Garden lay in the immediate vicinity of Nicolo's Mansion.

Peddanaikenpetai was quite a cosmopolitan settlement as we have the houses of Armenians, Jewish merchants and the English traders in this part of Old Madras. There are references to a large tomb constructed on Company lease land in this area, known as Rodrigues Tomb. This Jewish Merchant named Bartholomew Rodrigues died in 1692 and his tomb was constructed within his garden and the Company permitted that to happen. In 1711 the lease on his Property expired but the Company sold the site on condition that the Tomb be maintained. Unfortunately no sign of the structure now exits. It has been surmised that the Tomb may have been located west of the KachalesvaraTemple nearTucker's Church.

In order to have a better undestanding of Madras in the Eighteenth Century, its mostformative period, it is necessary for Historians and Archaeologists to come forward and study the Historical Documents, testimonies culled from Travellers' Accounts, Company Records both in the Egmore Archives and in London and make a more detailed analysis. I have shown that there is lot of work to do.

Social Conflict and Caste Warfare in Old Madras: Urban Space and the East India Company

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

1733 Map after the Caste Survey by Governor Pitt

The Chronicles of Old Madras particularly the four volumes of Vestiges of Old Madras by D H Love, provide startling evidence of a series of violent social conflicts between the Right Hand and Left hand castes. The emphasis of historians has been largely on events that traspired during the Gvernorship of Richard Pitt starting from the the recitation of the Vinayaka adoration by the Right Hand caste before the temple of Vinayaka located on Devaraja Mudali Street.

The social and economic aspects of the Caste conflict, may be seen as an off shoot of the policies pursued by the Madras Administration rather than a sudden dramtic assertion of caste loyalties. We may dadd that the Eighteenth

The Vinayaka Temple at Devaraja Mudali St

Century violence was a continuation of a trend that began nealy a century earlier. When Madras was founded by the East India Company, weavers, painters, labouring folk, palanquin bearers were invited to settle in the City from areas as afar as Pullicat, San Thome, Armagon,Triplicane ect. Settlers came in from the outlying areas of the Bound Hedge such as Nungambakkam, Egmore, Puruswakkam and Trivottriur. And when the settlement was stablished the Right Hand and Left Hand Castes were given separate areas of the City fr their settlement. The Map enclosed above drawn after the Pitts' Settlment shows the urban space allocated to the caste in 1653 when AAron Baker was the Governor. The area around Mutialpet of George Town of present day Chennai was handed over to the Left Hand Castes and Peddunaikenpetta to the Right.'

Keshava Perumal Temple George Town

However, certain changes made in the procurement policies f the Company with regard to the purchase of Textiles created the immediate conditions for a major flare up between the two castes. Pitt, in consultaion with his Council, decided to change the system of procurement of Textiles for export from Madras. Hitherto, thetextiles were bought on behalf of the Company by middlemen who contracted the production and purchase of Textiles on behalf of the Company and weavers in Chindradipettai were under contract to produce textile like Chintz, Pallores, Calicoes and Pallores, for the Company and middle men belonging to the Right Hand Castes were mainly involved in this task.This system known as dadni or advance, was in the hands of rich merchants like Casa Verona, Sunka Chetty, Bala Chetty and others became enormously wealthy as a consequence of th near monopoly they enjoyed and the control over the weavers and their looms. The Company decided tha the weavers could bring their textiles to the Bazzar near the Sea Gate and the company will be in a position to buy the textiles directly. This change in policy was obviously to the advantage of textile merchants from the Chetty community to the disadvantage of those from the Commatti taders who lelonged to the Right Hand caste. A member of the Council, Fraser, seems to have championed the cause of the Right Hand communities and was consequently removed from the Council and sent back to England.

The immediate provocation for the Conflict was a provocation by the Right Hand castes who proceeded to the Vinayaka Temple located in the streets occupied by the Left and sand the Addoration of Vinayaka before the Temple. In normal circumstances this even may have gone un noticed. But tension was in the air over the changed procurement policies and there was a further complication caused by the Portuguese Administration in Goa making an attempt to take over the Fort by using its hold over parts of San Thome.The Right Hand Caste started rioting and attacked a Wedding Procession of the Left Hand community which was taking place in one of the disputed streets of Pedanaikenpettai. Apparently the violence was put down by the soldiers posted in the Fort. June 1707 saw the beginning of this cycle of social tension in Fort St, George.

After the outbreak of hostilities between the Two caste a feeble attempt was made to broker peace. The residents of both communities living in areas not belonging to their respective caste were order out and they wee told to sell their houses only to memberes of the caste entitle to live in that particula area. A stone inscription giving the details of the boundaries was set up and the Right Hand Castes took this to be a grevious infringemen of their liberty and dignity and dcided to desert the town and lve in San Thome and given the suspicious of the Catholics and the alledged intentions of the Portuguese this desertion was deeply resented. With the departure of the Right Hand Castes from madras the production of Cloth and Textiles needed for export fell rather sharply.

The Administration on the intevention of the Armenian Merchants gave time up to September 1707 for the return of the Right Hand castes from San Thome where hey had sought protection. The only concession given t the Right hand caste was the exclusivve right to their area of the Black Town. The Procurement Policy which was at the root of the conflict remained unchanged. Pitt blamed his suspended Council member Fraser for the instrangience of the Right and even made preparations fr an armed attack on San Thome to kill the rebels of the Right Hand caste. Fortunately Pitt was dissuaded from carrying out his disastrous plan by the Armenians wh acted as intermediaries in the dispute between the company and theRight Hand groups:"treacherous collusion with Right Hand Caste" was the accusation against Fraser.

The Right hand cates returned after Pitt issued a general pardon and the disput simmered on till 1717 when Governor Collet made certain important changes. A new Weavers settlement was established at Collet Pettai. The Commattis were henceforth forbidden to sing the adoration of Ganesha before the Chidari Pillaiyar now located in the Devaraja  Mudali Street of George Town.

The caste dispute that took a turn towards social polorization in early Eighteenth Century Madras stemmed from economic disputes triggered by changes in the procurment policies of the Company. It is also clear from the record that the company offcials had ested interest in different caste gropus as indeed was the case ith Fraser.