CHENNAI: Madras Top, the Madras open cargo, dinghies and the northern Rahadaree — from different boats transporting goods and passengers up and down the coast through the waterway from the 1800s, the canal network enabling cultural and educational advancement in the 1900s to the channel turning into a saviour in times of calamities (2004 tsunami and 2015 flood) — over 200-odd-centuries of history flows through the banks of the Buckingham Canal.
To celebrate its role in the city’s growth and development, and to mark Madras’s 381st birthday, INTACH Chennai Chapter organised an hour-long webinar by historian and author Venkatesh Ramakrishnan. Taking the 100-odd participants through the majestic channels of the 19th century canal, Venkatesh’s talk explored the heritage of the areas through which the canal passes.
Channel for growth
“Digging a canal through Madras had a major impact on the areas around it. From 1880 to 1960, the Buckingham Canal moved goods and passengers right through the city. The channel introduced trade, making places like Mylapore and Triplicane the entry point of goods. This accrued prosperity attracted migrants and increased the chance for culture and education to grow,” he said, adding that it most importantly enhanced the chance of different layers of a highly stratified society in Madras to interact on a day-to-day basis, perhaps for the first time.
This resulted in great political realignments that went on to influence the politics of the state. “The canal ran through Mylapore, Triplicane and Chepauk. These were already established villages gobbled up by an ever-growing city. So when the canal came into the picture, the existing population began making use of the canal to grow economically.
Around 1900, to see a ‘Brahmins only’ board in eateries, especially in Triplicane and Mylapore, was common. In such hotels, even those from the community had to show their sacred thread to enter. To counter that, in 1914, C Natesa Mudaliar ran a Dravidian hostel in Akbar Sahib Street in Triplicane for non-Brahmin students.
Not stopping with lodging, he conducted debates and discussions and soon the hostel became a nerve centre of political activity, urging all communities to unite under one umbrella to fight Brahmin domination,” he said, pointing to possibly the earliest movement of Dravidian politics in the state. Changes were inevitable and despite two world wars, bombings, and evacuations that disrupted supply chains, Madras’s population too grew in number.
“When the roadways was underdeveloped or wasn’t something one could rely on, the city was able to supply its population with enough food grains, firewood and fodder with the help of the canal, which was the primary logistics provider for over half a century,” he said, musing about the canal that runs from Pedaganjam in Andhra Pradesh to Marakkanam in Tamil Nadu. While the boats carried cargo like firewood, coconuts, vegetable and grains, it also ferried passengers, including eminent personalities like Henry Steel Olcott, Annie Besant, Edward Lear and their ilk. Indigo was also ferried from Nellore when the canal was extended beyond Dugarajapatnam in 1856
Former glory
To a captivated audience, Venkatesh read out excerpts from Lear’s travelogues, about his boat rides on the canal in its heyday. “Canal boat, covered, low, and not at all too comfortable; I doubt if I can bear being inside it for long, yet must go… Tracking along with the canal is quite work enough; as yet no sail is put up…a distant line of coco-trees, flat green fields near at hand…beautiful parrot green foliage of coco-trees and bamboos to the water’s edge…
The noise made by the older boatman drove me almost mad, coming as it did after bad thumps on the head,” he read, allowing us to paint a visual image of the canal’s former glory. In the 1940s, boat rides in the canal were open to school excursions and tourists. Vintage vestiges and imageries of the city’s architectural marvels like the Senate House, Chepauk Palace complex, Kalas Mahal; places of education like Presidency College, Queen Mary’s College and Madras Sanskrit College; Gosha Hospital and the Chepauk stadium along which the canal flows, among others, were also presented.
Today, the waterway is clogged with silt, industrial effluents and sewage, and has been encroached for more than half its width. “If not for the imageries that exist and the documents that are available, it’s tough to imagine the Buckingham Canal as a scenic place. Competition from rail and later, road transport diminished its importance, and during the 20th century, portions of it became unusable and badly polluted. The MRTS pillar footings have also blocked the water flow. An important geographical feature that contributed to the growth of the city and its prosperity now lies wrecked,” he said.
In a talk orgnaised by INTACH Chennai chapter to mark Madras Day, historian Venkatesh Ramakrishnan explored the heritage of the areas and natural backwaters that the 19th century Buckingham Canal connects