HistoriCity | The king who defied the British: Uncovering the tale of Pazhassi raja’s rebellion

Leading one of the bloodiest battles against the British, he mobilised a local rebellion, using guerilla warfare and ambushes to push back Company forces

Wayanad, the mountainous region of Kerala known for its scenic beauty is dotted with tourist hotspots such as Sulthan Bathery (distortion of battery owing to it being a military centre of Tipu Sultan in the Malabar) and the Stone Age Edakkal caves is an ancient land with human habitation going back at least 3,000 years. Over the last three millennia, major dynasties like the Kadambas, Chalukyas, and Gangas ruled the region until the Mysore sultans and finally the British in the 19th century. However, politicians and North India-focused historiography have overlooked a major aspect of its history: the armed struggle waged by a local king against the British.

Pazhassi Raja (named after his birthplace- the village of Pazhassi) is barely remembered outside Wayanad, where a museum and his burial site remain the only reminders of the epic Kattayathu wars.(Wikimedia Commons)

Of the over fifty large-scale wars that the British fought in India before 1857, the one that took place in the Wayanad region was perhaps one of the bloodiest for them. Yet, it is one of the least known, other Anglo-Indian wars such as the Anglo-Sikh, Anglo-Maratha, Carnatic and Polygar wars and the Sanyasi rebellion have overshadowed this major conflict that shook the Company’s rule in southern India.

C Gopalan Nair, a former deputy collector of Wayanad in the early 1900s recalled in his pro-British account, Wayanad: Its Peoples and Traditions, “Wayanad stands unique in its political history. This was the only taluk in Malabar which never bowed its neck to the Mysore yoke and defied the British power until its ruler fell, fighting against the troops of the East India Company.”

Known in British records as the Cotiote War (Kattiyathu) this was a series of battles and struggles waged by Kottayam king Pazhassi Raja Kerala Varma for more than a decade between 1793 and 1806.

This Pazhassi Raja (named after his birthplace- the village of Pazhassi) is barely remembered outside Wayanad, where a museum and his burial site remain the only reminders of the epic Kattayathu wars.

Kerala Varma belonged to the western branch of the Kottayam royal family and became the de facto ruler of Malabar after most of the other rajas fled instead of facing the Mysore invasion of Malabar. He led a prolonged struggle against the aggression by Haider Ali of Mysore when he occupied the Malabar region in 1773. He allied with the British East India Company (EIC), which promised to ensure Kottayam’s independence and welfare, and continued to harass the much larger Mysore army through guerilla tactics with the support of hill tribes like the Kuchiriya.

However, the British were deceptive. After forcing defeat on Haider Ali’s son Tipu Sultan, and signing the Treaty of Srirangapatnam under which Tipu was forced to cede half his territories, which included Kottayam, the British turned to subjugate Kerala Varma.

The EIC offered the following terms to the various rajas of Malabar or Kerala: the Raja was to be able to rule as before, but the EIC was to control him "in case of oppression of inhabitants"; a resident was to be appointed to enquire about "complaints of oppression"; two persons on the part of the company and two persons on the part of the Raja were to make valuation of the land revenue of Kottayam and the tax to be paid by each subject to be ascertained; Raja's tribute was to be settled in October 1792 according to the appearance of the crop; the EIC’s share of the pepper was to be delivered at a price fixed by their administration in December 1792; and finally, the remainder of the pepper was to be bought only by merchants appointed by the company.

While many Rajas accepted these terms that rendered them little more than revenue farmers, Kerala Varma chose to protest against what he considered a betrayal by the EIC. Instead of accepting them he, along with a vast majority of people living in Wayanad, Thalaseri, and surrounding regions picked up arms against this oppression by a foreign invader.

Pazhassi Raja mobilised the peasantry and ensured that from Kotayyam no taxes were paid to the Company. “In support of his pretensions, he raised a body of Nayars, Mappillas and Mussalmans, the last for the most part disbanded soldiers of Tipu, and the Supreme Government decreed that his insolence must not go unpunished. The military control of the Province was transferred to the Madras Government, and in 1800 Colonel Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, was appointed Commander of the forces in Malabar, South Canara and Mysore”, according to The Madras District Gazetteers, Vol I, 1933.

But Wellesley, who would later become famous for defeating Napolean the Great at Waterloo, failed to catch this relatively smaller king of Malabar.

The Madras District Gazetteers, Vol I, 1933, notes, “The influence of Kerala Varma Raja of the Padinnara Kovilagam of the Kottayam family, or the Pazhassi (Pychy) Raja, as he was usually called, was at this time supreme in the rich popper district of Kottayam. His uncle, the Raja of Kurumbranad, claimed ascendancy in the district, and the Joint Commissioners, ignoring the claims of the nephew, leased Kottayam to him in 1793 for one year. The Pychy Raja, who objected strictly to the arrangement, promptly showed his contempt for both the alleged authority of his uncle and the regulations of the Company, by stopping all collection of revenue in the district”.

When the British Company sent its troops to extract taxes the Raja’s rebels were waiting for them. “On March 18, 1797, a contingent of. 1,100 men under Major Cameron were ambushed and cut into pieces while making their way through the Periya Pass."

According to K.K. Kurup, historian and former vice chancellor of the University of Calicut, the ambush was extremely successful. Most of the 1100 Company troops were killed and their possessions including guns, ammunition, and cattle and other times were taken away along with the British Union Jack. Perhaps the worst outcome was that several senior officers including three lieutenants and a Major were killed by the rebels.

This act against the company was perhaps the biggest anywhere in the various colonies, an Indian raja had humiliated them so thoroughly that “the Governor of Bombay, Mr. Jonathan Duncan, and the Commander-in-Chief came in person to Malabar to investigate the state of the district”.

The Raja had put the Company on the back foot and was offered "a pardon for his misdeeds, and granted a pension of ₹8,000 per annum”, notes the Gazetteer. For two years there was relative peace but as the company didn’t stop its efforts to tax Kottayam and expand its presence, the Raja again went to war.

In the following years, the Company decided to pump in as much resources as was needed to kill the Pazhassi Raja without which their own control over Malabar and its riches would have been established.

According to Kurup, the company, on the advice of Swaminatha Pattar, a Tamil Brahmin and an erstwhile minister of Zamorin or King of Calicut, decided to raise a force of local men to fight the Pazhassi Raja. This irregular force of local spies and mercenaries would be later known as Kolkars who would become the trusted arm of the British to rule over Kerala. During this brutal hunt, the British arrested and hanged Pazhassi Raja’s trusted aides and their families, most notable among them being Kannavath Sankaran Nambiar.

In 1802, the rebel army once again showed what they were capable of by overrunning a Company fort at Panamaram. The Gazetteer notes, that Edachenna Kunknab, a Kurichiya tribal leader affected a “massacre of its garrison”, and “roused the whole of North Wayanad.”

Finally on November 30, 1805, after years of frustrating the British and causing much damage both economic and military, the Raja was killed after the company flooded the Wayanad region with over 10,000 troops, and spent ‘incalculable amounts’ to nab him. The Raja and his wife’s bodies were carried in two palanquins, one of which is still preserved at the University of Calicut’s Museum.

HistoriCity is a column by author Valay Singh that narrates the story of a city that is in the news, by going back to its documented history, mythology and archaeological digs. The views expressed are personal