Half a century before the outbreak of the 1857 Indian mutiny, in Travancore, Velu Thampi revolted against the ‘aliens’. His campaign carried a momentous message and his niche rests on a two-plank support — rebellion against the king as also the British. His statue in the secretariat compound in Thiruvananthapuram reminds posterity of his contribution.
The Travancore king, 16-year-old Bala Rama Varma, a puppet of a hated triumvirate — Jayanthan Sankaran Namboodiri, his chief minister, Sankaranarayanan Chetty, his finance minister, and Mathoo Tharakan, a trader — allowed governance to turn into a hot-bed of ‘ignorance, profligacy and rapacity’. To augment revenues and to feather his own nest, Namboodiri unleashed a ruthless extortion campaign. Personally acknowledging at Trivandrum the demand for a hefty tax, Thampi returned home, assuring remittance within three days. What he brought, however, was a surging mass of men not only from his region but also from some parts in the north. Mortified by the milling concourse, the raja conceded all their demands — dismissal and deportation of Namboodiri, severe corporal punishment to Chetty and Tharakan and cessation of all extortion.
The raja appointed Velu Thampi as commerce minister and soon he was elevated as the chief minister. The camaraderie between the king and his lieutenant was, however, short-lived.
Thampi, the administrator, epitomised efficiency: reorganisation of the revenue department, proper maintenance of government accounts, encouragement of education, development of towns like Trivandrum, Kollam and Alappuzha, establishment of markets, construction of roads, improvement of agriculture. Savagery marked Thampi’s tackling of the corrupt. A petty revenue official had his thumb chopped off for acting irregularly under promptings from Thampi’s own mother.
Thampi’s initial cordiality with the British soon soured with Colonel Macaulay, the resident, meddling with the state’s administration. Thampi, with his Cochin counterpart, Paliath Achan, started a resistance movement escalating into war. The two reportedly sought the assistance of the French and, according to S B Choudhri in Civil Disturbances in India, even America. On January 11, 1809, Velu Thampi issued the soul-stirring Kundara proclamation, exhorting patriotic Travancoreans to oust the British from the sacred soil.
Thampi’s staying power gradually waned. The raja, distressed by British victories, disowned his own man and ordered his arrest. Hotly chased by the king’s soldiers, Thampi sought refuge in a temple and with enemies closing in he asked his younger brother to sever his head with a sword. The vengeful British hanged it on a gibbet for days together — an act of senseless desecration condemned by Lord Minto, the governor general.
Fighting ‘aliens’ is now out of the question, so is rising against kings (unless we reckon democratic rulers in this category), but the corruption Thampi combated still remains. Whether the modes he chose are acceptable is the moot question.