History Shapes Society The Way We Say It

Yesterday, the proverbial curiosity caught the cat of my imagination. We were actually watching the Navrathri program on TV. Srimad Shankaracharya Swami (the young pontiff) of Sharada Peetam of Sringeri was holding darbar at the completion of days' pooja. As the events happened, my mind wandered off. The history of Sri Sharada Peetam commences in 8th century. It was established by Adi Shankara himself. The twelve hundred years of its existence saw tumultuous events unfolding in the subcontinent. 

To start with, between the 7th and 12th centuries, Chalukyas, Pallavas, Pandavas, Badami and Rashtrakutas dominated the southern peninsula, not to mention Kakatiyas, Kalachuris and Kadambas. Their empires rose and shrank with time till about the advent of Moghuls in India. Then came the Bhamani Sultans (Birar, Bidar, Golconda and Gulbarga) and the Vijaynagar empire. These were followed by Maratha, Nizam of Hyderabad, Nawab of Arcot, Tipu Sultan and the East India Company.

The question that rankled my mind was "Is it possible that Sri Mutt of Sringeri remained unaffected by these ebbs and flows that rocked the country?" It is then, I started looking first into the history of the Mutt as published in its own website  https://www.sringeri.net/jagadgurus

I can only invite with all humility any and all lovers of history to visit the website for it contains, though not in the strict historical pedagogy, the events of this country played at different times in curious and interesting narratives. We find equally compelling stories of great kings and sultans paying homage to the Sri Mutt as well as reprehensible acts of Pindaris of Maharashtra pillaging the sanctity of it. These instances give us the political-social-economic perspectives necessary to understand the parts of subcontinental history that remain hidden from academic texts.

As I read through this website, another thought preys at my mind. We appear to be content with knowing as little (if at all) of the history of our own race (if we consider Indians as one race?) and happily accept correct or controversial versions that mostly western scholars have constructed for us. When the rising tenor Right Wing historians' narratives (like for example the Aryan Invasion Theory) strikes at us, we take refuge in consolatory gestures. History has neither Right or Left Wing narratives. It is a narrative that is by itself. I do hope that readers of this blog will help me access sources that would shed "as it were" perspectives on the history of this subcontinent.      

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Vanchi

On 17 June 1911, Robert William Escourt Ashe boarded the Maniyachi Mail at Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu. Ashe and his wife Mary Lillian Patterson, were on the way to Kodaikanal (a hill station near Madurai) to visit their four children. Ashe was the Collector of Tirunelveli and was instrumental in sending VO Chidambaram Pillai to life imprisonment on charges of sedition. The story of VOC, popularly known as Kappalottiya Thamizan, is by itself a legend in Tamil Nadu.

While Ashe and his wife waited for their train to move, two young men boarded their first class compartment. One of them, a well dressed youth of about 25, came abreast of Ashe and pulling out a pistol shot Ashe in the chest. Ashe collapsed dead on his seat. Before Mary Patterson could react, the two men exited the coach and went separately their way. The young man with the pistol ran to the toilet in the end of the platform. A short while later, his body was recovered from the toilet, pistol in hand. He had shot himself through the mouth. In his pocket was a note that claimed his intention to shoot Ashe as a protest against the coronation of King George the Vth, King and Emperor of India. Ashe was the only Englishman to be shot dead in South India during the Indian Independence struggle.

The young man was VANCHI aka Vanchinathan aka Shankaran.

Born into a brahmin family, Vanchi's generation of young men in Madras Province (as Tamil Nadu was known at that time) were deeply moved by VOC when he launched the Swadeshi Steamship Navigation Company in 1906. Challenging the greatest naval power on its own singular prowess on the seas was like a spark that kindled the fires of freedom struggle in their hearts. In the two years that VOC's ships broke British monopoly on the seas, a swell of pride stoked the patriotic fervor in thousands of hearts. That Ashe as collector of Tirunelveli did everything in his might to ensure disbanding the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company, eventually succeeding in framing VOC on charges of sedition sending him to jail for 80 years, was not something that the young generation was willing to take submissively. At least, Vanchi did not think so.

Vanchi had carried only two bullets in his pistol. He was clear, after killing Ashe, that he will end his life than face a trial for murder. He left behind a wife who was apparently pregnant at the time of his death. However, no direct descendant of Vanchi is alive.

One hundred years after Vanchi's death, on 18 June 2011, the son of Vanchi's younger brother, Hariharan, received an email from Robert Ashe, grandson of Robert William Escourt Ashe. The email said:

 "On this day of sad but proud remembrance, we, the grandchildren and great grandchildren of Robert William Ashe would like to extend to the family of Vanchi Iyer, a message of reconciliation and friendship. Vanchi was an idealist political campaigner whose zeal for the freedom of his beloved India sent Robert to his early grave. Moments later, he took his own young life.  All who act fervently in the political arena, both ruler and oppressed, risk making mortal mistakes, and we who are fortunate enough to live on, must forgive and live in peace together[i]."

The email, sent by the family of the late British Collector of Tirunelveli, conveys the philosophically broadminded disposition of Ashe family to the act of Vanchi.  Hariharan on his part acknowledged the email and went further to note that both Vanchi and Ashe merely did what they perceived as their duty at that time. No ill will prevailed on personal front, then or now. 

We must bow to the Ashe family for their honorable acknowledgement of Vanchi’s sacrifice. But, in celebrating Vanchi we would truly celebrate India.

Jai Hind.      

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[i] http://www.thesundayindian.com/en/story/late-british-officer's-kin-sent-letter-to-killer's-kin/5/16690/