Salem Historical Society that works for the cause of protecting historical monuments in and around the district got a 100-year-old map of the district. At a function organised by Salem Historical Society and YMCA, SALEM 225, to mark the 225th year of establishing Salem district, the map was presented by Philip K. Mulley of Kotagiri in The Nilgiris who is a writer and historian, to J. Barnabas, general secretary of the society. The map prepared by Helio-Zinco Survey Office, Madras in 1916 depicts the boundaries of the Salem district which was one of the biggest district in the country and the first district to be formed in South India in April 4, 1792.
J. Barnabas, general secretary of the Salem Historical Society displays the century-old map of Salem district.– Photo: E. Lakshmi narayanan
The district that spread over 7,530 sq m comprised Salem, Namakkal, Dharmapuri, and Krishnagiri and was divided into three broad zones.
Mr. Mulley said that Malabar and Coimbatore were formed only after Salem district was formed.
He said that Alexander Reed was the first Collector of the district who served between 1792 and 1799.
David Cockburn, the Scottish Collector and who is known as ‘Father of Yercaud’ constructed five schools in the city during his period of service (1820-1829) at his own cost.
Robert Bruce Foote known as ‘Father of Indian Paleoarchaeology’ excavated tools used during Neolithic and Iron Age in Yercaud.
“They served for the development of the district and hence they were remembered till now,” he added.
Mr. Barnabas told The Hindu that 620 copies of the map were printed in 1916, and the century-old map available with the society was a rare collection.
He said that the map brought alive the erstwhile district and would help the youngsters know the past.
“The map would be laminated and placed in the society’s office,”Mr. Barnabas added.
During the celebration, the war medal of M. Israel, war veteran of First World Ward (1914-1919), group photo of intermediate class (1939-1941) of The Salem Municipal College and few rare pictures were on display.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Tamil Nadu / by S.P. Saravanan / Salem – April 10th, 2016
Forgotten Past: “I am most satisfied about discovering the voice of the Indian soldier.” Raghavan in his New Delhi office. Photo: R.V. Moorthy / The Hindu
India was an unwilling participant in World War II, but those years provided the foundation for the Independence struggle.
Historian Srinath Raghavan in his latest book, India’s War: The Making of Modern South Asia, 1939-1945 (Allen Lane), details India’s contribution to World War II. The book explores the war’s impact on the Independence movement, how it was during this period that the Army saw its biggest expansion, and why this inquiry is important from a military history point of view.
Excerpts:
The book is called India’s war. Yet, not one Indian was consulted before Viceroy Linlithgow’s decision to enlist the Indian Army.
Even if India was an unwilling participant in the conflict, the conflict had huge implications for India. So, even if we were dragged into it kicking and screaming, those years turned out to be foundational for India in the Independence movement.
But still not India’s war. The Army was treated like bonded labourers, bundled off to fight without any say…
That’s not entirely the case. The Congress certainly opposed India’s participation because it wasn’t consulted, but others saw it as an opportunity. You had people like Ambedkar, who realised that for the Dalits, this was an opportunity for social mobility, to have their voices out. You also had Savarkar who said that this was a great opportunity for the Hindu community to get into the Army, which was dominated by the Sikhs and the Muslims.
Are you saying it was the war that gave these leaders and their ideologies their original prominence?
I think many of the ideological fault lines that we associate with 1947, in some sense, came to the fore during the war years, and that’s why we need to study them more closely. Because of what happens in the period 1935-1939 — you have the first elections under the Government of India Act, and Congress ministries are formed. It seemed as if the Congress was the most dominant force, and only Congress versus the British Raj played out. But then you had the war; the Congress was sidelined, and that cracked open the scenario for others who wanted their voices heard. So you had Jinnah coming into prominence with his demand, you had Ambedkar, you had Savarkar, and a number of others.
If you look at the books about India’s participation in World War II, especially Northeast India and the Malacca frontlines, they are titled the ‘forgotten war’ or the ‘forgotten Army’. Why is it important that they are not forgotten?
If you look at much of the way our history is taught, and the way the public imagines the 1940s, it is basically about the Congress party resigning, the Cripps Mission failing, and then you talk about post-war developments leading up to Independence. So the 1940s are remembered for this march to Independence and Partition that came as a cost of it. The war never really comes into focus. What I wanted to do was say, if you put the war in the front and at the centre and study its impact, then much of the 1940s becomes much clearer and explains why we ended up with what happened on August 15, 1947. Without the war, it is unlikely that the Muslim League would have gained prominence vis-a-vis the Congress in order to push through their demand for a separate country.
You don’t often refer to yourself in your books, but here you speak of your own regiment and how it fought. Do you think there is a bigger need to acknowledge this part of World War II as India’s war, for the Army’s sake?
To begin with, it is important from a military history point of view. This period marked the biggest expansion the Indian Army saw. For a generation of people, now forgotten, the war was foundational for their lives. They travelled abroad for the first time, served in very difficult conditions. I don’t think I would have even got into the subject but for my own military background; I may not have written it but for the fact that I served in the Rajputana Rifles regiment that features prominently in the book. When you have two and a half million Indians in uniform and many more millions recruited for war-related activity, how can we just forget that story? The Indian Army has got caught in the middle of this. If you are a ‘nationalist’, you will see the Army as an instrument of British control; a force of collaborators. But most of the Army was deeply nationalist. Others want to portray the anti-British movement as a subaltern revolution led by the peasantry, yet what was the Indian Army if not made up of the peasants and poorer classes? So, why ignore this side?
Finally, let’s remember that along with Partition, the Indian Army was partitioned as well. Companies that fought together in those wars were subsequently made to fight each other, beginning with the first Kashmir war. As a result, World War II dropped out of the picture. Because now both the Indian and Pakistani armies wanted to play up the stories of their valour against each other, to suit their independent national interests, and not some war that was a collaborative effort. One of the things I mention in the book is that there is a 25-volume official history of the war, and it had to be compiled by a combined inter-services effort from both India and Pakistan, right? But acknowledging this joint history has become very difficult, and very inconvenient, to both countries.
In his memoirs, President Pranab Mukherjee writes that he was against attending commemorations for World War II because it was an insult to the Independence movement, and particularly to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, whose Indian National Army fought against British forces.
I very strongly disagree with that view. Netaji and the INA’s effort were quite important, no doubt. I do bring out in the book that the INA’s importance was not really about military contribution, but political impact. It had about 25,000 soldiers, prisoners of war captured by the Japanese, who went over to form Netaji’s Army. The Indian Army was about a hundred times larger, 2.5 million Indians. So why should we only valorise 25,000 people and try to say that recognising the others is somehow a denigration of national history? That’s the lens I am trying to move beyond. Just because some people were in the Army doesn’t mean they wanted British rule. Many fought simply because it was a job; others needed access to food.
There’s an interesting point in the book when Chiang Kai-shek comes to meet the Indian leadership and asks them to support the war because the soldiers won’t be able to fight if they feel they do not have the country’s backing. Why was that significant?
One of the other forgotten parts of our history is that one of the biggest alliances was that of the Indian and Chinese armies during the war. Once the Japanese captured Burma, the land routes were cut off, much of the Indian Army’s mandate was to enable the nationalist Chinese Army to be supplied to fight. Much of the aerodrome-building across Northeast India was to supply the nationalist Chinese. Given the turn we took later, we must realise there is a pre-history too. India and China both emerged from the crucible of World War II. The idea that Asian nations which have come out of colonialism will have a shared future goes back to then. Of course, things didn’t work out that way, and we tend to forget this.
Most wars end the empire of the defeated side. Would you say that World War II was unique because it ended the empire of the winning side, the British?
I think it was clear even at the time that World War II would change the world forever… I think the key point is that the British lost the empire not just because they were weakened by the war, but because they lost the Indian Army’s support by the end of it, which was their instrument of control. That’s what the impact of the INA mutiny was, to show that the British could raise this massive Army, but that it could turn on them too. People like Churchill had even questioned the expansion of the Indian Army and said: “Someday it is going to shoot us in the back”.
You are now seen as a master of the archives through each of your books. What was the biggest challenge during your research for India’s war?
To be honest, I began this book thinking I could do most of my research in India itself. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I found that the National Archives don’t even have a clear record of the war period. They don’t even have a catalogue for the military department during the war, so a lot of the military details came from the British Library and other archives. But what I feel most satisfied about was my effort to discover the voice of the Indian soldier.
suhasini.h@thehindu.co.in
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Opinion> Comments / by Suhasini Haidar / April 10th, 2016
Pradeep Chakravarthy, a London School of Economics graduate, has been organising heritage tours in Tamil Nadu since 2014. | Ratheesh Sundaram
When President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated the Muziris Heritage Project (MHP) in February in Thrissur district’s Kodungaloor, he called it the largest conservation effort in the country. The project was initiated by Kerala Department of Tourism to conserve historical monuments and museums, and to boost tourism. In Chennai, Abhimanyu Prakashrao—representing eight generations of the Buchi Babu family, the first family of Madras cricket—upheld the legacy by restoring the colonial 250-year-old Luz House, owned by Buchi Babu’s father Moddaverapu Dera Venkataswami Naidu, dubash to Parry & Co in the 19th century. In neighbouring Puducherry, the state government joined hands with the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) in 2014 to restore 21 heritage buildings in the city. From February 5-7, the former French colony also witnessed the second edition of the Pondicherry Heritage Festival.
MHP was launched in 2006 as a heritage conservation initiative. Muziris Muziris, or Muchiri Pattanam, was one of the earliest ports in India, an entry point of varied cultures to India and finds mention in the Sangam literature. P J Cherian, chairman of the Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR), who led the excavation of the port, says it is time that historians studied Muziris as a Periyar Valley Civilisation. The Spice Route project is another heritage tourism initiative by the Kerala government.
Other stakeholders in the legacy pie are keeping the momentum going with heritage hotels in offbeat places such as Tranquebar aka Taramgambadi into Tamil Nadu. Heritage tours are tapping unexplored places that are teeming with history.
Heritage is slowly getting its due in south India, and leading from the front are Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, the twin citadels of history, art and culture.
Sunaina Mandeen co-founded People for Pondicherry Heritage to preserve and protect the town’s architectural and cultural heritage. | G Pattabiraman
Last year, under the Ministry of Urban Development’s National Heritage Development Augmentation Yojana (Hriday), the Centre had sanctioned Rs.23 crore for Kancheepuram and Rs.22.3 crore for Velankanni for development and improvement of heritage sites over the next two years. In 2014, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had announced a subsidy of Rs.16.82 crore for 60 of the 64 heritage towns in the state.
In Puducherry, fondly called Pondy, which boasts of a unique Franco-Tamil heritage, attempts towards heritage conservation have been ongoing with some heritage homes being converted into cafés, restaurants and hotels. But it was the collapse of the 144-year-old Marie town hall building in 2014 that made the townspeople aware that all was not well with their famed heritage. “After the Marie building came down, people got together and a spontaneous movement was formed, called ‘People for Pondicherry Heritage’. A week after the collapse, a candle-lit tribute to Marie was organised,” says 63-year-old Sunaina Mandeen, co-founder of People for Pondicherry Heritage.
Ashok Panda, co-convener of INTACH, Puducherry chapter, has helped convert homes and buildings into heritage hotels. | G Pattabiraman
Conserving the heritage of this beautiful sea-side town is high on the Puducherry government’s agenda. “Two years ago, the government, which owns 30 heritage buildings, agreed to partner with INTACH to restore 21 buildings. Five or six buildings have been restored, with two to be restored this year,” says Ashok Panda, co-convener of INTACH, Puducherry chapter. With its team of 10 architects and restoration experts, INTACH has converted homes and buildings into heritage hotels such as Hotel Orient, Hotel Gratitude, Maison Perumal and La Maison Tamoule, and has restored 25 Tamil homes on Vysial Street. Hotel Orient was restored at a cost of `60 lakh and Hotel Gratitude for Rs.1 crore. For Maison Perumal and La Maison Tamoule, INTACH suggested the design.
Private players, especially those who endorse heritage preservation, are making a beeline for Puducherry, with many of them taking over ancient places and converting them into heritage hotels. Palais de Mahe on Rue de Bussy, a shining example of French colonial architecture with high ceilings and a yellow-white facade, owes its existence as a heritage hotel since 2013 to CGH Earth. In 2009, the group had restored an old Tamil house, Maison Perumal, at a cost of `2 crore. “Each of our properties has its own special charm and character. Palais de Mahe in the French quarter is very French, while Maison Perumal has a distinct Tamil character,” says Sam John, manager of Maison Perumal.
A hundred km away from the former French enclave, pioneers in the heritage architectural-restoration-for-reuse Neemrana Hotels honed in on Tharangambadi, which housed a Danish colony from 1620 to 1845. In Tamil Nadu, Neemrana’s 2004 project was the Bungalow on the Beach, an 18th-century Danish colonial house that belonged to the governor of Danish India, followed by Naik House and Gate House. On the Neemrana cards is another heritage hotel, Thamgam House.
In the neighbouring capital, a bit of Chennai’s vast architectural heritage was saved when the 17th century Luz House opened its doors to the public in 2014. “Luz House was in ruins for 40 years, except when it functioned as a L’Oreal heritage spa. I suggested to my father that we could transform Luz House to earn revenue,” says Abhimanyu Prakashrao, whose family owns the Dutch colonial bungalow. With an investment of Rs.50 lakh for restoration, the risk paid off for this MBA graduate. They have been doing well by letting it out for events and weddings. “We plan to start a small café, an eight- or 10-roomed hotel next. So far, only a third of the house is open to the public,” says Prakashrao.
Abhimanyu Prakashrao upheld the family legacy by restoring the 17th century Luz House in one of Chennai’s oldest areas, Mylapore, in 2014. | R Satish Babu
Bengaluru has its share of old bungalows, with many remodelled to create a new entity. The late 19th century colonial structure in Basavanagudi houses an antique home-furnishing boutique, Basava Ambara. When Venkataram Reddy heard in 2009 that the outhouse and a section of the mansion owned by the M Mahadevan family was available for rent, he took it. The bungalow is home to the Mahadevan family, and houses The Rogue Elephant, a café integrated into the boutique.
What separates Karnataka’s capital from the capital of the Vijayanagara kings, Hampi, is 350 km. Known for its beautiful ruins, Hampi and its surrounding areas—such as Anegundi—get many tourists. Shama Pawar, founder of the Kishkinda Trust, has been restoring the ruins of Anegundi and promoting its art and culture for the last two decades. “We have done lot of documentation about the ruins and monuments that are not covered under the government agencies. There is a mantapa with 64 pillars in the Tungabhadra river, with each showing 64 kinds of skills. The mantapa surfaces only during summer when the river water is low,” she says.
That heritage is an invaluable asset has manifested in people getting together and working towards its preservation. Sharmila Ganesan, co-convener of INTACH, Tamil Nadu, started Friends of Heritage Sites (FOHS) in 2014. “We wanted to involve the local community for they are stakeholders too, and often resort to vandalising properties,” says Ganesan. For their pilot project in 2015, they honed in on Mamallapuram to revive the ancient Pallava art and train local sculptors. “We commissioned six garden sculptures adhering to Pallava art and conducted a heritage workshop for middle-school kids,” she says. The organisation also conducts heritage tours every year.
Tamil Nadu’s heritage lies in its 36,000 temples. Chennai-based author and historian Pradeep Chakravarthy, says, “As a seven-year-old I used to visit temples and that impacted me.” Chakravarthy began organising heritage tours in 2014 on a friend’s suggestion. “We picked Tirunelveli as I knew the lay of the land. During the trip, we visited the house of an old zamindar family,” says the London School of Economics graduate. Trips to Vellore and Pudukottai have been planned for this year. “I am looking for a Tamil Jain family in Vellore to host us for an ‘ahimsa’ lunch,” he adds.
Sabita Radhakrishna revived the 1,000-year-old Kodalli Karuppur sari worn by the ranis of Thanjavur up to the 19th century. | R Satish Babu
Not just architectural heritage, the revival of textile and arts heritage has come in for scrutiny. Writer, columnist, foodie and playwright Sabita Radhakrishna, who has worked with textiles for the last 30 years, says, “I wanted to revive the Kodalli Karuppur sari, which has 1,000 years of history. It was made exclusively for the ranis of Thanjavur up to the 19th century. With government support and help of a master weaver and a painter from Kalahasti, Andhra Pradesh, we spearheaded the revival campaign last year.” In June 2015, Radhakrishna started the 60 handloom sari pact in which one wore only handloom sarees 60 times.
Sambaji Rajah Bhonsale, a royal descendant of the Maratha rulers and a Thanjavur painting expert, imparted training to 100 women in the art. | Ratheesh Sundaram
Heritage art such as the Tanjore (Thanjavur) paintings has also got a shot in the arm. Last year, along with a few other painting experts, B Sambaji Rajah Bhonsale, a royal descendant of the Maratha rulers and a Thanjavur painting expert, imparted training to 100 women on an initiative by CM Jayalalithaa. The women were paid Rs.2,000 each as stipend.
Thanjavur’s rich cultural past is also being revived by Prakriti Foundation, an organisation started by Chennai-based businessman-turned-culture czar Ranvir Shah.
Meera Krishnan of Prakriti Foundation has restored 50 panels at Devashriya Mandapam in the Thyagarajaswamy temple in Thiruvarur. | R Satish Babu
“We are looking to restore the Kalyana Mahal Chhatram at Thiruvaiyaru into a heritage centre,” says Meera Krishnan, programme coordinator for Prakriti Foundation. Its first project in 2008 was to restore 50 panels at the Devashriya Mandapam in the Thyagarajaswamy temple in Thiruvarur. Each year in March, Prakriti organises the Sacred Music Festival on the banks of the Cauvery river at Thiruvaiyaru, 12 km away from Thanjavur and the birth place of the legendary poet-saint Thyagaraja. Next on their agenda is to build a hostel for students of the music college there.
Tombs are as much part of the southern heritage as temples, and the Qutb Shahi tombs in Hyderabad representing a blend of Persian, Pashtun and Hindi architecture, are the only necropolis in the world where the members of seven generations of one royal dynasty are buried. They are also Hyderabad’s oldest heritage structures. In 2013, Agha Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) took up the task of their restoration at a cost of `100 crore over a 10-year period. Conservationist architect and project director of AKTC Ratish Nanda says, “Our ambition is long-term preservation of this 450-year-old heritage structure.”
Chennai celebrates its heritage and 377-year-old history with the Madras Day celebration since 2004. Journalist and historian Vincent D’souza, who ideated the festival, keeps it pithy when it comes to heritage conservation. “If you are proud of your heritage, you will treat it with respect, not vandalise or spit on it,” he says.
With inputs from Saumesh Thimbath,Chetana Divya Vasudev, Amit S Upadhye and Saima Afreen
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Magazine / by Sunita Raghu / April 02nd, 2016
The women weave about two baskets a day; everything from cutting to colouring is done by hand.
Chennai :
What do a handwoven palm-leaf basket and issues of deep-seated negligence and heritage have in common? In this case, it is the small hamlet of Pulicat, where these baskets are made. The baskets are woven by local women and marketed in the city by organisations like AARDE Foundation, an NGO working towards the conservation of natural and built heritage in Pulicat.
What’s interesting is the two-fold purpose of these colourful handicrafts: besides being an important form of livelihood for the town, AARDE founder Xavier Benedict’s goal is to draw attention to the issues facing Pulicat through these handicrafts.
“Pulicat is a unique place and has three kinds of heritage — cultural, manmade and the natural heritage. Though all are important, cultural heritage, including crafts, is the only factor that can easily be made attractive to visitors and marketed to improve the economy, ” explains Xavier. “Most of them rely on fishing and boat-making. Boating for tourists used to be an additional source but it was banned after a boat capsized. Alcoholism is also a problem. So women are the crucial link to improving livelihood.”
The journey began with post-tsunami relief work at Pulicat. Performing arts like kattaikoothu and textiles like kalamkari, muslin and palm-leaf weaving were a part of the vanishing cultural heritage. Besides, this is the built heritage. “There are lakhs of monuments that are not protected by the Archeological Survey of India. When we went to Pulicat, we saw the numerous abandoned structures that are dilapidated. So we began working on documenting and raising awareness,” says Benedict.
Sadly, even as such attempts were going on, one of the structures, Our Lady of Glory Church, built in 1515 AD by the Portugese, was demolished in 2009 to be replaced by a new church. A few years later, another beautiful temple, the Adi Narayanana Perumal Temple was also demolished to make way for a new temple. “The temple had a unique construction style that was uncommon in South India. Today, it is gone,” he says. “The protection is often arbitrary — some structures are protected under the ASI but some are being destroyed. We are asking for the entire town to be made into a heritage site.”
Natural heritage is equally important, with the Pulicat Lake being the second largest brackish water lake in India, supporting lakhs of migratory birds and also crucial for draining of excess water during rains.
The lake is under threat from pollution and development, and activists like Benedict are trying to petition to protect it under an inter-governmental treaty for wetlands called Ramsar. Since such concepts of conservation are not easy to convey, he believes that tapping a craft like palm-leaf weaving, can help especially when you add colours and make new designs, and market the product.
Around 85 women between ages 25 to 60 years are employed by AARDE, and work every day at a workshop in the town. “Initially, some of the women, most of them Muslims, were hesitant to come out. But now, many come. Last week, we even had our first set of products woven by a man,” says Sophie, Benedict’s wife, who handles the marketing.
The women are paid a monthly wage, and all proceeds go to the women except overheads like transport and raw material. Usually, the women make one or two baskets a day depending on the complexity. Everything is done by hand, from cutting to colouring. “One woman is now 70 and says she will not reveal her special technique even to her daughter until she retires. The women have also taken to technology, and send me pictures from their children’s phones every night through WhatsApp,” she smiles.
Baskets, boxes and trays
Palm-leaf weaving is a part of cultural heritage in Pulicat. It is marketed by AARDE and the profits go directly to the women. The range includes baskets, boxes, pouches and trays. Bulk orders for functions are also taken. For details, visit www.aarde.in
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Archita Suryanarayanan / April 02nd, 2016
K. Karuppiah, Deputy Superintending Epigraphist, at the exhibition on Sunday —Photo: S.R. Raghunathan
Permanent museum-cum-exhibition named after Indologist E. Hultzsch
Lovers of heritage and students of history can now head to Fort St. George and visit a newly-created centre that has impressions of inscriptions from all over India on display.
Estampages, as these impressions of inscriptions are called, are displayed at the newly-created Eugen Julius Theodor Hultzsch Memorial Museum-cum-Epigraphical Photo Exhibition at the historic fort. The permanent museum-cum-exhibition has been named after E. Hultzsch, a German Indologist and epigraphist, known for his work in deciphering the inscriptions of Ashoka, officials said.
The museum has been created by the Epigraphy branch of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Southern Zone, as part of its cultural awareness programmes on the occasion of the 159th birth anniversary celebrations of Dr. Hultzsch and also the silver jubilee year (1990-2015) celebrations of ASI, Southern Zone.
“We have displayed the estampages of Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions from across the nation,” K. Karuppiah, Deputy Superintending Epigraphist, ASI, told The Hindu . The inscriptions are from the period between the third century B.C. and second century A.D. “They are in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Sanskrit, and Prakrit. The nature of these inscriptions is donative records and hero worship. The staff of the Epigraphy branch visit villages across India, copy the inscriptions and decipher them. The most important deciphered inscriptions are highlighted in Epigraphia Indica, a quarterly journal of the ASI,” he said.
Through Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions, ASI gets a lot of information about Chera, Chola, and Pandya kings, he added.
The exhibition will be formally inaugurated at the ASI Office, Clive Building, Fort St. George, on Tuesday.
It will remain open on all working days and entry is free. For details, contact the ASI on Ph: 25675783
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by T.S.Atul Swaminathan / Chennai – March 29th, 2016
Presidency College c.1900 / Photo: Special Arrangement / The Hindu
Marking its 175th year in muted fashion this year is Presidency College, the oldest college in South India and the seed from which Madras University grew. But its early history has always left me with a question or two and I wonder whether some academic will shed some brighter light on those rather murky beginnings.
It was in March 1835 that the Government of India stated that “the object of Government ought to be the promotion of European literature and sciences among the natives of India.” It was an affirmation of Macaulay’s Minute on Education. But none of the Presidency governments knew quite what to do with this statement of policy. Of suggestions there was no shortage, but while Calcutta and Bombay did get around to action on some of these suggestions, Madras kept a debate going till there arrived a new Governor, Lord John Elphinstone, in 1838. To him George Norton, then the Advocate-General, and a few other eminent personalities presented a petition in November 1939 signed by 70,000 ‘native inhabitants’ seeking institutions of higher education.
Their petition read in part, “We see in the intellectual advancement of the people the true foundation of the nation’s prosperity… We descend from the oldest native subjects of the British Power in India, but we are the last who have been considered in the political endowments devoted to this liberal object…Where amongst us are the collegiate institutions which, founded for these generous objects, adorn the two sister presidencies?” The petition also promised that the citizenry would also gladly, “according to our means”, play a role in establishing such institutions if Government gave the lead.
A month later, Elphinstone responded positively with a proposal which is still what confuses me, even if it finally resulted in the birth of Presidency College. He proposed establishing a “collegiate institution, or a ‘University’” with two departments: A high school offering English Literature, a Regional language, Philosophy, and Science, to prepare students for the second department, the College, which would provide instruction in the higher branches of these subjects. A University Board, headed by Norton, was appointed in January 1840 to implement this proposal.
My confusion arises when I wonder whether there were no high schools before this — Madras history is full of schools of different types from at least 1715 and couldn’t they have years before 1840 been developed into high schools? Even as we wonder over this, there comes another poser. The University Board gets down to work and, believe it or not, starts a preparatory school! This school, started in Edinburgh House, Egmore, and later moved to Popham’s Broadway, was meant to prepare students for the High School! What were the other schools in Old Madras doing?
The High School opened its doors on April 14, 1841, in D’Monte House, Egmore, where the Chief Magistrate’s Court now is. Elphinstone, inaugurating the School, told the gathering, which included the School’s first 67 students that they were “witnessing the dawn of a new era, rather than the opening of a new school.” After studying English Prose and Grammar, Arithmetic and Algebra, Moral Science, History, Mechanics, Natural Philosophy, a vernacular and, in due course, Political Economy, the students graduated as ‘Proficients’. But what did they do for a degree?
Eyre Burton Powell, a Cambridge Wrangler, was appointed Headmaster and in 1853 saw the High School elevated to collegiate status. Two years later, in 1855, he became the first principal of the school that had attained collegiate status and which had been named Presidency College. But with no University in sight — The University of Madras was still two years away — where were the students getting their degrees — if any — from? Another mystery. The College moved to its new buildings on the Marina in 1870-71 by when its students were getting University of Madras degrees.
I don’t know whether a centenary or an earlier jubilee history of the College was written providing answers to all these strange goings-on in the early years of the institution. If not, one should be written now to explain why a major policy decision had to be taken to establish a prep school and a high school and how a college was founded with no University affiliation. Or perhaps someone will provide answers before a book is even thought of.
The Connemara Hotel main block before remodelling began in 1934 / Photo: Special Arrangement / The Hindu
… And a 125-year-old one
To mark its 125th year as the Connemara Hotel — without seeking to celebrate the years before that when it had been a hotel under different names — this landmark institution in the city is soon to start a year-long refurbishment and when that’s over I hope it will just be the Connemara again. I also hope it will then commemorate someone who has long been forgotten by it — Eugene Oakshott.
An architect’s sketch of what the remodelled Connemara (1930s) was expected to look like when complete — and as it remains today
The hotel has a Wallajah Room and an Arcot Room recalling the name of the Nawab, as well as that of his fiefdom, on whose once-upon-a-time land-holding the hotel came up. It also has a Binny Room, recalling the owner of a property successive hoteliers took over before it became the Connemara’s, but nowhere in the hotel is there anything named after the man who took over in 1891 the hotel that had been renamed the Connemara in 1890.
Eugene Oakshott was the boxwallah who took over in 1882 a small store called Spencer’s on Mount Road and by 1895 moved it into a palatial home further up the road and got it on its way to becoming the biggest retailing empire in Asia. He then bought for himself the neighbouring Connemara on the advice of a colleague James Stiven, who became a partner in, and General Manager of, the Connemara. It was Stiven who took the first steps towards making the Connemara what it became from the 1930s, the leading hotel in Madras till the 1970s.
How about an Oakshott Hall and a Stiven’s Bar to remember them both when the hotel opens in its new avatar next year?
When the postman knocked…
* Recalling the founding of Vidya Mandir, (Miscellany, March 14) C.L.R. Narasimhan, an old boy of Rosary Matric, remembers what a shock it was to parents like his who found their wards being suddenly asked to leave Rosary in the middle of its year when they were in the 4th Class. “It created a lot of consternation among parents, many of whom were active members of the Mylapore Ladies Club.” The concerted reaction of many such parents, he adds, led to the founding of Vidya Mandir 60 years ago. Nearby St. Bede’s and St. Patrick’s did not offer State Board finals and getting into Madras Christian College High School or Hindu High School was not only not easy but they were quite a distance away. So there was born of the determination of the MLC members Vidya Mandir with just one class, Class Four, and two “outstanding” teachers, Ammini, the daughter of noted scholar P.N. Appuswamy, and Stella, who later migrated to Australia.
Narasimhan also points out that there was a time when the Mylapore Ladies Club had an emphasis on sport, Ball Badminton being the most popular game. The five-a-side game played with a fluffy yellow ball is little heard of today, but till the 1960s it was one of the most participated in sports activities in South India. Shantha Narasimhan, my correspondent’s mother, was a regular member of the MLC team, which was one of the strongest teams in the city. Noteworthily, all its members played in nine-yard sarees! “It was comfort personified, my mother used to insist, whether playing badminton or tennis or rowing in the Kodaikanal regattas,” concludes Narasimhan.
* Going past the San Thomé cathedral, on the same side, you cross a narrow lane and then a pair of very impressive gates. To whom do these gates belong, asks G. Shantha. Judging from her description, I think the Church Shantha refers to is the St. Thomas Basilica. In which case, the handsome gates are those of the Archbishop of Mylapore’s Palace. The Palace is on the site of the large garden house John de Monte, a knight of the church, built in 1804. It passed through many hands, including Thomas Parry’s, before it was bought by the Church in 1838. Just before the consecration of the Basilica in 1896, Bishop Dom Henriques da Silva made it his Episcopal Palace. After the Archdiocese of Madras-Mylapore was created on December 12, 1952, its first Archbishop, Rev. Dr. Louis Mathias, had the Palace renovated and considerably expanded over the next year. The handsome gates were made by the Salesian Technical Institute, in Basin Bridge. He even created a museum of Catholic antiquities in the Palace grounds. But this has now been moved to buildings in the rear of the Basilica.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus> Madras Miscellany / by S. Muthiah / Chennai – March 26th, 2016
Asked to name warrior queens from the country, few would go beyond the Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi, and probably none would be able to name women from south India. Though history may make it seem that the first revolution of Independence in 1857 was an orchestration of north Indian rulers, Lucknow-based researcher Kirti Narain is bringing to the fore contribution of the forgotten heroes.
Narain says the popularly held belief that the revolution of 1857 was concentrated to north and central India was not true. “Southern India also responded to the first movement for Independence.Some of these southern rulers were women,” says Narain who was in the city recently with her assistant Amina Hasan to delve into the Tamil Nadu government archives. Narain is engaged in a study , on participation of women in the 1857 uprising under the aegis of the Indian Council of Social Science Research and the Giri Institute of Development Studies, Aliganj in Lucknow.
Instead of going by British records, Narain’s study has unearthed forgotten Indian writings. Backing her findings, Narain cites examples of powerful women like the 18th century Sivaganga queen Rani Velu Nachiyar, besides Belawadi Mallamma and Kittur Rani Chennamma of Karnataka.
“Rani Velu Nachiyar was the first queen of Tamil origin to fight against the British in India. She formed an army and fought and won against the British in 1780, with military assistance from Hyder Ali,” says Narain, head of Giri Institute of Development Studies. Nachiyar, the princess of Ramanathapuram, was married to the king of Sivaganga, Muthuvaduganatha Periyaudaiyathevar. She was drawn into battle after her husband was killed by the British. Living under the protection of Hyder Ali of Mysore near Dindigul, Nachiyar was said to have come up with idea of a human bomb. She also formed a women’s army and was one of the few rulers who regained her kingdom and ruled for 10 more years.
Inspiring women in the south was another queen from Karnataka Kittur Rani Chennamma. Born in 1791, she was best known for leading an armed rebellion against the East India Company in 1824. The resistance ended with her arrest and she was imprisoned for life.Adept at horse riding, sword fighting and archery from her youth, Channamma called for a war when the British refused to accept her adopted son as ruler. “Kittur Rani Chennamma was the first woman activist who fought a lonely , but courageous battle against the British. She did not succeed in driving them away , but she inspired many women,” says Narain.
Prior to these women, Belawadi Mallamma was a popular warrior queen from Bailhongal, in Belgaum district of Karnataka. She was the first woman to form a women’s army to fight against the British and the Marathas in the 17th century. “Belawadi Mallamma fought with the Maratha king, Shivaji, while defending her husband’s kingdom. She was defeated and taken to Shivaji, who was quite impressed by her valour and decided to return the kingdom.”
During the turbulence of revolt, there were many women who participated in their own way. While many gave away their jewellery to finance the revolution, some requested their masters to train them in warfare. “Our study also looks at unknown women and tribal women who have no identity. These women played a significant role in the revolt,” says Narain.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Chennai / TNN / by CDS Mani / TNN / March 17th, 2016
It began in a small household in Triplicane… Here’s the story of Ambika Appalam, established long before the Second World War
Ambika Appalam owes its legacy to a man called Ayappan
They say the trick to achieving the perfect appalam lies in the hands of the maker. The process is referred to as appalam ‘iduradhu’ — a Tamil word that doesn’t have an exact English equivalent. Shaping, perhaps? It is a task that requires far more than a machine’s precision. Which is why at Ambika Appalam, every appalam is still hand-made. “I spent lots of money in R&D on making them with machines,” says K.V. Vijayaraghavan, who owns the company. “But I was not successful. Something or the other would go wrong if a machine was employed. The dough wouldn’t be right or the appalam would turn brown when fried.”
Ambika Appalam owes its legacy to a man called Ayappan, about whom the present generation that runs the company knows little. “All I’ve heard about him is from my father K.A. Velayudham. Poverty forced Ayappan, my grandfather, to come from Kerala to Madras to make a living,” remembers Vijayaraghavan.
This was in the 1920s. Far from home, Ayappan started with what most of his neighbours in Triplicane did — making papadums. A little moist before being fried, a papadum puffed up like a poori when it came into contact with hot oil.
And so the young Ayappan, barely into his twenties, made dough using urad dal and shaped it into little circles. Although they cost just a few annas, each one was handled with care. He sun-dried them, packed them into bundles of 100, and arranged the lot in a bag. This marked step-1. Step-2, the more difficult one, consisted of Ayappan journeying with his precious cargo to various houses in the area to sell them.
The business gradually developed, and Ayappan married and started a family. His wife and children then joined him in making papadums at home.
Soon, Velayudham took over. He made appalams instead, for the lifespan of an appalam was up to a year, but that of a papadum was just seven days. It was Velayudham who gave his family business a brand and an identity — he named it Ambika, after his favourite goddess back home in Kerala. An artist in the neighbourhood sketched their logo — a line drawing of a goddess seated on a lotus. Even today, the same logo with the tagline ‘Azhagaai porium’, meaning ‘Fries beautifully’, adorns their wrappers, except that it has been embellished with technology.
Velayudham ferried appalams in a cycle to not just households in Triplicane, but to those as far as Tambaram. “My father then opened a small shop in Mathala Narayanan Street in Mylapore,” says Vijayaraghavan. It was “just enough for one person to stand amidst the appalam bundles.” From then on, Ambika grew much like a dream business, with Velayudham opening one shop after the other across the city.
They did have a hitch. In 1966, the business was shut down due to labour issues. “We had about 600 people working for us then. They would work from 3 a.m. to 7 p.m. in three houses in Triplicane that doubled as their workplace,” recalls Vijayaraghavan. Suddenly, it was all over. But they bounced back, with well-wishers who worked for them, offering to make appalams for them in their respective households.
It’s this model that the company follows till date — apart from their factory in Choolaimedu, their appalams are made in households across Chennai and Kanchipuram as per Vijayaraghavan’s specifications.
The crispy appalam that reaches our plate is extremely delicate in its initial stage. “If the maker grips a just-shaped appalam hard, it might break. But if not held properly, it might slip and lose shape,” says Vijayaraghavan. “This is why they stack the circles and pat it together. This is tricky too, for the circles might stick.”
Vijayaraghavan has various memorable customers – Kavignar Kannadasan among them. “He would buy an entire tin,” recalls Vijayaraghavan. The poet was a huge fan of Ambika’s potato chips.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Akila Kannadasan / Chennai – March 15th, 2016
Coramseemee Leembruggen’s memorial at Armenian church Photo: R. Ravindran / The Hindu
International Women’s Day was celebrated this week and so it’s perhaps appropriate that this week’s story is about a remarkable woman, who may not have lived in Madras, but has a memorial in the city’s Armenian Church.
Located on the western wall of the verandah that leads to the church is a handsome memorial dedicated to Coramseemee Leembruggen. As to what such a Dutch name was doing in the Armenian church was a puzzle to me till I readArmenians In India, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day by Mesrovb Jacob Seth, written in 1937. I learnt that the lady was an Armenian whose real name was Hripsimah. Coramseemee or Khoromeseemee is apparently the corrupt form of the Armenian name.
She was born in 1778 as the only daughter of Eleazar Woskan, a wealthy Armenian based in Surat. While still in her teens, she was given in marriage to Stephen Agabob, an elderly widower whose sole aim in life appears to have been to marry young girls and treat them harshly. Not one to stand such brutality, Coramseemee left him and took refuge in the house of an English doctor, who was a family friend. In 1795, she fell in love with Robert Henry Leembruggen, a Hollander who was in the employment of the Dutch East India Company in Surat. However, knowing fully well that he was not to be trusted financially, she had the prudence to enter into what would today be known as a pre-nuptial agreement. As per this, her Rs. 40,000 in cash and valuable jewels were to be hers alone, and she was in no way to be held responsible for any debts her husband may incur.
They lived happily for a while, during which time Leembruggen was transferred to Colombo and Nagapattinam. By then, they had begun a business, of which she was sole proprietor. Differences arose over Leembruggen’s profligate nature and the couple separated in 1817, with Coramseemee paying her husband a monthly maintenance allowance of 25 pagodas thereafter. He died in 1819, leaving behind nothing but some old furniture that she never bothered to claim. She ran her business successfully on her own, till her death in 1833.
Between 1819 and 1833, she had the habit of making a new will each year, copies of which were sent to the Armenian Church, Madras. When she died, the last will and testament, after several charities to Armenian causes, left the bulk of her estate to the Armenian Church, Madras, for the Armenian Orphans Fund. The memorial here was put up for her in gratitude. Two other legatees, the Armenian College and the Armenian Church of Nazareth in Calcutta put up a memorial for her in the church in that city.
Taking into account her tombstone in Nagapattinam, there are therefore three memorials to her in India. That must be a record of sorts.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Shriram V / Chennai – March 14th, 2016
It was at a dinner the other night, when someone wondered why an eminent industrialist from Madurai had gone to Madras Christian College instead of American College in Madurai, that it suddenly struck me that the American missionary presence in this part of the world is 200 years old this year, causing me to interject with a non sequitur. The American Ceylon Mission sank roots in Jaffna not long after the Rev. Daniel Poor and his wife arrived in Colombo on March 22, 1816 together with two other missionary couples and a bachelor clergyman.
Rev. Daniel Poor
Poor opened the first American-run school in this part of the world when on December 9, 1816 he opened the Common Free School, now Union College, in Tellippalai, Jaffna. Seven years later, in Vaddukkoddai, Jaffna, he established another school that was to become the renowned Jaffna College from where came the first two graduates of the University of Madras (Miscellany, August 9, 2004 and October 29, 2012).
It was amongst the second batch of American missionaries to Jaffna that there arrived Dr. John Scudder, said to be the first medical missionary in the world. After working in Jaffna from 1820 to 1836, Scudder, the grandfather of the legendary Ida Scudder of Vellore, was moved to Madras where he established the American Madras Mission that year. He was to move to Vellore in 1841 and found the American Arcot Mission there.
But before the move to Madras, the Revs. Levi Spaulding, Henry Hoisington and William Todd and three Jaffna Tamil students (as translators) visited Madura in January 1834 to establish the American Madura Mission. They soon established two schools there but it was left to Poor, who moved to Madura in 1835, to found 37 schools in the district, including the one that became American College, Madura. He was its first Principal. He returned to Jaffna in 1850 and died there in the cholera epidemic of 1855. On June 28, 1915, one of the finest libraries in South India, the Daniel Poor Memorial Library, was opened in his memory. Its splendid new building, opened in 1926, was funded by a grand-daughter of Poor.
The close connections between the American Missions in Jaffna, Madura and Vellore (the Madras Mission gave way to the numerous British missions then moving in) led to the development of Kodaikanal as an important hill station (Miscellany, September 4, 2000). A connection with Madras, however, remains. The American Ceylon Mission, being a constituent of a union of congregational churches in South India, is part of the Church of South India, headquartered in Madras from 1947.
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Jesse Mitchell’s charger
My ever-regular correspondent in Australia, Dr. A. Raman, having seen that unique picture of the Museum Tower (Miscellany, February 29) sends me another picture — but this, though many may have seen its focus in situ in the Madras Museum, I feature because it has a story to tell. It may be considered a memorial to the man who could well be considered the founder of the Connemara Public Library, one of India’s four national libraries, Capt. Jesse Mitchell. Raman had received this picture and the one believed to be that of Jesse Mitchell as well as other information about him from Chrissy Hart whose brother had been researching their descent from Mitchell.
Jesse Mitchell
Another of those Irishmen to join the East India Company’s Army, Mitchell arrived in Madras in 1829 and was immediately sent to the Pallavaram cantonment. He records an abiding memory of his first days there spent in regaining his land-legs. During those days meant for rest and recuperation, he and fellow newcomers went through “the terrible ordeal of drinking a strong dose of salts and senna every alternate day for six days, (while) formed up in line in the presence of the doctor”. On the last day “we were informed that the salt junk eaten on board for 3 months was washed clean out of us, and we were now fit for our exile in India for 21 years, when we would be entitled to a pension and allowed to go back to our mother”. They were then posted to various regiments, Mitchell being sent to join the Madras Horse Artillery in Bangalore.
While Mitchell was seeing action in China and different parts of India, the Madras Museum was inaugurated in January 1851 with Dr. Edward Balfour in charge. It was born through the efforts of the Madras Literary Society which petitioned the East India Company in November 1843, approval being given in 1846. After being located in the upper floors of the College of Fort St. George (Egmore) it moved into the nucleus of its present premises, The Pantheon, in 1853.
Why, when Balfour retired, Mitchell was chosen to take charge of the Museum cannot be explained, unless you take into account a couple of papers he wrote, ‘On the Influence of Local Altitude on the Burning of the Fuses of Shells’ and ‘Description of a Plain or Waxed paper Process in Photography’. Whether those papers justify the explanation that he was appointed part-time supervisor of the Museum because of his interests in microscopy and Natural Science is debatable. But once he was there he did a remarkable job. He acquired a variety of small fauna, shells and fossils from foreign museums in exchange for specimens from the Madras Presidency, started a collection of old coins and medals, and added to Balfour’s Amaravati collection of sculptures. In all he added over 72,000 specimens to the Museum’s collection before he passed away in 1872. One of those specimens that he added to the Zoology Gallery was the skeleton of the horse seen in my picture today, his regimental charger.
The skeleton of the horse in the Madras Museum
But perhaps the most significant thing he did was write to the Government in 1860 urging it to fund a library: “A few hundred rupees, judiciously expended every year, would place before the public a library of reference that would in the course of time be an honour to the Government.” His wish was fulfilled in 1862, when Government funding enabled the opening of a small library in June that year. This library evolved into the Connemara Library. Initially the library was supervised by the Museum, but in 1939, Dr. F.H. Gravely, the last British Superintendent of the Museum, had the Library separated from the Museum, each with its own head.
Of Mitchell, still very much a part of Madras in St. George’s Cemetery, it was said, “He had very clear ideas of the functions of Museums; first to contain as complete a collection as possible of the natural production of the country and other parts of the world, duly named and systematically arranged as a means of encouraging the study of Natural History, and secondly, to do its share in the advance of Science.” Advancement of knowledge he saw through libraries — and made it happen. That was perhaps a more memorable an achievement of his than all his splendid work for the Museum.
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Setting things straight
My Irish visitor Aine Edwards writes to tell me that some of my detailing in the item on Sr. Loreto (Miscellany, February 22) needs correction and she clarifies that the Little Lambs School in Perambur “is a multi-denominational school with Christian moral teaching” and that it was founded by Maria Gislen, not Sr. Loreto. Aine Edwards had volunteered at the school and was introduced by a mutual friend to Sr. Loreto of the Presentation Order who has been “based mainly in Madras”.
My correspondent, quoting Sr. Loreto, says that the names of the first Presentation nuns to arrive in Madras were not those listed by the publication with which the Irish Embassy was associated. Then citing a website of the Presentation Order they gave me two names on my list as well as Mother Frances Xavier Curran, instead of Xavier Kearney, and a Miss Josephine Fitzsimon instead of a Johanna Fitzgerald. The website does not list Ignatius Healy. I also learnt that the Kellys we both listed died of cholera, Regis in 1844 and Martha 18 months later.
But as usual I wonder about the accuracy of some of the material on the worldwide web. This time, the site Aine Edwards refers me to, says those first nuns moved to “what was once Robert Clive’s office, now to be the first Presentation Convent in India”. I can hardly imagine either of the Clives, Robert or son Edward, having an office in Black Town or the Catholics being given space in the Fort after 1749!
The information sent to me also indicates that the Presentation Order went beyond education in India. They helped with healthcare. In 1928, they staffed the railway hospital in Golden Rock (Trichy), in 1933 they established a hospital in Theni, and they opened a hospital at Manapad on the Fisheries Coast.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus> Society / by S. Muthiah / March 05th, 2016
