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- Former IAS officer M. Rajendran’s historical novel Kala Pani (Black Water), which depicts the defeat and exile of 72 people, including VengaiPeriyaUdayannaDevar, the ruler of Sivaganga, and Duraisamy, son of ChinnaMarudu, after the Kalayarkoil war, has won the Sahitya Akademi Award for 2022.
- “I would rather treat the award as a recognition of the valour and sacrifice of our ancestors. Now, the award will draw the attention of the country towards the freedom movement that started in Tamil Nadu 56 years before the Sepoy Mutiny or the First War of Independence,” Mr. Rajendran said.
- Deporting people to an unknown island was called Kala Pani, which was also referred to as TheevanthiraThandanai. “It was worse than the death sentence,” he said.
- Recalling historian K. Rajaiyan’s argument that the writing on India’s War of Independence should begin from the south, Mr. Rajendran said the country was not aware of the Marudu brothers and other freedom fighters from Tamil Nadu.
- “They created the South Indian Confederacy against the British. I hope the novel and its translation into other Indian languages will shed light on them,” said Mr. Rajendran, who visited Penang and Sumatra to see for himself the jails where PeriyaUdayannaDevar and others were lodged.
- The battle between the British and the Marudu brothers took place in the forests of Kalayarkoil for six months in 1801. After their defeat, the brothers were hanged at Tirupattur (south Tamil Nadu) on October 24, 1801. The novel, published by Agani Publishers in 2020, begins with the exile of the 72 people in a ship on February 11, 1802. They reached Penang after 62 days.
- Three persons ended their lives even before the ship reached Penang. Three others lost their minds and ran into the forest. PeriyaUdayannaDevar was separated from the others and sent to Sumatra, where he lived for just four months. In 1820, 11 persons, including Duraisamy, returned to India.
- Colonel James Welsh, the British officer who led the war against the Marudu brothers, had recalled his meeting with Duraisamy in Penang in Military Reminiscences. It was Welsh who tightened the chains of Duraisamy before his exile. He met him again in 1818.
- “I received a sudden visit from a miserable decrepit old man. I demanded his name…he uttered the word ‘Dora Swamy’. It came like a dagger to my heart,” recalled Welsh.
- Duraisamy could not reach Sivaganga. He died of stomach pain in Madurai in 1823.
Translation prize
- The prize for translation went to Poonachi, or the Story of Black Goat, penned by Tamil writer Perumal Murugan and translated into English by N. Kalyan Raman.
- Yad Vashem, a Kannada novel translated into Tamil by K. Nallathambi, also won the award.
- Chief Minister M.K. Stalin congratulated Mr. Rajendran and Mr. Nallathambi on winning the award. “Let Tamil Nadu’s history of valour shed a new light on the Indian freedom movement,” he said about Kala Pani.
SOURCE: THE HINDU, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, PIB
