Bommu

The Poligar (Palayakkarar) of Panchalankurichi stands tall among the torchbearers of revolt against the British at a time when the East India Company (EIC) had established itself as the sole military power in control of swathes of land much larger than their parent country, England. After battle of Plassey in 1757, only three kingdoms remained unsubdued by the English cannon and it’s Native Infantry (ironically!!). The Marathas to the west, Nizam of Hyderabad in the Deccan and Hyder Ali/Tipu Sultan of Mysore. It would be a mere matter of five decades before these three will come under the English control and a hundred years before Queen Victoria will proclaim herself as the Empress of India.

Between the later destiny of England and the evil designs of East India Company stood one man atop the ramparts of a modest mud fort at Palayamkurichi – Veerapandia Kattabomman.

Bommu Naicker as he was popularly called was just 39. Married to Rani Jakkammal, the lady with the name of his family deity for whom he had constructed a temple at Palayamkurichi, He was a fearless warrior. When the Nawab of the Carnatic tried to establish his control over the Poligar dominions in the southern districts of Tamil country, Bommu refused to accept the Nawab’s suzerainty. Many Poligars in the region endorsed his views, Bommu came to be viewed as a rebel by the Nawab.

The Nawab had also liberally availed loans from East India Company in order to live the life of a king. Some 900000 Star Pagoda[1] worth of loans later, the EIC entered into an agreement with the Nawab in 1793. Under the terms of the agreement, the EIC was given powers to collect Peshcush (tributes) and Kisti (taxes) from the Poligars and peasant/traders to make good Nawab’s loan. Couched in appropriate words, the agreement gave unrestrained power to EIC to collect the revenues, even using force when necessary. Of course, the Nawab was obliged to pay extra for the expenses of the ‘force’ when so used[2].

It is in this background, the Collector of Ramnad/Tinnevely (Tirunelveli), William Collins Jackson, sent an ‘advisory’ to Kattabomman to pay up his dues in 1793. Not receiving favorable reply, Jackson entered into an elaborate political play that eventually unwound in the form of siege of Panchalankurichi. Though it was a mud fort, it stood the siege for nearly five months. In the aftermath of this debacle, EIC was left with little choice but to pull every trick under its hat to subdue Kattabomman, for, his successful stand had fanned the embers of revolt amongst other Poligars. EIC went about proclaiming Kattabomman as a bandit and indulged in a maligning campaign to dent his appeal amongst other Poligars. Obviously, Kattabomman became the most wanted bandit in British India history.

Led by Major John Alexander Bannerman, EIC troops eventually succeeded in breaching and reducing the mud fort in their next attempt. Even though, Bommu lost his able deputy Vellaiyathevan, he escaped capture. Roaming around incognito in the realms of Pudukkottai, Kattabomman was arrested by the soldiers of Vijaya Raghunatha Thondaiman, Raja of Pudukkottai, and handed over to the EIC. By the time Bommu was hunted and captured, Jackson was replaced by Stephen Rumbold Lushington, as Collector of Ramnad/Tinnevely.

In a trial that was aimed at sending a strong message to other Poligars, in as much as ending smothering the fire of revolt in Kattabomman, he sentenced to death by hanging. The public hanging, much in the form of mediaeval fanaticism of the Crusades, was carried out at Kayathar by Major Bannerman. Bommu was hung from a tamarind tree and his body was left there to rot for the public to see.

Bommu had two brothers and two sisters but no progeny of his own. Even though very little is known about his kith and kin, there are reports that some descendants of him still live at Panchalankurichi. Government of Tamil Nadu has re-erected the mud fort and housed a memorial for Bommu at the site. India Post honored his memory with a stamp on the 200^th Death Anniversary in 1999.

School Text Books in Tamil Nadu and books on the history of India celebrate him as the hero of the First Revolt against British Rule. Statues of Kattabomman adorn the pride of place in many a towns and cities of Tamil Nadu, including Panchalankurichi.    

The Indian Navy’s establishment INS Kattabomman was commissioned on 20 Oct 1990 by then President, Shri R Venkataraman.

Tamil cinema immortalized Veerapandia Kattabomman’s story in 1959 by a movie by the same title, with Tamil Cinema’s leading actor Shivaji Ganesan playing Bommu. BR Pantulu’s movie dialogues have gained common usage in Tamil language in every context that is appropriate. A great box-office success, it was premierred in London and then released in India. It ran for 25 weeks continually and was even dubbed in Hindi as Amar Shaheed. It also received a ‘Certificate of Merit ' at the Afro-Asian Film Festival in Cairo.

Among the five hundred odd Tamil folk ballads, Kattabomman Kathai (Story of Kattabomman) remains the most popular along with that of Raja Desing. Scholars like S Ganeshram have rendered the Tamil version into English.

Media reports of peasant activists in Karnataka and erstwhile Andhra Pradesh even show that Kattabomman’s dialogues (from the movie of course, but drawn from historical records, as the below given evidence suggests) have been used to drive home the message of their agitations to authorities concerned.

Source: Mukund, Kanakalatha, The View from Below: Indigenous Society, Temples, and the Early Colonial State in Tamilnadu, 1700-1835, Orient Blackswan: New Delhi. 2005

[1] A Star Pagoda was the coin of exchange in Southern Provinces from 1740 to 1807. Each coin weighed 3.4 gms in gold and carried Vishnu on the Obverse and a star on the reverse.

[2] Treaty with the Nabob Mahomad Ali dated 1 2th July 1792,  in  Collection of Treaties with the Native Princes and States of Asia concluded on behalf of the East India Company, 1812, United East India Company(Publisher): London, P  424-433.

Note & Acknowledgement: The above material is a short synthesis of the study on Veerapandia Kattabomman that the Author has undertaken. The study is guided by the curiosity to find the full and correct version of the political and economic circumstances leading to the eventual hanging of Kattabomman in 1799. The lives of main players in the historical stage viz., Jackson, Lushington and Major Bannerman will be visited in the subsequent posts. Author wishes to place his acknowledgement and gratitude to sources in public domain where

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[1] A Star Pagoda was the coin of exchange in Southern Provinces from 1740 to 1807. Each coin weighed 3.4 gms in gold and carried Vishnu on the Obverse and a star on the reverse.