Threads of Arcot Legacy

Wonder if it would interest you to look back at the recently observed Madras Day, marking August 22, 1639, when the East India Company purchased the village of Madraspatnam, also known as Chennapatnam, from Damarla Venkatadri Nayaka, the chieftain of the Vijayanagar Empire.

- RENUKA NARAYANAN

When the British won South India after several wars in the eighteenth century, they rewarded their vassal, the Nawab of Arcot, with the title of 'Walajah', meaning 'most dignified gentleman' in Persian—an ironic title given his vassalhood, but well-suited to the circumstances with its sarcasm smoothly wrapped and delivered, 'the needle in the banana' as the Tamil saying goes.

The Nawab, perhaps to turn the awkwardness of his situation to good account in the critical eyes of his subjects, who were wearied of being battered in war after war by the guns of the parangi (Tamil for firangi), took a loan from the British, and with their permission, commemorated his new title with a new silk-weaving centre called 'Walajahpet'—'pet' pronounced peyt from peyttai, meaning 'settlement' in Tamil.

A portrait of Stringer Lawrence, 1697-1775, the 'Father of the Indian Army' adorned the Banquet Hall of Fort St George, the British bastion from which 'Madras' began. It was he who used the Nawab 'Walajah' of Arcot for the advancement of the East India Company, just as the Nawab used him to ward off Tipu and the French. A reproduction of that painting hangs in the foyer of the Bangalore Club, which I loved visiting with my Bangalore cousins in my teens for a swim and a shandy, and enjoyed staying at in later years.

The Nawab, who seems to be held in a firm grip by the stout Englishman, looks rightly worried in this portrait, for he ran up huge debts to the British and eventually lost his territories to them.