Eugen Hultzsch and the Rediscovery of India's Past

Dr Eugen Hultzsch

India's past seemed like a forgotten dream as ancient India did not write Historcial Chronicles in the manner in which the Western World did. Dates, Dynasties, Events, Kingdoms and Empires fade in and out of view like a vaudeville stuck in an erratic routine. Reflections upon the past, if it happened at all, took place against a literary tradition framed by the Great Epics and distorted images created by court poets, geneologists and bards. The situation was so full of dispair that Hegel even though that India was extra territorial to History and his favorite "pupil" Karl Marx even triumphantly declared that "India vegetates in the eeth of time". The person who rescued India from such charecterizations is Dr Eugen Hultzsch, a Prussian, who made India his Karma Bhumi. 

Eugen Hultzsch was born in Dresden on the 29th of March 1857 and died in Halle on the 16th of November 1927. During the course of his life he transformed the very study of Indian History by undertaking extensive and detailed researches on various aspects of Indian Epigraphy and Paleography,  His Inscriptions of Ashoka was the first major investigation towards establishing the chronology of the great emperor and the inter relationship between the Major and Minor Rock Edicts. Th text of the Inscriptions published by him have not been improved and till this day Historians plunder Hultzsch' work for material on the reign of this Maurayan Emperor. Unfortunately, in Indian Universities, thanks to the dominance of the Marxists who sought to make the younger generation as ignorant and dogmaic as themsevlves, ensured that training in Epigraphy and Paleography is abandoned. In India we have "Historians" like Romila Thapar and others who write on Ashoka without having read any of his Inscriptions in the original. If the Emperor is known today, it is largely due to Hultzsch.

Indian inscriptions on stone   and copper plate surfaces were known from the time of the Antiquarian, Col. Colin Mackenzie. While the more recent Vijayanagara epigraphs written in Telugu or Kannada scripts were read and published by administrator scholars like Elliot, Ravenshaw and others, early inscriptions especially in the Tamil region remained a closed book until Eugen Hultzsch arrived on the scene. On 21st of November 1886, Hultzsch took charge as the Epigraphist of the Archaeological Sorvey of India, Southern Circle. His remit was to document the rich corpus of epigraphs inscribed on the walls of Temples in the region and he undertook this task with vigour and great determination, ably assisted by V Venkkaya, his loyal assistant. The first major task that he undertook was to decipher and publish the inscriptions at Mamallapuram. He wrote in an article in Epigraphia Indica vol X thta "Mahabalipuram can be reached by boat from Buckingham Canal". How distant that seems when we imagine the scene today. Hultzsch collected all the inscriptions found in the site and published them in the very first volume of South Indian Inscriptions, a series that is still extant and has now reached volume 37. Dr.  S. Swaminathan has continued the tradition and has published 3 volumes of Chola Inscriptions in this series. The outstanding contribution of Hultzsch lay in his identification of the biruda, Atyantakama, with the King Narashimhavarman,a Pallava monarch. This method of dating monuments based on the inscriptions found inscribed on its surface or fabric has remained the backbone of ancient Indian Historiography. Hultzsch turned his attention to the Great Temple constructed by Rajaraja I (985-1014) at Tanjavur, his Capital. The Rajarajesvara Temple contains 56 Chola Inscriptions the majority of which were issued by the King and his immediate family. Hultzsch not only published all the Inscriptions found in the temple, but also translated them into English, a feat no other Epigraphist since has achieved  and published them in three volumes. Apart from these works, Hultzsch wrote extensive articles on important inscriptions in the flagship journal devoted to Indian Epigraphy, Epigraphia Indica. His attempt at recovering the dynastic succession of medieval dynasties like the Alupas, Rashtrakutas and the Chalukyas set the framework for the study of the medieval history of South India.

Dr Eugen Hultzsch arrived in India on October 22, 1884 by steamer sailing to Bombay, now Mumbai, from Trieste, Between 1884 and May 1885 he extensively toured the country in search of Sanskrit, Pali texts and documents. He presented two reports to Government on his discoveries and his Reports can still be read as specimens of critical texual criticism. Both his Reports are availbale on archive.org.  He paid particulat attention to the Saivite Mutts at Tiruvidaimaradur and Tiruvisainallur. His predecessor Brunell worked around the Saraswathi Mahal Library and Hultzsch extended the scope of his search. His notes sugget that the medieval period, particularly the Vijayanagara Period, witnessed the creation of a large corpus of commentaries on the various Srauta texts. The  reasons for this have not yetbeen ascertained. Using the colophons of the texts, Hultzsch notonly identified the author but endeavoured to fit him in a tree of texts and he is thus a pioneer in manuscript research in India. 

In the field of Numismatics, Eugen Hultzsch made a singular contribution by arranging the coins of the Madurai Sultans in a chronological framework. Starting with the enigmatic reference to moslem rulers in Madurai, a region traditionally associated with the Pandyas in the Rahela of Ibn Batutta, Hultzsch reconstructed the sequence of rulers almost to the end of the Sultanate follwing the attack by the Vijayanagara prince, Kumara Kampana. 

Looking back at the contribution of savants like Eugen Hultzsch it is certain that Edward Said was wrong when he postulated a direct link between knowledge and political power. It is certainly true that Hultzsch worked in a colonial framework but his contribution certainly trascended an imperial power structure. When Eugen Hultzsch returned to Europe he took with him 483 Sanskrit Manuscripts which he sold to the Bodleian Library, Oxford Universty.

He took up a Professorship in the field of Indology at halle University upon his retirement and died in that city where he is burried.

The Mitrokhin Archives : The KGB, The Indian National Congress and India

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

The Mitrokhin Archives II

The Mitrokhin Archive II is a very important work and all important policy makers in India, particularly those involved with the not so glamorous but necessary world of Espionage, and those involved in making and analysing policy alernatives must read this book. The authors include the reputed historian who has written comprehensive histories of British Intelligence Services, MI I and MI IV,and a life time KGB Vasili Mitrokhin who created a huge archive of secretely copied KGB Reports from the field agents located in different parts of the world. This book contains a great deal of information on KGB operations in Africa and South America as well. But I will concentrate on what the Archives reveal about India, the Indian National Congress and the manner in which the fellow travellers associated with the CPI acquired a stranglehold on the Indian print media and the academic institutions. This sad situation continues until this day.

The Soviet Union for some reason did not take Indian struggle for Independence seriously. Probably the Marxist ideology had somehing to do with this. An underdeveloped colonized country without a "bourgeoise"can scarcely aspire to "Nationhood" has always been an article of faith amongst traditional Marxists.  And hence the Soviet Union dismissed Indian leaders as having litte impact on world events. Gandhi was particularly savaged in the pages of the Soviet Encyclopedia. Right from the beginning the KGB started trapping Indian Embassy officials, usually by honey trapping them, exploiting the well known Indian weakness for white women. Almost all documents transmitted to New Delhi were read by the kGB operatives as an Indian diplomat code named  PROKHOR was recruited by the secret service, Mitrokhin records that this diplomat was provided a monthly retainer of 4000 Rupees. Apart from bribing Indian diplomats, the KGB was successful in recasting Indian political parties particularly the Indian Communist Party (CPI) as a subsidiary of the KGB, Important Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament and even the Prime Minister's Office were drawn into an ever expanding web of bribery which extended all the way to the KGB Office in the Soviet Embassy. The authors argue that by the 1960s the KGB had succeeded in completely subverting the Indian Intelligence Bureau (I B) and had turned it essentially into a prop for its own activities. The CPI  an   received regular subventions from the Russian Embassy though the communist leaders pretended to follow an independent "Indian Line". When Ajoy GHosh was the Genneral Secretary anImport and Export Firm was set up so that the profits could be used to carry out Party Programmes in India. It did not strike anyone at that time that such diversion of funds was both illegal and undemocratic. When Rajeswar Rao was the General Secretary of the Party, he was summoned to the Embassy in Delhi to receive his instructions from the "Centre" there. One direct and unfortunate effect of the closeness of the cPI with the Soviet brand of "Communism" was to be felt in the fields of the Press and Higher Education.

Lenin was a great believer in the efficacy of Agit Prop, Agitation and Propaganda and for successful implementation of its propramme the Soviet Union needed "useful idiots" and intellectuals and journalists came in handy. The Mitrkhin Archives documents in great detail the manner in which the Soviets penetrated the Indian Press and used it to carry on propaganda against the US while simultaneously protecting their own image, Articles critical of USSR were seldom published in Indian Newspapers and the Soviets were able to buy the support of the Indian Press by large scale use of money. Forged documents were regularly supplied to select Indian journalists who published "exclusive" exposes based on forged documents. The KGB succeeded in convincing Indira Gandhi that the Khalistani Movement was being funded by the CIA though it is well known that Zail Singh her Home Minister encouraged the separatist faction in order to slip the Skh vote which was tilted heavily in favour of the Akali Dal. The shadow of the Soviet patronage of the Press was long lasting as till this day the English Press is inherently leftist in its ideological underpinnings. 

Indian intellectuals did not redeem themselves either. In the 1960s, a cabal of leftist supporters members of the CPI perhaps with money taken from the Soviets established the Seminar, a journal which was pro Soviet and pro Congress. The power couple, Raj and Krishna Thapar provided a platform for left wing "intellectuals" to propagate their views which were largely in tandem with the Soviet view. Te left ward swing that took the shape of Bank Nationalization and the Abolition of the privy Purse were all populist measures which were first discussed in the Sminar. And with the appointment of the CPI member Nurul Hasan as the Minister of State for Education the entire educational apparatus was staffed with fellow travellers and till this day the sterile domination of the left continues.

This book mst be read by all those who want to know the sordid reality of Indian politics under the Congress rule. Mitrokhin even states that a Cabinet Minister in Indira Gandhi's cabinet offered a whole trance of secret documents for 50,000 US Dollars. The Soviets did not take the offer only because they had already acquired the documents. The role of the defense lobbyists which almost derailed India's Military took shape during these dark years.

S S Indus, India's Claims over "Cultural Property" and UN Conventions

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

The Departure of the Prince

The Steam Ship Indus set sail from Calcatta Port with a priceless treasure of Indian Sculptures from the Buddhist site of Bharut, near Nagod in today's Madhya Pradesh in India. Sir Alexander Cunningham had chosen the finest pieces for the Exhibition in London. Since the [lace of origin was India and the ship registered in the Capital of the Indian Empire, London, India has certainly rights over the ship. From the point of view of Cultural Property Conventions too India has definitie claims.

There is sharp difference between scholars on Heritage whether Successor States have rights over the "Cultural Property" removed from its terrotory, legally, illegally or by any other means. The 1954 UNESCO Convention reognised movable and immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people". The terms used herein are extrmely vague and are open to different interpretation. For example what constitutes the "people". The 1954 Convention recognized the role of the State in protecting the heritage. However, this Convention remined silent over legal claims over Cultural Property and its restitution to the "people" who could legitimately claim such property as being vital to their identity as a people or culture, The legal lacunae in this instrument of 1954 was sought to be addressed in 3 subsequent conventions: 1970 Convention on the illegal Import, Export and Ownership of Cultural Property, 1972 World Heritage Convention which embodied the idea or concept of cultural or natural sites possessing outstanding universal value and finally the 2001 Convention on Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. Indian authorities, if they choose to stake a claim to the Sculptures in S S Indus must make their claims under the four corners of these conventions. And how?

The 1970 deadline is important as it freezes claims of theft or illegal transfer prior to that date. This date also recognises the participation of the newly independent countries in the proptection of their cultural property and also to set aside the niggling and contentious claims made by Greece for  the return of the Parthenon Marbles. Changes in Sovereignty impinge in the manner in which all these Conventions are invoked to claim restitution of Cultural Property. In the case of India Culture/ Cultural Property/ Protection/ Conservation is in the hands of two Constitutionally defined agencies: Central Government with the Archaeological Survey of India as its primary arm and State Departments of Archaeology and Culture. This dual responibility is due to Archaeology being on the concurrent List of the Indian Constitution. Obviously this confusion over roles has to be removed. The UN Convention defines sites of Cultural value and importance as res sacre which include (a) monuments of art (b) sites of architectural and archaeological significane representing both the tangible and intangible heritage of Mankind (c) sites, structures objects, artifacts, that are important for national or a group's identity and memory. These conditions make a realistic case under existing Conventions difficult and hence India must stree certain unique features about the particular site of Bharut.

Firstly, the sculptures were removed from the Stupa and most of the sculptures that were detached were from the railings that went right round the stupa and were votiv gifts from donors who wanted their gifts to be remembered in perpetuity. Culture ans the European Courts have repeatedly argued is too important to be understood only in terms of "legal technicalities". Buddha has a living presence in India as he is a divine entity for a large number of indegenous people and therefore dismantling or tearing down a structure deeply wounds the feeling s of the indegenous people and now International Law is beginning to define "indigenous people" as those who live on the land before Invasions or  colonial settlement. Thus a specific claim on behalf of Heritage of a Living People has to be made in order to make a case for the repatriation as per existing Conventions. Secondly, there is also the question of counter claims. Sri Lanka is a practising Buddhist Country and there is no doubt that Sri Lanka will not treat the Sculptures the way Muslim Afghanistan treated the Banyam Buddhas. And Sri Lanka can make an equally strong case for the retention of the sculpture on the grounds that Buddha is part of their Cultural Tradition and the wreck of S S Indus lies within the territorial limits of Sri Lanka, close to Mullaithivu, where the last battles of the Sri Lnakan Civil War were faught. 

India has not yet made any formal claim and this is disturbing as the more it ignores the less pursuvasive its claims become. First, the Government must formally recognise that a part of its Cultural Property has been removed and lost in the sea. A bi lateral agreement with Sri Lanka on an equitable distribution of the sculptures must be worked out and this agreement will further enhance the International Jurisprudence of historic wrecks.

A large number of Bharut Scultures are found in Museums all across the world. If these pieces were acquired by the Museuls prior to 1970 as perhaps is the case with the Freeer Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York the Government must set in motion the process of restitution of such pieces as were smuggled out illegally after 1970. In the present scenario the documentation maynnot be too difficult as Captain Waterhouse has photographed the monuments in sit situ.

The unfortunate wreck must be reclaimed and the incredible treasure brought back to India where they belong.

Sir Alexander Cunningham, the Bharhut Sculptures and the Law: Can India get back the Bharhut Sculptures

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

Sir Alexander Cunningham, the son of the Scottish poet Alan Cunningham now all but forgotten, was an incredible archaeologist. As the first Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, he excavated several important Buddhist sites in Northern India in the decades following the mutiny of 1857 and his Reports are still the most authentic Excavation Report/ Documentation.

The S S Indus

The visit of Sir Alexander Cunningham to the dusty plains of Nagod in today's Madhya Pradesh in November 1873 was a fateful one. For some years past, Sir Alexander Cunningham was reaing the travels of the Chinese traveller Xuan Zang in India, He probably read Beal's translation of the famous monk's account of his visits to various Buddhist Monatries in quest of the Pitakas, the Texts of Buddha's teachings. The purpose was to use the description of places in order to locate stupas constructed by the great king Ashoka after he converted to Buddhism. In Nagod Cunningham discovered the ruins of the Bharhut Stupa which he dated to the period from 250 to 200 BC. The unique feature of this Stupa was the detailed sculptures all along the Vedika or Pilgrim's Path illustrating the birth stories of Gautama the Buddha. Known as the Jatakas, the Barhut Stupa offers an almost complete corpus of Jataka tales,  Below I have illustrated two panels taken from the railings of the Stupa, now held in the Freer Art Gallery, Washington DC. The panel is a unique example of narrative art and these narrative panels Cunningham determined were the most unique feature of the Stupa. The newly invented art of photography was deployed with full vigour to make a visual record of the Stupa and the Military Photographer Captain Waterhouse was deputed for the purpose. Unfortunately the Archaeological Survey of India has neither confirmed nor published this unique set of records and the ASI must take the visual evidence seriously of it hopes to make a case for the repatriation of the Bahrut Sculptures. After the task of photographing the antiquities which included statues, railings, figurines, pillars, votive objects, terrocotta fifures and sandstone sculptures of Yakshas, Nagas and Devatas Cunningham decided to shift the antiquities to the Indian Museum at Calcatta now Kolkotta. His assistant Belgar protested saying that the "scheme carries with it a certain aroma of vandalism" and likened Cunningham's decision to carting away the Stonehenge. Over the protests of his field Assistant, the Director General had the entire lot shifted to the Museum built by the East India Company at Calcutta. He decided against the Asiatic Society of Bengal as the Society had not cared to display an earlier gift of a sculpture of Sravasti in an appropriate manner. The Raja of Nagod, of course was  gracious enough to present the entire lot to "Government" meaning the Imperial Government at 

Calcutta. A question that arises is: Was Sir Alexander Cunningham acting on his own or did he have the conset of the Secretary of State for India to relocate the sculptures. THe Museum in Calcutta still houses a large number of the Barhut Sculptures and Majumdhar has published a detailed monograph. Apart from Calcutta, Allahabad, Lucknow and the National Museum at New Delhi have a fe pieces taken from the "collection" of Cunningham. It must be stated that some of the pieces selected by Cunningham are extraordinarily valuable in that they carry in Kharoshti script the marks of the artisans who worked at the site. 

Sir Alexander Cunnigham reponding to Belgar's criticism about the "aroma of vandalism" justified his actions saying that he had "saved all the important sculptures'. He may have been right as the site of the Stupa was being raided for bricks and nearly 200 houses in and around Bahrut including the residence of the local raka yeilded traces of bricks, or spolia extracted from the Buddhist Stupa. But Cunningham was not done with the Sculptures yet. In 1886 he decided to send the best pieces to London and had them packed on SS Indus, an Ocean going Steamer registered with Lyods Shipping and Insurance. This copany had its headquarters in London. Wether the consignment of Sculpture was insured or taken as ballast weight is not known.

On November 9, 1885 S S Indus sank off the coast of Sri Lanka taking with it a rich treasure of Indian Cultural Property in the form of Buddhist Sculptures of unique cultural importance. Shri S M Nandadasa a Sri Lankan marine archaeologist has located the wreck and has published his priliminary findings. My point is: Does ndia have a claim on these Antiquities.

To be Continued in Part II

Sir Alexander Cunningham 1814-1893

The Politics of Memory and Remembrance: The Relocation of the Statue of Dupleix (1697-1763)

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

"The voices are kinda garbled. Can't make sense  out of it.

"Probably a bunch of post medernist theorists"

Add caption

Adrian Praetzeliis, Death by Theory,London: Rowman and Littlefied Bublishers INC, 2011.

The Statue of Dulpleix in its original form and location,Pondicherry
               

The world is haunted by the spectre of the past. Statues are tumbling faster than the rate at which COVID infection is spreading. In USA alone 12 major Sites of Memory have been torn apart and the Blaack Lives Matter has another list of "heores" to knock down from their marble pedestals. So far the targets have been Confederate Statues and it is only a matter of time before other slaveowners like Thomas  Jefferson face the same fate.   In Richmond, Virginia, th statue of Jefferson Davis was pulled down on the grunds that memoralizing the Confederate leaders is a nod towards the Jim Crow Laws by which the Blacks/ African Americans were deprived their their basic Civil and Constitutional Rights. Fort Bragg another controversial name will be removed and American soldiers will not be permitted to display Confederate symbols on Army bases. Good. The Civil War was over more than 150 years ago, but the political and ideological heat it generated has been rekindled, all over again.

Public Memory is extremely volatile and can be made malleable to any hegemonic political or ideological agenda and both in UK and in USA we are seeing increasing evidence of Public Memory being recast in the image of a new political and ideological gloss of woke liberalism. Destroy the statues. The Past is rewritten. The injustice of the past, especially of Racism and Colonialism, was not borne by the citizens of the countries that are out on the streets protesting. The cost of Racism and its conjoined twin, Colonial Rule, was borne by non whites, Asians and Africans all over the world. Until we learn to write our own History, the agenda will always be set elsewhere. Like the Africanproverb that Wole Soyinka quoted: Until the lion writes its own Hstory, the Hunter will represnt the Hunt in his own terms. Historians are now leding their voices to the cacophony on the streets. The American Historical Association even said that the removal of statues "is not to erase History but rather to call attention to a previous interpretation of History". As society changes and new questions are asked of the past new perspectives emerge which as E J Hobsbawm states in his autobiography, Interesting Times  is the stuff of historical research/ Inquiry. That said: Is it possible to eradicate the Memory of the Holocaust on the grounds that th memory is too painful for an oversensitive people to carry. Is History a Nightmare from which we have to awake. No History is the painful, turgid, monotonous quest for a slice of time and therefore statues, books, documents and other artifacts all have a place in recreating the lieux de Memoire, Places of Memory, as Pierre Nora and Jacques Le Goff argued. And a Place of Memory, is a site of rememberance both good and evil which come with the human condition. With this background I want to examine the politics which led to the removal of the Statue of Dupleix from its proud site facing the sea in Pondicherry. And let us start with the statue itself.

Dupleix was the Govrnor General of the Frech Territories Outre Mer that included Pondicherry, Chandranagore and a few other parcels of land along the two coasts of India. He served in India from 1742 to 1754 as Governor and it was during his regime that Madras, the city of the English East India Company was captured in 1746. Much against his will the city was returned when the War ended.His regime, like that of the English East India Company, was notorious for its corruption. His dubash, Anand Ranga Pillai has left a detailed account of his Administration is the first record of scripted consciousness in India, in his Diary which has been published in 13 volumes. When Pondicherry was beseiged by the East India Company and its troops, Dupleix ordered the pulling down of a famous temple, the Veda Purisvara Temple, perhaps at the instigation of the Jesuit Priest, Croeduex. This fact is recorded in the Diary of Anand Ranga Pillai and not a "discuscive statement" as post colonialist would say. Unfortunately a cloud of amnesia has settled and no one remembers where the temple stood. However, Dupleix was the Governor at the time and that fact was seared in the public memory or Collective Memory. And it was waiting for an opportunity. The removal of Dupleix was over certain allegations of Corruption and he was led into the ship. t is said in chains.

How dis Duleix become such a hero to the French that a bronze statue was commissioned and installed near the Beach (we have provided a photo of the statue). The short lived Second Empire of Napoleon III, (first time a tragedy second time a farce, in the words of the bearded prophet) that came to power in 1848 after the collapse of the Revolutions that swept across Europe in that year, wanted to proclaim its status as a "Great Power" by high lighting the imperial conquests and Pondicherry was natrually the choice for commemoration as it was in French hands and after the Peace Settlement of Vienna in 1815, Pondic herry was returned subject to the condition that it would not be fortified. And Napoleon III launched an ambitious programme of beautification and in fact almost all the major buildings and public places in Pondicherry were the result of Napoleon III and his policy.

The statue of Dupleix was installed on July 16, 1870. It was a bronze statue depecting Dupleix as a warrior with a sword, a map rolled up in his hand and behind him rather incongruously, a bag of money. While the statue itseld was not very controversial, the pedestal was a site of intense opposition. Pillars from vandalized temples of the indigenous people were broken and those depeicting Gods were shosen to form the rectangular base on which Dupleix stood. A European conqueror standing on a base consisting of granite pillars vandalized from temples was intended as a monument of racial pride and arrogance. And no wonder, the indigenous people demanded that it be removed. After the merger of French terrotories with India, the statue was removed and exiled to the far end of the beach where it was reinstalled with the back to the sea. No longer striking the heroic pose as he did in his earlier avatar atop a pile of Indigenous gods and deities.

Another important public space decorated with and created with spolia taken from Temples of indigenous people was the Place de la Republique, a name given after the Third Republic began after the Fraco Prussian War of 1870-71 which resulted in the collapse of the regime of Napoleon III.

Thus in Pondicherry too there is a story to recount. The fall of a statue and the politics surrounding it.

                                                                                                                                                                       

The Cooum River and the Historical Geography of Old Madras

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

The two maps from two different centuries, the one above from the eighteenth century and the one below from the nineteenth century illustrates the phenomenal trasformation in the form, character and morphology of the City of Madras from a Port town serving essentially the needs of the East India Company to an Imperial city, a visible symbol of the British Empire. And between the two lies an important 

historical fact: the city had changed to such an extent that we can hardly recognise the contours of change today. We attempt herein, to study the cartographic representions of Madras to uncover the Historical Geography of the City. We are particularly interested in seeing how the River Cooum has fared in all these momentous changes. Our focus therefore is on the River Cooum, today a dreary sewer trudging placidly through the city. The Map below shows that even in the late nineteenth century there were water bodies like the LOng Tank in Nungambakkam which were drained to fulfill the growing demand for space and the consquences were borne by the people of the city in 2015.

The Cooum is one of the shortest rivers in the region, a mere 75 kms from its source in Tiruvalluvar District and a recent Cultural Heritage study has mapped out nearly 100 temples all along its banks. Three important Saivite Temples are located near the source of the River: Tiruvikolam, IlambaiyanKottur and Tiruverkadu. All these temple are sung in the Tevaram and are therefore Padal Petrra Stalam. The water from the Kosatalaiyar River flowed into the Cooum assuring it a steady inflow. In 1868 the Tamaraipakkam check dam was built which restricted the flow from the Kosatalaiyar River to the Cooum and an open channel was cut to gring, by gravity surplus water to the Red Hills Reservoir located in the outskirts of Madras. Human intervention has played a major role in changing the flow and direction of the river. 

Early Map of Madras

A part of an early Map of Madras

The River as we know from the description left behind by John Lockyer flowed right into Fort Saint George, almost dividing the trapezium shaped settlement into two sections. From the very start of the English settlement, the East India Company sought to change the course of the River and they Company brought with it the onsiderable experience in draining swamps and building dams and canals which had started in England during the reign of the Stuarts. For nearly half a century the East India Company could do little as idt did not have full control over the  northern and western parts of the Plains. Only after the acquisition of the three villages of Pususuvakkam, Egmore and Ningambakkam was it possible to diver the course of the river from the Fort and make the Triplicane River and the Egmore River join so as to create an island. This island can still be recognized as Statue of Sir Thomas Munroe stands on the Island and in the toponyms of Madras Island Ground is sometimes mentioned.

A feature of Company life, and it is unfortunate that this is being destroyed, is the existence of Country Houses built by the important members of the company, the writers, the factors, the military officers etc. It is difficult to believe butthe River Cooum was considered attractive enough for them to builsd huge Bunglows. The large eighteenth century mansion in Nugmbakkam built by Dr Anderson, the successor of William Roxburgh, still exists and I hope I am permitted to visit it some day. His house was known as Pycroft Garden. There was until thirty years back, a Country House just below the Nugambakkam overbridge that connected Spur Tank Road with Poonamalli High Road. A early visitor to Madras in the eighteenth century wrote: "It is a surprise to find a handsome stream winding through the town and suburbs, and presenting broad stretches of silvery water at various points". The Adyar River, also a tributary of the Cooum was separated from the original river due to the interventions made by the Company in the early eightenth century when for reason of security they evicted the Indian settlers from the Fort and settled them in what is called in the Records as (a) Mutialpetai and (b) Peddanaikkenpetai. We have already described these Indian settlements wearlier.

The River was the life line of Madras and it provided a means for communication and transport We still have photographs of the River providing the route through which firewood and rice as delivered from the suburbs to residential areas inSouth Madras. The Buckingham Canal which was the Cochrane Canal of 1806 was the starting point of the decline of a once gentle and clean river.

A Boat on the Cooum in the early Twentieth Century

We can look for the traces of the river by follwing the Old Maps of Madras. The River no longer flows close to the Fort and even the Adyar River has lost its discharge into the Ocean as the sand bar stops the river from entering the By of Bengal. The construction of the Harbour at Madras in the first decade of the twentietn century, as the military and naval rivalry between Britain and Imperial Germany was building up was the last straw. The Cooum was redued to an urban slush pipe. 

We can infer from the records left behind by visitors tht as late as the eighteenth century, that boats plied on the Cooum near the Thomas Gate. The establishment of the settlement of Chidadripettai was amde possible by changing the course of the River and reclaiming land. The area where the General Hospital and the Medical College stands today extending up to the Southern Railway Headquarters and Central Station were part of the land drained by the River.After the French were forced to leave Madras in 1749, this area was levelled and all the Country Houses shifted to Nugambakkam or further up to Saint Thomas Mount. The bridge over the river is still called Garden Bridge and this harkens back to the days when the river provided nourishment to Garden Houses in that area,

The Buckingham Canal whose construction began in 1806 and ended in 1867 stretched from Markanam near Pondicherry to Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh. Begun as a famine relief project this Canal disrupted the inflow of water into the River ans the river was diverted into a temporary basin in order to facilitate the construction. The Canal was 750 kilometers long and was an excellt, indeed marvellous feat of engineering/

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.