Anupama Nair
Our great Prime Minister Modi inaugurated the Amrit Mahotsav or celebration of India’s 75th year of Independence. We will be celebrating this event till 2022. I am going to write a feature on all those great men and women who fought against foreign invasion not just against the British. Today I am going to write about the great but relatively unknown Vanchi Iyer who gave up his life for his motherland when he was young. It is said every battle has to be planned, especially if it was between ‘unequals’ – on one side the mighty British and the other a young man, who dreamt of a free India.
These are stories which “never become a part of folk lore”. I often heard such stories from my ‘source of inspiration’ – Late Rajendra Singh or dadu as I fondly called him. I remembered many of these stories and attempted to write about them every day. At least, they would be brought in the limelight. These are stories of heroes who were buried in the sands of time. Vanchinathan became famous, when he shot dead the Collector of Tirunelveli, Robert Ashe. He arose from ‘obscurity and passed on to immortality’ by this great act.
Vanchinathan Iyer was born in 1886 in Sengottai (present day Tamil Nadu) to Raghupathy Iyer and Rukmani Ammal. His birth name was Shankaran. He did his schooling in Sengottai. He married Ponnammal. He got a lucrative government job i.e., in the Forest Department in the kingdom of Travancore – a dream job for all. However, Vanchi was not satisfied with this life. He had a dream – ‘a free India’ and he vowed to do all he can to achieve it and that is what he did.
Now let me talk about Robert Ashe or ‘Collector Durai’ as he was known in Tirunelveli. Robert William escort Ashe was the Collector and District magistrate of Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu during the British Raj. Ashe had played a significant part in the closure of the ‘Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company’, started by V.O. Chidambaram Pillai (also known as Kappal Ottiya Tamizhan) to compete with the British India Steam Navigation Company that had for long monopolized trade in the southern part of the Bay of Bengal. Ashe was also responsible for charging Pillai and a colleague, Subramanya Siva, under Sedition Law for which they were convicted.
The Pondicherry branch of Veer Savarkar’s Abhinav Bharat Society, which was led by Varahaneri Venkatesha Subrahmanya Iyer (called as V.V.S Iyer), decided to make Ashe pay for his action. The Abhinav Bharat Society was a banned organization in Madras Presidency. Vanchinathan Iyer was the “tool they used to pay Ashe” and that’s what he did.
The Sedition Committee founded by Ashe had earlier commented, “we do not consider that there was an indigenous revolutionary movement in Madras Presidency but for the influence of Bipin Chandra Pal and the revolutionaries who plotted in Paris and Pondicherry, there would have been no trouble in South India”.
Vanchi was deeply influenced by Bipin Chandra Pal, who influenced him to fight for the Independence of India, and Bipin Chandra Pal was lovingly called as the ‘lion of swaraj’ in the South. Bipin Chandra Pal, born in Sylhet (now in Bangladesh), was an Indian journalist and an early leader of the Nationalist Movement in India. He is famous as he popularized the concepts of Swadeshi and Swaraj. At the Madras Session of the Indian National Congress held in 1887, Bipin Chandra Pal made a strong plea for repeal of the Arms Act that was discriminatory in nature. Along with Lala Lajpat Rai and Bal Gangadhar Tilak he belonged to the Lal-Bal-Pal trio which was associated with revolutionary activity.
Bipin Chandra had delivered a lot of speeches on Swaraj, Swadeshi and Boycott, in the Madras Presidency. They inspired many young men and women to protest against the Government. He was supposed to address a meeting in Madras but was canceled as Lala Lajpat Rai was imprisoned and he was forced to leave for Calcutta along with Chidambaram Pillai. When Pillai returned to Madras, he proposed the use of bombs to drive away from the British. The Government retaliated by arresting him, and a ‘reign of terror was let loose on the innocent people of Tirunelveli’.
Two more revolutionaries, Neelakanta Brahmachary and Shankar Krishna Iyer, started to preach the ‘cult of armed revolution’. Thanks to them, the youth of Madras Presidency had developed new revolutionary spirit. Vanchi was Shankar Iyer’s brother-in-law and he joined the movement. V.V.S Iyer who was in Paris, returned to Pondicherry and taught the youth what he learnt about revolutionary methods in France. V.V.S Iyer belonged to an organization called ‘Bharat Mata Organization’. Vanchi, publicly held the British responsible for all the “ills of India – plague, famine, poverty, and ignorance”. Till now I was narrating the background of Vanchi’s great and daring action.
Vanchi returned to Tirunelveli and started following his quarry. He planned to kill Ashe on June 11,1911 on the coronation day of King George V. However, Ashe escaped as he missed the celebration. On June 17, 1911 Ashe and his wife Mary were on an official tour and were travelling on a train and alighted at Maniyachchi Station to board another train to Kodaikanal. Vanchi and Shankar also boarded the train and shot Ashe. He was injured and treated in Tirunelveli but the ‘tyrant’ passed away. After the shooting, Vanchi waited for few minutes to see the outcome and shot himself to death. Thus, he became a martyr.
Madam Bikaji Cama in her ‘Vandemataram’ had written in the July edition “When decorated slaves from India were parading the streets of London and performed in Royal Circus (coronation of King George V). They demonstrated their subservience to the King of England, two young and brave countrymen of ours proved by a daring deed that India is no longer slumbering. The shots that Vanchi fired did arouse a slave nation from century-old slumbering”.
Vanchi wrote in his diary before his death as “ I dedicate my life as a small contribution to my motherland. I am only responsible for this. The mlecchas of England, having captured our country, tread over our Sanatana Dharma and destroy them. Every Indian is trying hard to drive out the English to get Swarjyam and restore our culture. Our Raman, Krishnan, Arjuna, Shivaji and Guru Gobind ruled our land, protecting all Dharmas, but the English are making all attempts to crown King George V. Three thousand Madrasis, have taken a vow to kill George V as soon as he lands in our country. I will kill Ashe whose arrival is to celebrate the coronation in the great land of ours, who were once ruled by great samrats. This is a warning to make them understand their fate, those who cherish the dream of enslaving our sacred land. I as the least of them wish to warn George V by killing Ashe.
Vandemataram. Vandemataram, Vandemataram!”
What great words. I became so emotional when I heard this story from Dadu and today as I read it again. The Tamil Nadu Government built a memorial in Sengottai at his birthplace, to honor him. The Maniyachchi Railway Station where he shot Ashe, was renamed as ‘Vanchi Maniyachchi Junction’ in his memory.
More than a century has passed since Vanchi made the supreme sacrifice for his mother land and her people. To date, when I speak to freedom fighters, who are still living today and hear these anecdotes with pride and emotion in their voice, and sense their disappointment how they were treated after Independence and were forced to live in obscurity. I then wonder, have we ‘lived up to their dreams’. Today in Independent India, when I read a newspaper or Parliament or on TV debates by the Opposition Parties. I wish I could tell the freedom fighters, how far we the children of Independent India have drifted away from the ideals where it was intended to reach when millions sacrificed their lives to reach this day.
(Dedicated to my source of inspiration Late Rajendar Singh, who was born in Lyallpur, Lahore and later lived in Mumbai, who told me such wonderful stories. Dadu I hope you are in a wonderful place today and see the articles I have written and bless me to write more such articles in future).
