THE DEITY AND THE RIVER HAVE HUMAN RIGHTS

A New Zealand River is a Legal Person

With the landmark verdict on Padmanabhaswamy temple, the Supreme Court has recognized the privileges of a deity in India; this verdict will have a far-reaching impact, since in the Sabarimala case, the Supreme Court had denied the rights to the deity. The current verdict can even reverse that verdict when the review petitions are finally heard.

The Travancore covenant signed by the Government of India was with Lord Padmanabhaswamy. This was made clear by the then ruler Chithira Thirunal to V.P. Menon and Sardar Patel that he was only acting on behalf of the Deity as His servant, Padmanabha Dasa.

The rights and privileges of all such rulers including the Ruler of all Rulers, Lord Padmanabhaswamy Deity was protected in our Constitution by the Constituent Assembly, as advised by Sardar Patel in his address to the Constituent Assembly.

Padmanabhaswamy Temple

The Supreme Court, in the famous Privy Purse judgement in 1971 interpreting the Constitutional guarantees given to rulers held that “The Rulers who were before integration of their States aliens qua the Dominion Government are now citizens.”

Even though the 26th Amendment to the Constitution removed the privileges and rights due to all rulers in an immoral act, the Supreme Court in a 1993 judgement upheld the 26th Amendment of the Constitution, approving the statement of objects of the amendment as “The distinction between the erstwhile Rulers and the citizenry of India has to be put an end to so as to have a common brotherhood.”

Prior to the 26th amendment of the Constitution, only Lord Padmanabhaswamy Deity, who was the ruler of the Travancore State, became Citizen as per the ratio of the Privy Purse judgement, by virtue of the 26th Amendment of the Constitution.

The SC judgement ratio upholding the conversion of Ruler to Citizen of Anantha Padmanabhaswamy under Article 14 of the Constitution is to create a common brotherhood. From this decision, all temple deities should now be considered as citizens, as there cannot be a distinction between one Hindu deity and another in our Constitution under Article 14.

In the Citizenship Act of 1955, Section 2(f) reads as follows: “‘person’ does not include any company or association or body of individuals, whether incorporated or not”.

In Section 2(31) of the Income Tax Act of 1961 “person” was defined including “artificial juridical persons” and the SC held in a 1969 judgement that Hindu deities can be taxed as per this definition.

In view of the above, since Section 2(f) of the Citizenship Act of 1955 did not bar Hindu deities as juristic persons from the definition of the term “person”, clearly there is no bar for the Central government to register Hindu deities as citizens under Section 5(a).

In view of the fact that the Central government granted citizenship to Lord Padmanabhaswamy Deity as Ruler when the Travancore kingdom was integrated, as held by the SC in its 1971 judgement, and due to the 26th Amendment of the Constitution and the ratio of the SC judgement of 1993 upholding the same under Article 14, it is now duty bound to register all Hindu deities as citizens under Section 5(a) of the Citizenship Act.

The Union Government should apply the same rule as that of the Rivers Ganga and Yamuna and register all the temple deities as citizens so that many issues can get resolved with this one stroke.

A river is a legal person

A New Zealand river, Whanganui, revered by the Maori has been recognised by Parliament as a “legal person”, in a move believed to be the world’s first. The river has been granted the same legal rights as a human being.

“The Great River flows from the mountains to the sea. I am the River, the River is me.”

With these words, the Maori tribes of Whanganui, New Zealand, declare their inseverable connection to their ancestral river. The river rises in the snowfields of a trio of volcanoes in central North Island. The tribes say that a teardrop from the eye of the Sky Father fell at the foot of the tallest of these mountains, lonely Ruapehu, and the river was born.

Swelled by myriad tributaries, it twists like an eel through a mountainous country—part of it a national park—on its 180-mile journey to the sea. Travel the precipitous River Road, and far below you will see canoeists drifting down the placid reaches, at one with the current and its cargo of flotsam and foam, then digging their paddles deep to hurtle through a rapid.

This is the river that for more than 700 years the Whanganui tribes controlled, cared for, and depended on. It is their awa tupuna—their river of sacred power. But when European settlers arrived in the mid-1800s, the tribes' traditional authority was undermined—and finally extinguished by government decree.

The local Maori tribe of Whanganui in the North Island has fought for the recognition of their river—the third-largest in New Zealand—as an ancestor for 140 years. Hundreds of tribal representatives wept with joy when their bid to have their kin awarded legal status as a living entity was made into law.

This legislation was passed on 15 March 2017. The legislation passed combines Western legal precedent with Maori mysticism.

"[It] will have its own legal identity with all the corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person," Attorney-General Chris Finlayson said.

"The approach of granting legal personality to a river is unique."

The river, known by Maori as Te Awa Tupua, is the third longest in New Zealand.

Finlayson said the local Maori iwi, or tribe, had been fighting to assert their rights over the river since the 1870s, in New Zealand's longest-running legal dispute.

"This legislation recognises the deep spiritual connection between the Whanganui iwi and its ancestral river," he said.

It deems the river a single living being "from the mountains to the sea, incorporating its tributaries and all its physical and metaphysical elements".

In practical terms, it means the river can be represented at legal proceedings with two lawyers protecting its interests, one from the iwi and the other from the government.

The iwi also received an NZ$80m ($56m) settlement from the government after their marathon legal battle, as well as NZ$30m to improve the river's health.

Based on the Whanganui precedent, 820 square miles of forests, lakes, and rivers—a former national park known as Te Urewera—also gained legal personhood. Soon a mountain, Taranaki, became the third person.

In recent years, New Zealand’s primary industries—the country’s economic backbone—have come in for close scrutiny and mounting criticism over their negative environmental impacts on waterways. Severe weather events connected to a warming climate—here torrential rain in the middle section of the Whanganui River, in an area of plantation forestry of Monterey pine—exacerbate those impacts, sending tons of soil and debris into the river.

In February 2017, voters in Toledo, Ohio, voted to grant legal standing to Lake Erie. In the wake of these initiatives, the question uppermost in many minds is whether such legislative devices will prove to have teeth in the courtroom.

Since 1975, a commission of inquiry, the Waitangi Tribunal, has been steadily investigating, reporting, and recommending ways the Crown can resolve grievances brought by the more than a hundred tribes of Aotearoa-New Zealand.

The treaty guaranteed Maori the paramount authority they had exercised for time immemorial over their lands, habitations, and all that they treasured. Without question, the Whanganui chiefs who signed the treaty in 1840 would have considered the river a treasure—a treasure beyond price. It was their food basket, their medicine cabinet, their highway, and their defensive moat. It was their healer, their priest, and their parent. It was the source of their prestige and the core of their being. It was, as the Waitangi Tribunal explained in its report on the Whanganui River treaty claim, the central bloodline of their one heart.

In the new legislation, the Crown issues an apology for its historical wrong-doing, acknowledging that it breached the treaty, undermined the ability of Whanganui tribes to exercise their customary rights and responsibilities in respect of the river, and compromised their physical, cultural, and spiritual well-being.

Whanganui River

The Crown says it “seeks to atone for its past wrongs and begin the process of healing.” The Te Awa Tupua Act, it says, represents “the beginning of a renewed and enduring relationship,” with the river at its centre.

It’s a humbling statement for a government to make. But it doesn’t restore ownership of the river to the Whanganui tribes. Politically, that remains a bridge too far, even for a country that believes its future lies in a genuine “treaty partnership” between Maori and non-Maori.

Ganga has legal rights

In India, the Ganga River, considered sacred by more than 1 billion Indians, has become the first non-human entity in India to be granted the same legal rights as people. A court in Uttarakhand ordered that the Ganga and its main tributary, the Yamuna, should be accorded the status of living human entities. The decision, which was welcomed by environmentalists, means that polluting or damaging the rivers will be legally equivalent to harming a person. The judges cited the example of the Whanganui River in this context. It was on 20 March 2017, the Uttarakhand High Court declared that the Ganga and Yamuna would be legally treated as “living people,” and enjoy “all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person”. The order was stayed by the Supreme Court in July of that year because it “raised several legal questions and administrative issues”.

In the Ayodhya case, the Ram Lalla deity has been recognized as a juristic person. A juristic person, as opposed to a “natural person” (that is, a human being), is an entity whom the law vests with a personality. In Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee vs Som Nath Dass and Others (2000), the Supreme Court said: “The very words Juristic Person connote recognition of an entity to be in law a person which otherwise it is not. In other words, it is not an individual natural person but an artificially created person which is to be recognised to be in law as such.” Gods, corporations, rivers, and animals, have all been treated as juristic persons by courts.

The treatment of deities as juristic persons started under the British. Temples owned huge land and resources, and British administrators held that the legal owner of the wealth was the deity, with a shebait or manager acting as trustee.

In 1887, the Bombay High Court held in the Dakor Temple case: “Hindu idol is a juridical subject and the pious idea that it embodies is given the status of a legal person.” This was reinforced in the 1921 order in Vidya Varuthi Thirtha vs Balusami Ayyar, where the court said, “under the Hindu law, the image of a deity… (is) a ‘juristic entity’, vested with the capacity of receiving gifts and holding property”.

This idea is now established in Indian law.

However, not every deity is a legal person. This status is given to an idol only after its public consecration, or pran pratishtha. In Yogendra Nath Naskar vs Commissioner Of Income-Tax (1969), the Supreme Court ruled: “It is not all idols that will qualify for being ‘juristic person’ but only when it is consecrated and installed at a public place for the public at large.”

Apart from owning property, paying taxes, suing, and being sued, what else do deities as ‘legal persons' do?

In the Sabarimala case (Indian Young Lawyers Association & Ors. vs The State of Kerala & Ors, 2018), one of the arguments presented against allowing women of menstruating age entry into the temple was that this would violate the right to privacy of the Lord Ayyappa, who is eternally celibate.

A lawyer who worked on the Sabarimala case said: “Deities have property rights, but not fundamental rights or other constitutional rights.” This was upheld by Justice D Y Chandrachud in the Sabarimala judgment: “Merely because a deity has been granted limited rights as juristic persons under statutory law does not mean that the deity necessarily has constitutional rights.”

Generally, the shebait is the temple priest, or the trust or individuals managing the temple. In the 2010 Allahabad HC judgment in the Ayodhya title suit, Justice D V Sharma had said: “As in the case of minor a guardian is appointed, so in the case of the idol, a Shebait or manager is appointed to act on its behalf.”

What if some parties feel that the shebait is not acting in the interest of the deity? In Bishwanath And Anr vs Shri Thakur Radhaballabhji & Ors (1967), the Supreme Court allowed a “suit filed by the idol represented by a worshipper” in a case where the shebait was found “alienating the idol’s property”. The court held that if a shebait does not discharge their duties properly, a devotee can move court as a “friend of the deity”. 

Shebait

In the Padmanabhasway temple case, the Supreme Court upheld the Shebait (കാരായ്‌മ) rights of the Travancore royal family in the administration. Shebait is a person who serves a Hindu deity and manages the temple. The court said as per custom, Shebaiship survived the death of the ruler and his death didn’t result in escheat in favour of state government despite the 26th amendment to the Constitution that abolished privy purse paid to former rulers of princely states which were incorporated into the Indian Republic after Independence. Allowing the appeal filed by the Travancore Royal Family Maharaja, the top court accepted the Shebaitship of the royal family over one of the richest Hindu temples in India. The Supreme Court’s verdict effectively means the “Ruler” under the Instrument of Accession signed by the Princely state ruler with the Government of India at the time of independence is “Ruler” by succession and will not end with the death of the ruler who signed the instrument of accession.

In this verdict, the court defines 'Shebait' thus: "The expression 'Shebait' is derived from 'Sewa' which means service, and in the literal sense, means one who renders 'sewa' to the idol or a deity. Every ruler of Travancore would call himself 'Padmanabhadasa', ie, one who is engaged in the service of Padmanabhaswamy."

In the law dictionary, Shebaitship, property dedicated to an idol vests in it in an ideal sense only; ex necessitats, the possession and management has to be entrusted to some human agent. Such an agent of the idol is known as shebait in Northern India. The legal character of a shebait cannot be defined with precision and exactitude. Broadly described, he is the human ministrant and custodian of the idol, its earthly spokesman, its authorised representative entitled to deal with all its temporal affairs and to manage its property. As regards the administration of the debutter, his position is analogous to that of a trustee; yet, he is not precisely in the position of a trustee in the English sense, because under Hindu Law, property absolutely dedicated to an idol, vests in the idol, and not in the shebait. Although the debutter never vests in the shebait, yet, peculiarly enough, almost in every case, the shebait has a right to a part of the usufruct, the mode of enjoyment; and the amount of the usufruct depending again on usage and custom, if not devised by the founder. Shebaitship being property, it devolves like any other species of heritable property. It follows that, where the founder does not dispose of the shebaiti rights in the endowment created by him, the shebaitship devolves on the heirs of the founder according to Hindu Law, if no usage or custom of a different nature is shown to exist, Profulla Chrone Requitte v. Satya Chorone Requitte, AIR 1979 SC 1682 (1686): (1979) 3 SCC 409: (1979) 3 SCR 431.

(ii) Shebaitship is in the nature of immovable property heritable by the widow of the last male holder unless there is a usage or custom of a different nature in cases where the founder has not disposed of the shebaiti right in the endowment created by him. Shebaitship is a property which is heritable. The devolution of the office of shebait depends on the terms of the deed or the Will or on the endowment or the act by which the deity was installed and properly consecrated or given to the deity.

The Travancore Kowdiar Palace

A mosque has never been held as a juristic person, because it’s a place where people gather to worship; it is not an object of worship itself. Neither has a church.

In Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee vs Som Nath Dass and Others (2000), the SC ruled that the “Guru Granth Sahib… cannot be equated with other sacred books… Guru Granth Sahib is revered like a Guru… (and) is the very heart and spirit of gurudwara. The reverence of Guru Granth on the one hand and other sacred books, on the other hand, is based on different conceptual faith, belief and application.”

However, the court clarified that “every Guru Granth Sahib cannot be a juristic person unless it takes juristic role through its installation in a gurudwara or at such other recognised public place.”

In May 2019, the Punjab and Haryana High Court held that the “entire animal kingdom” has a “distinct legal persona with corresponding rights, duties, and liabilities of a living person”. On March 20, 2017, the Uttarakhand High Court declared that the Ganga and Yamuna would be legally treated as “living people,” and enjoy “all corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person”. The order was stayed by the Supreme Court in July of that year because it “raised several legal questions and administrative issues”.

Albert Einstein wrote in 1950 that the presumption that humans are separate from nature is “an optical delusion of consciousness,” and something of a cultural prison. “Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison,” he wrote, “by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

© Ramachandran 

THE BRITISH SPY BEHIND CHEMPAKA RAMAN

He Took Chempaka Raman Pillai to Germany

A European Communist spy lived once in Travancore.

In a book he wrote, Travel Letters From Ceylon, Australia and South India ( B. Westermann Co., New York, 1931), he remembered Thycaud Ayya Swamikal, the spiritual Guru. He shared this story:

"One-day Ayya guru was very impatient and restless, walking round and round. The spy asked him what the matter was. The guru told him that he was expecting two of his disciples who had gone to meditate at Maruthwamala to bring a certain plant which he needed for some experiment. After some time two boys entered the scene. The guru eagerly asked, "Did you bring what I had asked you to bring ?"

"The senior of the two boys with some hesitation said "We have brought what you wanted" and took out something from his mundu and placed it on the table. It was a gold coin which probably they had purchased from the market. The guru's face became red with anger. Seeing this, the boys made a quick exit. The spy asked, "Sir, you should be happy since they have gifted you a gold coin. Why are you angry ?"

"Then the guru said, "They are making fun of me. They think I am greedy for gold. They do not understand my real purpose. What I need is a certain plant for an alchemical experiment which requires this plant. The plant is only for cleaning the brass coin. The real transmutation process is psychical". The spy grabbed the golden opportunity. He offered to bring the plant. The guru at first was reluctant, saying that being a foreigner he may not be able to converse with the local people and get the plant. But the spy was very enthusiastic and at last, the guru told him the name of the plant. The spy hired a horse-drawn carriage, went to Maruthwamala and brought a carriage full load of the plant. This pleased the guru and he included the spy in the experiment in place of the two boys who never showed up again."

If the two boys in this story are Chattampi and Narayana Guru, it may fail in chronology. So let us take it as just two boys. It is said that the British had sent a spy to keep a watch on Ayya's alchemy experiments. The spy was a man with anarcho-marxist views.

Walter Strickland, last portrait

The spy was Walter William Strickland, who found Chempaka Raman Pillai and sent him to Germany.

There lived a Vellala couple Chinna Swami Pillai and Nagammal in Trivandrum in a house where the present Accountant General office is situated. Chempaka Raman alias Venkidi was born to them on 15 September 1891. Even during his Model school days he rallied against the British and shouted 'Jai Hind' on the school campus. Fearing retribution, the Principal called in the police. A Constable, Chinnaswami Pillai was sent to investigate the misdemeanour of the erring student. It turned out to be his own son.

In 1908, a British Biologist, Walter Stickland was camping at Trivandrum and he had claimed he had come to study butterflies that were found in the Western Ghats. He met a boy, T Padmanabhan Pillai, who had written a paper in a well-known science journal about the ability of spiders to change their colour, on one of his field trips. Strickland was impressed by the skills of the 18-year-old boy and took him to Europe for further studies. Along with him his close friend, cousin and neighbour, 17-year-old Chempaka Raman was also taken to Europe. He continued his education in Zurich and Germany. That he studied in Zurich, not Italy, and Strickland financed it, is confirmed by Harald Fischer-Tine, in the biography, Shyamji Krishnavarma: Sanskrit, Sociology, Anti-Imperialism.

This book also records: "Aldred's heroic act of solidarity directed the attention of another illustrious representative of British anarchism, Sir Walter Strickland, towards Krishnavarma's anti-imperial campaign. Strickland was a rather eccentric British aristocrat who had left his homeland in 1889 and stubbornly refused to return even after he had succeeded to the title of Baronet and the inherited family estates in Yorkshire in 1909. The 'anarchist Baronet", who was at least according to British intelligent sources, o of doubtful sanity' became something of a celebrity all over the English-speaking world. His anti-British activities were reported and humorously commented upon by the popular press of various countries. Strickland was a man of letters and had published translations of Latin and French classics as well as Czech poetry and fairy tales before he spent years in India and South East Asia. It was during his sojourn in the East that he came to the conclusion that 'The English and the despotism there...was nothing but a Camorra of infamous, bestial and obscene thieves, murderers, liars and worse' and turned into a staunch anti-imperialist. In the following years, he published a number of pamphlets and books containing trenchant attacks on British imperialism, one of which was extensively reviewed by Indian Sociologist*. When he read about Aldred's conviction, he sent him a telegram of congratulations and a cheque for 10 pounds...Together with Shyamji, the 'anarchist Baronet' was also one of the assessors of the pro-India committee founded in Zurich in 1912 his south Indian protege Champaka Raman Pillai."

Padmanabhan Pillai is referred to as Raman's brother in history-it doesn't matter.

It is said Raman and Padmanabhan studying in the same Model School, helped  Walter Strickland to collect samples of plants and trees and the English man was impressed with the young Chembakaraman and asked him to accompany him to Austria where he had contacts and facilities. Chempakaraman agreed to accompany him and left with him for Austria. Walter Strickland put him in a school in Vienna to complete his school education and later he joined a technical school in Vienna where he got his diploma in engineering. When World War I broke out he along with many other Indians formed the “India ProIndia Committee” at Zurich and he was its president in 1914 and then moved to Berlin.

In his 1992 book Europe and India’s Foreign Policy, Verinder Grover writes:

“When the first World War broke out, Indian revolutionaries abroad attempted to seize the opportunity to enlist German support for India’s fight for freedom… The emigre Indian revolutionaries in Europe, prominent among them a young south Indian called Chempakaraman Pillai, contacted the German embassy in Zurich. In September 1914, the International Pro-India Committee was formed, with Pillai as the president and Zurich as headquarters.”

From Zurich, Pillai ran the German/English monthly Pro-India, a magazine that put forward the Indian view of the world to the German people.

In October 1914, Pillai travelled to Berlin where a group of Indians had founded the Berlin Committee in support of the Indian cause. The following year, the International Pro-India Committee and the Berlin Committee combined to form the Indian Independence Committee.

Raman took a degree in Public Governance and  Economics from Germany. He lived in Germany for 20 years. He carried campaign against British rule in India, With Virendranath Chatopadhyaya, Lala Hardayal, Raja Mahendra Pratap, Dr Prabhakar, A R Pillai and A.C. N Nambiar he founded Indian Independence CommitteeA R Pillai was Novelist C V Raman Pillai's son in law; Nambiar was writer Vengayil Kunjiraman Nayanar's son. Armed with an Engineering diploma, Raman joined German Navy. He was an officer on the cruiser” Emden” and attacked British ships and shelled several places in India. On September 22,1914 Madras was shelled.

Raman Pillai

 

A free Government of India was established in Afghanistan on 1 December 1915 with Raja Mahendra Pratap as President Barkatulla as Prime Minister and Chempaka Raman Pillai as Foreign Minister. After World War 1 he formed an association with the “League of Oppressed People” In 1933 he met Subash Chandra Bose. They organized INA outside India. The Azad Hind Government was based on Pillai’s experience during World War I. In 1933 Pillai married Lakshmi Bai. Unfortunately, they had short life together. Pillai soon fell ill. 

The mentor of Chempakaraman Pillai, Walter William Strickland (born Westminster 26 May 1851- died Java 9 August 1938 ) was the son of Sir Charles Strickland, 8th Baronet (1819–1909). He was the eldest son and the only child of his first marriage to Georgina, daughter of Sir William Milner, 4th Baronet, He was educated at Edinburgh Academy and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was the 9th Baronet, known as the Anarchist Baronet because he wandered around the world for much of his life espousing radical causes. The family estate was at Hildenley Hall in Yorkshire.

He married Eliza Vokes (1860–1946) in 1888. They had no children and the title passed to a cousin once removed, Sir Henry Strickland-Constable.

He wrote several books and pamphlets and translated works of the Czech poet Viteslav Halek, Moliere and Horace. He has been linked with the Voynich manuscript. He may have met Voynich during his first years in London, when Voynich was directly involved in the political activities of Russian refugees in London, under the leadership of Stepniak - Kravchinskii, who founded the SFRF (Society of Friends of Russian Freedom) and the RFPF (Russian Free Press Fund).

Wilfrid Voynich

Wilfrid Voynich (born Michał Habdank -Wojnicz; 1865 New York-1930) was a Polish revolutionary, antiquarian and bibliophile. Voynich operated one of the largest rare book businesses in the world, but he is best remembered as the eponym of the Voynich manuscript.

He attended a gimnazjum in Suwałki (a town in northeastern Poland), and then studied at the universities of Warsaw, St. Petersburg, and Moscow. He graduated from Moscow University in chemistry and became a licensed pharmacist.

In 1885, in Warsaw, Wojnicz joined Ludwik Waryński's revolutionary organization, Proletariat. In 1886, after a failed attempt to free fellow conspirators, Piotr Bartowski (1846-1886) and Stanisław Kunicki (1861-1886), who had both been sentenced to death, from the Warsaw Citadel, he was arrested by the Russian police. In 1887, he was sent to penal servitude at Tunka near Irkutsk.

Whilst in Siberia, Voynich acquired a working knowledge of eighteen different languages, albeit not well.

In June 1890 he escaped from Siberia and travelling west by train got to Hamburg, eventually arriving in London in October 1890. Under the assumed name of Ivan Kel'chevskii at first, he worked with Stepniak, a fellow revolutionary, under the banner of the anti-tsarist Society of Friends of Russian Freedom in London. After Stepniak's death in a railway crossing accident in 1895, Voynich ceased revolutionary activity.

Voynich became an antiquarian bookseller around 1897, acting on the advice of Richard Garnett, a curator at the British Museum. Voynich opened a bookshop at Soho Square in London in 1898. He was remarkably lucky in finding rare books, including a Malermi Bible in Italy in 1902.

In 1902 he married a fellow former revolutionary, Ethel Lilian Boole, daughter of the British mathematician George Boole, who Voynich had been associated with since 1890. Voynich was naturalised as a British subject on 25 April 1904, taking the legal name Wilfrid Michael Voynich.

Voynich opened another bookshop in 1914 in New York. With the onset of the First World War, Voynich was increasingly based in New York. He became deeply involved in the antiquarian book trade and wrote a number of catalogues and other texts on the subject.

Voynich relocated his London bookshop to 175 Piccadilly in 1917. Also in 1917, based on rumours, Voynich was investigated by the FBI, in relation to his possession of Bacon's cypher. The report also noted that he dealt with manuscripts from the 13th, 12th, and 11th centuries and that the value of his books at the time was half a million dollars. However, the investigation did not reveal anything significant beyond the fact that he possessed a secret code nearly a thousand years old.

The most famous of Voynich's possessions was a mysterious manuscript he said he acquired in 1912 at the Villa Mondragone in Italy, but first presented in public in 1915. The book has been carbon-dated, which revealed that the materials were manufactured sometime between 1404 and 1438, although the book may have been written much later. He owned the manuscript until his death.

A page from Voynich's manuscript

The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex hand-written in an unknown writing system. The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438), and it may have been composed in Italy during the Italian Renaissance. The manuscript is named after Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish-Samogitian book dealer who purchased it in 1912. Some of the pages are missing, with around 240 remaining. The text is written from left to right, and most of the pages have illustrations or diagrams. Some pages are foldable sheets.

The Voynich manuscript has been studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, including American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II. The manuscript has never been demonstrably deciphered, and the mystery of its meaning and origin has excited the popular imagination, making it the subject of novels and speculation. None of the many hypotheses proposed over the last hundred years has been independently verified. In 1969, the Voynich manuscript was donated by Hans P. Kraus to Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

In his correspondence preserved in the Beinecke Library, Voynich reveals that he has been introduced to the Jesuits of Villa Mondragone by one "Father Strickland", who lived here. It credits the origin of the manuscript and the purchase to Villa Mondragone.Villa Mondragone was built in 1573-1577 by Cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps.Cardinal Altemps enlarged the existing villa Tusculana, a work done in 1571. One of his guests was Cardinal Ugo Boncompagni, who became pope Gregorius XIII a few months later. He suggested building a new villa on the hill overlooking the villa Tusculana, on the Roman ruins of the Qunitili's villa. The Villa is called Mondragone referring to the coat of arms of the family Boncompagni (a dragon). The Villa received the Pope and his court for a long time.

In 1613, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of pope Paul V, bought villa Mondragone and villa Tusculana, together with other properties of duke Gian Angelo Altemps, nephew of cardinal Marco. In 1621, at the death of Paul V, the decline of villa Mondragone began.

In 1865, the owner of Villa Mondragone, Don Marcantonio Borghese, signed an agreement with the Jesuits in order to use the Villa as a college for the Italian nobility. The "Nobile Collegio Mondragone" opens its doors on February 2, 1865. The Jesuits bought Villa Mondragone in 1896.

Since three fathers with the name Strickland were associated with the Villa, the relationship between the anarchist Strickland to Voynich needs further research. Rev W Strickland, a Jesuit was Military Chaplain in India for 12 years and wrote the book, Catholic Missions in Southern India to 1865.

Strickland spent some time in Russia and in 1923 became a citizen of Czechoslovakia, renouncing his British citizenship and the Baronetcy. Encyclopedia of Literary Translation Into English states:

"The virtually unknown English eccentric was a traveller and free thinker with a taste for anarchism and Buddhism, but he managed to find time to learn Czech and to translate poems. The quality of the translation is rather good but again the impact on the British public was nil and they are long out of print".

He had libertarian, socialist and atheist ideas. He helped Guy Aldred, founder of the Glasgow Anarchist Group.

As related by Albert Meltzer: " After the publication of Hyde Park in 1938 support for Aldred in London fell off and he had burned his bridges in London and Glasgow, but then an extraordinary chance ended his days of poverty. Sir Walter Strickland, a millionaire whose family practically owned Malta, had during the First World War taken to him and was disgusted with the British Government after the Versailles Treaty. In acknowledgement of the newly created State of Czechoslovakia, the first fruit of League of Nations liberal idealism, Strickland became a naturalised Czech (1923), though he never went to that country. In 1938 Strickland died and left a fortune to Aldred, who promptly formed the Strickland Press, bought a hall, bookshop and machinery and proceeded to reprint all his old pamphlets, before actually getting the money. Then the Strickland relatives brought a suit saying the will was invalid. Strickland had said in his will he left the money to Aldred "for socialist and atheist propaganda", illegal under Czech law. There was a complicated legal case which ended as such things usually do, with the money in the hands of the lawyers. Aldred, used to defending his own cases personally and handling courts with ease on matters of obstruction and sedition, found himself outgunned among the moneyed lawyers ".

Albert Mezler was an English anarcho-communist and contributor to the anarchist paper Freedom, who wrote, Anarchism, For and Against.

According to John Taylor Caldwell: "Walter was an eccentric. He preferred books to the pursuits of normal young men of his class and had no interest in sport, drink, gambling or women. His father was disappointed and disgusted. One day when he was having it out with Walter (probably not for the first time) about his unsatisfactory lifestyle, and the fact that he was nearing forty and still not married, Walter rose from the table and, so the story goes, proposed to the first girl he met, who happened to be the kitchen maid."

Caldwell was a Glasgow-born anarchist communist and biographer of anarchist, Guy Aldred.

In the early 1890s, Strickland went to live abroad.

After 1912 Strickland did not live in England. Eventually, he settled in Java and became a strong opponent of imperialism.

He gave Sun Yat Sen £10,000 "to help him start a revolt against the Emperor of China".During the First World War, Strickland donated £10,000 to his friend Tomáš Masaryk's Czechoslovakian Independence Movement. He left Guy Aldred £3,000 and with this money he bought some second-hand printing machinery and established The Strickland Press. Over the next 25 years Aldred published regular issues of the United Socialist Movement organ, The Word and various pamphlets on anarchism. Thomas Masaryk ( 1850 – 1937), was a Czechoslovak politician, statesman, sociologist and philosopher. Until 1914, he advocated restructuring the Austro-Hungarian Empire into a federal state. With the help of the Allied Powers, Masaryk gained independence from the Czechoslovak Republic as World War I ended in 1918. He co-founded Czechoslovakia together with Milan Rastislav Štefánik and Edvard Beneš and served as its first President, and so is called by some Czechs the "President Liberator".

In 1909 Guy Aldred was sentenced to twelve months of hard labour for printing the August issue of The Indian Sociologist, an Indian nationalist newspaper edited by Shyamji Krishnavarma. Strickland heard of Aldred's action and sent him a telegram of congratulation to the prison and a cheque for £10.

Guy Aldred

Guy Alfred Aldred (often Guy A. Aldred;  1886 – 1963) was a British anarchist communist and a prominent member of the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation (APCF). He founded the Bakunin Press publishing house and edited five Glasgow-based anarchist periodicals: The Herald of Revolt, The Spur, The Commune, The Council, and The Word, where he worked closely with Ethel MacDonald and his later partner Jenny Patrick.

The Indian Sociologist was an Indian nationalist newspaper edited by Shyamji Krishnavarma. When Krishnavarma left London for Paris, fearing repression by the authorities, the printing of the newspaper was first taken over by Arthur Fletcher Horsley. However, he was arrested and tried for printing the May, June and July issues. (He was tried and sentenced on the same day as Madan Lal Dhingra, who was convicted of the assassination of Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie). At Horseley's prominent trial the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Alverstone, indicated that anyone printing that sort of material would be liable for prosecution. Nevertheless, Aldred, as an advocate of the free press, published it, bearing his own name. The police obtained a warrant and seized 396 copies of the issue. At the trial, the prosecution was led by the Attorney General, Sir William Robson, at the Central Criminal Court. Robson highlighted parts of TIS that Aldred had himself written, particularly focussing on a passage which touched on the execution of Dhingra:

In the execution of Dhingra that cloak will be publicly worn, that secret language spoken, that solemn veil employed to conceal the sword of Imperialism by which we are sacrificed to the insatiable idol of modern despotism, whose ministers are Cromer, Curzon and Morley & Co. Murder - which they would represent to us as a horrible crime when the murdered is a government flunkey - we see practised by them without repugnance or remorse when the murdered is a working man, a Nationalist patriot, Egyptian fellaheen or half-starved victim of despotic society's bloodlust. It was so at Featherstone and Denshawai; it has often been so at Newgate: and it was so with Robert Emmett, the Paris communards, and the Chicago martyrs. Who is more reprehensible than the murderers of these martyrs? The police spies who threw the bomb at Chicago; the ad-hoc tribunal which murdered innocent Egyptians at Denshawai; the Asquith who assumed full responsibility for the murder of the workers at Featherstone; the assassins of Robert Emmett? Yet these murderers have not been executed! Why then should Dhingra be executed? Because he is not a time-serving executioner, but a Nationalist patriot, who, though his ideals are not their ideals, is worthy of the admiration of those workers at home, who have as little to gain from the lick-spittle crew of Imperialistic blood-sucking, capitalist parasites at as what the Nationalists have in India.

Madanlal Dhingra

Aldred also remarked that the Sepoy Mutiny, or Indian Mutiny, would be described as The Indian War of Independence. Aldred received a sentence of twelve months of hard labour. His involvement with The Indian Sociologist brought him into contact with Har Dayal, who combined anarchism with his Indian Nationalism, based on his view of ancient Aryan culture and Buddhism.

Disaffected with Britain, in 1911, Strickland sold the family home, which became a convent. After 1912, he did not live in England. On August 15 1913 The Argus of Melbourne reported:

ANARCHIST BARONET

Sir Walter Strickland

Scholar and Gipsy

LONDON, Aug. 14.

Sir Walter Strickland, the "anarchist
baronet," who has been missing from his
accustomed haunts on the Continent for
sometimes, and for whom his friends have
been searching, is reported to be living
quietly at Geneva. He took a prominent
part in the recent formation of a committee
to promote freer trade for India.

Sir Walter, who is the ninth of his line,
and whose title dates from 1641, was born
62 years ago, and succeeded his father four
years ago A scholar and savant of undo
repute, he is called a gipsy and an anarchist,
owing to his wandering habits and politi
cal theories He is a linguist of ability,
verged in both ancient and modem lan
gauges, and won wide fame by his transía
lions of Moliere and Horace.

It is said that during his 62 years he
has spent only 1 week in London
Sir Walter once declared that he had
hidden on the Continent because 

he had received a warning "from an
absolutely reliable source" that powerful
officials were plotting his assassination. In
Vienna the baronet was arrested because
he was thought to be Ugo Schenek, a 

murderer .' This was a great compliment,"
commented the baronet, ' for Schenek was
described as extremely handsome and 

aristocratic looking ". Upon succeeding to the
title, Sir Walter announced his intention of
removing every scrap of his property to the
Continent, and for the future to have as
little as possible to do with England and
its people.

In a letter to a London newspaper Sir
Walter wrote -"The vulgar, ungentle
manly, and, indeed, murderous 

persecution to which I have been subjected is ex
exclusively British " The 'anarchist baronet"
comes of an ancient family that had its seat
at Strickland, in Westmoreland, before the
Conquest, and one of Sir Walter's ancestors,
carried the banner of St George at Agincourt.

Archive box no 27 of Aldred Collection: Socialist pamphlets by Strickland; the photo seen is Strickland, just out of Cambridge

After receiving Czechoslovakian citizenship in 1923, he renounced his British citizenship and in 1931, moved to Java, where he died on 9 August 1938. His two works of some interest are Sacrifice; Or, the Daughter of the Sun (1920), a tale with Lost Race implications, and the more ambitious Vishnu; Or, the Planet of the Sevenfold Unity (1928), in which a distant planet, whose inhabitants are divided into seven Sexes, is visited.

William A Stricklin in the book, Family Secrets, writes that Strickland willed his vast wealth to print communist pamphlets. The information comes under the subheading, Family Idiots. Though Strickland had become a neutralized Czech, he never went to that country. When he died, he left his entire fortune to Aldred who promptly formed the Strickland Press, bought a hall, bookshop, and machinery and proceeded to reprint all his old pamphlets, before actually getting the money.

There is a slightly different version: Strickland left most of his money to peace causes of which Guy was the executor. Due to Strickland's hatred of Imperial Britain most of his money was invested in countries that would be at war with Britain before the will was probated. Guy received £3,000, and with this, he bought some second-hand printing machinery and Bakunin Press - renamed Strickland Press in memory of Sir Walter - moved into 104-106 George Street Glasgow. Strickland Press set about republishing many of Guy's pamphlets and the Word, which would appear every month for 25 years, for 22 years of this period a free copy of the Word was sent to every Labour MP.

The Strickland relatives brought a lawsuit saying the will was invalid. Strickland had said in his will that he had left the money to Aldred "for Socialist and atheist propaganda", illegal under Czech law. There was a complicated legal case which ended as things usually do, with the money in hands of the lawyers. Aldred used to defend his cases personally and handle courts with ease on matters of obstruction and sedition, found himself outgunned among the moneyed lawyers. Strickland disregarded Lincoln's admonition not to represent himself. Aldred was left out of pocket only to be saved, financially, by the Marquis of Tavistock. Through Tavistock's support, Aldred was able to begin work on his monthly The Word - a periodical of the United Socialist Movement which was one of the key publications produced by the Strickland Press.

The Marquis of Tavistock - who became the Duke of Bedford - committed suicide after the Second World War, making no provision for Aldred in his will. Nevertheless, Aldred continued to publish The Word until his death in 1963 supported by Ethel MacDonald and Jenny Patrick. MacDonald acted as manager and bookkeeper of the company until her death in 1960, setting type and printing alongside Patrick who continued working at Strickland Press until its dissolution. The George Street premises had to be vacated in 1962 when they were demolished to make way for the expansion of the Royal College of Science and Technology, which later became the University of Strathclyde which now hold Aldred's archive. The Strickland Press was continued by John Taylor Caldwell until its closure in 1968.

Chempaka Raman, after the first world war, continued to work in a German company but kept his efforts for Indian independence alive. In 1930 he became the representative in Berlin of the Indian Chamber of Commerce. He was the only white in the National People's Party that supported the Nazis. In a press meeting on 10 August 1931 Hitler said that if non-Aaryan Indians were ruled by the British, it is their fate. This irritated Raman. On 4 December, Hitler said: "Britain losing India would not augur well for any nation, including Germany".

Raman wrote to Hitler: "You seem to attribute more importance to the colour of the skin than to the blood. Our skins may be dark; not our hearts".

Hitler sent his Secretary to Raman to apologize but expressed his irritation at being attributed with a black heart. Their friendship came to an end. In January 1933, Hitler became the Chancellor. Nazis raided and arrogated Raman's house in Berlin; he was manhandled and bundled out. He moved to Italy for treatment. Blood had clotted in his brain. He had no money for treatment. He died on 28 May 1934, in an ordinary nursing home. Hitler killed him.

My enquiries at the University of Strathclyde Archives and Special Collections and the Glasgow Mitchell Library reveal that in the Aldred collection there, "bundle 49 dated 08/08/1939, contains a letter from the wife of Chempaka Raman Pillai, adopted by Sir William Strickland, about her husband’s disappearance enclosing an article about Strickland."

His wife, Lakshmi Bai from Satara in Maharashtra returned to Mumbai with his ashes in 1935. She had valuable documents on Raman. She lived alone in a flat in Church Gate allotted to her by Morarji Desai. She died in December 1972 in St George Hospital, due to starvation. The unidentified body was identified by Journalist P K Ravindranath. Her famished fingers still clenched 17 keys that protected her husband's documents. The documents were transferred to the National Archives.

Padmanabha Pillai returned to Trivandrum and became a Curator with the help of the royal family. During this period, he went to the University of Bern to present a paper on frogs. On his way back, he disappeared without a trace, but his coat was retrieved from a beach in Thailand; his belongings reached Colombo. His father-in-law burned all his remaining documents. Butterflies, spiders and frogs do exist.

____________________________

*Pagans and Christians

Note: I am indebted to Carol Stewart, Senior Library Assistant, and Dr Anne Cameron, Senior Archives Assistant, University of Strathclyde Andersonian Library, Glasgow, UK for providing me with the last portrait of Strickland, by digging deep into the archives.

© Ramachandran 

THE ATTEMPT ON SIR CP'S LIFE: A CONFESSION

K C S Mani Died with a Guilty Feeling

Ambalapuzha Konattu Madam Chidambara Iyer Subramanian Iyer, known better as K. C. S. Mani (2 March 1922 - 20 September 1987), was a socialist activist of Kerala who is known for his attempt of assassination on C. P. Ramaswamy Aiyar, the then Diwan of Travancore, a princely state in India. This incident was a turning point in the history of Kerala, forcing the Diwan to leave Travancore and flee to Madras after assenting to merge Travancore with the Union of India.

On 18 July 1947, Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, the Maharaja of Travancore, made the declaration that Travancore would announce sovereignty on 26 August. On 25 July 1947, then-25-year-old Mani attacked the Diwan in front of the erstwhile Music Academy (now the Swathi Thirunal College of Music) in Thiruvananthapuram, following a concert in the evening. Ramaswamy Iyer was wounded. Following the incident on 25 July, the Maharaja informed the Viceroy of India of the decision to join the Union of India.

At the instance of Kumbalath Sanku Pillai, a Congress leader known for physical actions, K C S Mani recorded the story of the assassination attempt. Here is the story in his own words:

K C S Mani

The freedom struggle in Travancore strengthened while I was a student. As a person born in Ambalapuzha, I was inspired by N Sreekantan Nair to jump into politics. I joined the Socialist group. Since they could not do political activity in Travancore, Sreekantan Nair and his associates had shifted their base to Cochin. From there, the Socialist groups helped the State Congress activities in Travancore. When I reached Cochin with Sreekantan Nair, all the major Socialist leaders including K N Gopala Kurup, Mathai Manjooran, Janardanan, A P Pillai,K S Joseph and T P Gopalan were present there. After a few days, myself and A P Pillai were sent to Kollam for political activities, along with Gopala Kurup. Janardanan was part of the team. Kurup had the supervision. He was in charge of the financial resources.

It was a period when the police were on the lookout for political activists. I moved with them like a pet dog, being a novice in politics and a non-speaker.

One day when we were discussing the developments, Kurup all of a sudden, lamented: "If someone had got rid of Sir C P Ramaswamy Aiyar, all the issues would have been solved."

People were really fed up with the administration.

I responded: "Even if Aiyar is gone, someone will be there to replace him and the issues will remain as it is".

"No, issues will get solved if he goes," Kurup explained. He added that Iyer has correctly assessed all the prominent individuals and communities and their weaknesses, like no other. It is impossible for another to match him."

The discussion ended there.

 Janardanan and I moved to a secluded area and discussed it seriously. I needed to have the organising or speaking capacity of Janardanan or other leaders. I wanted to do something for the country. I thought the essence of what Kurup shared gave me clarity on what to do.

"Why not me for the action?"I asked Janardanan.

"If you can, proceed,", Janardanan replied, "but you will not be alive after that. You will be hanged." 

Attack on Sir C P

It seemed Janardanan was unaware of my mental state. I am not boasting; I have never taken life seriously. Life is not as sacred or permanent as to be afraid of death. If my death contributes something to the country, that death will be heroic. Hence I am ready to attack Sir C P-I told Janardanan. Janardanan said that we should discuss the idea with "Annan." We approached Kurup. After hours of discussions, he agreed. But it was not enough. The action needs strong moral and financial support, which will not be forthcoming even in extraordinary situations. We discussed names of Congress leaders, who are courageous enough. Kurup revealed that Kumbalath Sanku Pillai had earlier shared his readiness to support such an action if somebody came forward. He was even ready to face the repercussions.

Sanku Pillai had known Kurup and Janardanan, but not me. Hence it was essential that I win his trust. Sanku Pillai always had shared a dream of his with Kurup-the bust of Sir C P in front of C P Inn in Thampanur should be destroyed. None had come forward till then for the action. Once Sanku Pillai himself had ventured to do it with the help of Kadachikatt Nanu Pillai and they had waited in the compound in vain. The area was always busy.

Janardanan prodded me to show my mettle by destroying the bust."Yes," I agreed.

I could not sleep at all in the night. The body was getting heated up. I was determined to win Sanku Pillai's trust. Thiruvananthapuram was not a familiar place; I had been there only a couple of times.

Sanku Pillai

I discussed again with Janardanan and A P Pilli; We took certain decisions. 

Janardanan gave me word that A P Pillai would accompany me to Thiruvananthapuram. Pillai agreed to show me around the place and arrange the weapons to get the bust destroyed. Pillai selected Chellappan Pillai, a worker at the Rubber Works to help us with these essentials. Chellappan was soft-spoken and had a good physique and courage. He was not at all worried about the repercussions.

Kurup came up with a budget of Rs 10 to implement the whole plan. With that, I boarded the next bus to Thiruvananthapuram and reached the Union office of the Rubber Works at Chakka, by 5 pm, and met Chellappan. By 7 pm, Chellappan came with a hammer. Union leaders K Balakrishnan, K Pankajakshan, and Sadananda Sasthri arrived. Only Balakrishnan was aware of my mission. We spent our time talking till 9 pm, dispersed myself with Chellappan and reached Thampanur. Chellappan's friend and co-worker Velayudhan Pillai was also with us.

It was not easy to accomplish the action and then escape at that hour. We walked to a Theatre, the name of which I don't recollect. The movie was 'Thyagayya." The show was over by 1.30 am. We approached the Sir C P Inn. There was a slight drizzle. Even then the area was not deserted. It was impossible to destroy the bust without the attention of others. But we were not ready to return without accomplishing the mission. We decided to do it, come what may. I asked both Chellappan and Velayudhan to move to the area below the over-bridge on the western side. All three need not be in peril. Though they refused to relent initially, they finally yielded to my pressure and moved away.

I jumped over the western wall of the compound and reached the main gate of the Inn. A car came all of a sudden, seeking a room. I moved away and hid under a tree, A man came out of the Inn and informed the people in the car that rooms were unavailable. I sat under the tree for some more time. My hand accidentally hit a rock. It weighed 5-6 pounds. Holding it in my hand I moved towards the bust. With all my might I hurled towards the bust.

None of us knew of the material with which the bust was made. The rock rebounds after hitting the bust. Though I lost the hope of destroying it, I hit the bust with the hammer three or four times, hard. Nothing happened. Then I hit the nose of it and I could see it cut and thrown away from the body. I heard noises around me, calling for the seizure of the aggressor. I jumped over the iron fence on the southern side and reached the railway premises. I had held the branch of a tree beside the fence to get over it; today the tree has grown up and I have tried to catch the branch several times after that night, in vain.

I met Chellappan and Velayudhan below the Overbridge and we walked to Petta. The three of us were walking weapon depots-we were carrying daggers, knives and axes. I realised for the first time that fear makes man a coward. If someone had asked us where we were going, we would have finished him off.

At Petta, I think we slept in the Union office. I left for Kollam in the morning. The news of the destruction of the bust had reached Kollam before me. It was published in a paper called 'Yuvakeralam'. The paper closed down within a few days.

Sanku Pillai and Gopala Kurupp were arrested. While Kurup was arrested Janardanan was very much inside the home but was spared since they didn't search the place. With the arrest of Kurup, we lost our breadwinner and we decided to surrender. We decided to hold a meeting at Padinjare Kollam, presided over by me, in which Janrdanan would speak. Janardanan was against me getting arrested. But I was not eager to work without him being outside.

We were not even able to raise the cash for buying the paper to make wall posters, announcing the public meeting. We got information that Kannanthodath Janardanan Nair, who had gone underground had arrived in his house at Kureepuzha. He gave me Five rupees; he embraced me "for the action".

We were sure that a surrender would bring us torture and a possible lock-up death. Sanku Pillai came out of Jail on parole to attend the funeral of a senior family member. We met him at Koyivila. The three of us moved away to an isolated place and conspired to assassinate Sir C P.Sanku Pillai offering his wholehearted support. He said he didn't even mind being the first accused in a case related to it. It would be a proud moment, he said.

We were given help by all the youngsters in Karunagapally Taluk; they include Sankara Pillai, Puthan Veetil Ramakrishna Pillai, Nareenchi Karunakaran Pillai, Kovoor Karunakaran Pillai, Mararithottath Raghavan Pillai and Banglavil Madhavan Pillai.

I pledged to assassinate Sir C P during the upcoming Education Conference at Thiruvananthapuram, which Sanku Pillai endorsed. He helped us with some cash and we bid farewell. We reached Thrissur where Sreekantan Nair was camping. Mathai Manjooran sent a person with us to locate the camp. When we briefed him on our plan, he was furious. He didn't approve of two in a group making their own decisions. He expressed disbelief in my capacity to attempt the action.

Our initial decision was to shoot down Sir C P with a revolver. But we were not in a position to pay for it. Our enquiries revealed that a revolver would cost around Rs 1000-1200 in the black market. It needs a lot of training to shoot. Hence we zeroed in on a knife.

We could not accomplish action during the education meeting towards the end of October. I waited for a suitable opportunity. Sanku Pillai came out on parole a couple of times again. We met and told him about the issues involved in procuring and using a revolver and our decision to use a knife instead. He said what is important is to get it done, by hook or crook. Sanku Pillai had no weapons to offer; he guided us to Kaithavanathara Raghavan Pillai, who would get a knife made for us. After a couple of days, he handed over the knife to me. This happened at the end of January 1947.

As days went by, peoples' struggle against Sir CP's Independent Travancore gained momentum. I knew that I would never get a chance if I got isolated in view of the struggle. I waited for an immediate opportunity and it came as news in the dailies-he will be there as a speaker in the anniversary celebrations of the Swati Thirunal Music Academy. The King will inaugurate the function. Sreekantan Nair and Janardanan had banned me from sharing the secret with anyone. But I can't keep anything to myself even now. The move was known to a lot of people associated with Sanku Pillai at Karunagapally. I had informed several youngsters, who were in close contact with us in Thiruvananthapuram. Only two front-line leaders knew of the move: Sanku Pillai and T M Varghese ( According to Sanku Pillai's autobiography, G P Neelakanta Pillai also knew- Ramachandran).

N Sreekantan Nair

As the Academy celebrations drew near, discussions grew stronger. Sreekantan Nair, Janardanan, T P Gopalan, K S Joseph and A P Pillai had worked as a revolutionary committee. The resolution to assassinate Sir C P was discussed officially in this committee. Sreekantan Nair, from the beginning, was not in agreement with me doing the action. His personal commitment towards me and my mother's knowledge that he was behind my political entry, stood in the way. He would be responsible to my mother for my loss. But he didn't express his thoughts openly for the reason that it would be interpreted as cowardice.

He informed the committee that he had another candidate better than me, for the action. Except for Janardanan, everyone on the committee endorsed the view. The committee of 7 dismissed Mani as the candidate.

I had been living with this only intention for the whole year. I had become one with the idea. I had also boasted with many. I would become a laughing stock if I am dismissed. I am committed to the people for this patriotic action.

I begged the committee; they refused to relent. I lost my patience and roared: "I resign from your committee; I am more indebted to Sanku Pillai than you people. This is a question of my self-esteem. I will do it without your help."

Sreekantan Nair budged; all the opposition faded away.

Sreekantan Nair passed a budget of Rs 65 on July 15 to assassinate Sir C P. I bid farewell to my friends and left Thrissur. I reached Cochin at night, with K S Joseph. He had two sten guns with him. We slept at the Congress camp. 

At Cochin, I felt a sudden intuition to see the mother of Sreekantan Nair, Janaki Amma, who had loved me like a son. She was in a critical condition. I reached Ambalapuzha during the night itself, saw her and left early morning for Maririthottam at Karunagapally. The knife was kept there. Taking it, I reached Adur via Kayamkulam. From there, boarding an Express coach, I reached Thiruvananthapuram, by 6pm. I took a room at the TBR Boarding and Lodging, on 19 July.

Most of the leaders had left Thiruvananthapuram, fearing arrest after the killing of Rajendran in the Petta police firing. Some were at Cochin and others at Anchuthengu, which was in British India. Our associates were at Anchuthengu. None of whom I knew were in the city. I had an introduction letter from Krishnan Nair of Cochin, to a friend Sadasivan in Thiruvananthapuram. When I enquired for Sadananda Sasthri, his brother Thankappan informed me that he had left for Anchuthengu. I met Sadasivan and told him of my mission frankly. I sought his help to get a pass to the Academy compound.

K C S Mani, then

Sir C P had left Thiruvananthapuram for Delhi on 19 July, at the invitation of the Viceroy. He was expected back on 25 to be present at the Academy. A sense of fear gripped me. If he doesn't come back? Is the God playing a game? On whose side is the Almighty? 

I waited since there was nothing else to do.

July 25 arrived. At 3 pm, I had a shave and a bath before I stepped outside. A moustache was kept for the evening. I wore a Khaki knicker inside, and a mundu over it.A Khadar Juba,without a Banyan. I had met both Chellappan Pillai and Velayudhan Pillai meanwhile-they agreed to accompany me to the Academy and then wait outside.

I left the hotel spending even the last penny of the budget allotted for the mission. A small amount was due at the hotel. Both Chellappan and Velayudhan came, and we began our journey. I went in. There were chairs in four-five rows, on the two sides of the shamiana (pandal) with a way in the middle. I sat on a chair on the left in the first row. Unfortunately, a Brahmin who had worked in my native town for some time, whom I know, came and sat next to me. We shared some stories. He didn't know that I had become a political activist.

The chopping knife was attached to my knicker, under the mundu. Around 5.30 pm, Sir C P Ramaswamy Iyer reached the venue. He stood in front of me, with his back, waiting for the King to arrive. My hand went to the handle of the knife. I gripped it strongly. Should I now? No, wait a little more. He will be here for a long time. I took my hand off the knife.

From the time I was inside, I was shaken by the feeling that all my actions were absurd. There was no reason for a personal enmity towards him. I had been never sent to a lock-up. I had not been tortured. There had been several people who suffered torture. Why can't one among them?

I was immediately shaken by another feeling that thoughts were becoming unnatural.

I looked at the watch of the person sitting beside me. I looked at the small needle moving around. I remembered the last moments of the characters I have read in fiction; instantly the faces of the poor workers who were killed at Punnapra-Vayalar came as a parade in my mind. I thought of the hapless families. I controlled myself. I have to be thoughtless; I have a mission to accomplish.

I think it was 5.30. The King arrived and he was welcomed by the Dewan and other dignitaries to the dais. The inauguration was over within minutes. Sir C P spoke for some time. He explained the idea of independent Travancore.

The King left after the inauguration. The music concert began. Sir C P and his Political Agent listened to it sitting in the chairs in front of the dais.It was Semmangudi Sreenivasa Iyer,on the concert.I don't remember exactly. At about 7.30 pm Sir C P stood up and began walking out. He has to go out, past me. Here he comes. My heart began beating like the piston of a 150 HP engine that was pumping. I gripped the knife hard. The time has come. The marching bugle began beating in my brain. Chariots and horses passed before me, fiercely. I saw the fluttering tricolour of India, above them.

To move easily, I got rid of the mundu, jumped to the front and hacked with all my might. I think the first blow didn't hit him. I hacked again. I don't remember how many times I did it. If I am to remember and describe it in such detail, I should be an avatar, not a human being. Lights suddenly went off. I don't know how it happened. Somebody seized me.

Both myself and Sir C P were in the midst of a multitude. I could not cut him down to pieces. Lights were on again and went off. I put the knife down, shoved off the ones who held me and came out of the crowd. Fear gripped me; I jumped to one side of rows of chairs. The people who sat on them stood up and moved apart. I appreciated the cowardice of my native brethren for the first time in my life. I came out of the Pandal one after me. All of them were trying to figure out as to what happened to the Dewan. I walked back.

Sir C P in his last days

I could gauge the impulse in my legs to run. But a running man will catch attention and will be caught immediately. Hence I didn't run. At the same time, I was afraid that my legs might lose control and run. I fell down and crawled. I moved towards the fence on the western side. I jumped over the fence, falling down on the drainage road. The strangling noise of the leaves on the fence reverberated like the shots from a thousand field guns. I fell on my knees since the distance from the fence to the road was far more than I had assumed. I felt that I was losing consciousness. It was not a familiar terrain. I didn't even know that a road existed there. The needles on the fence poked holes in my shirt. I got rid of the shirt on the road.

I met Chellappan and Velayudhan at the railway line, after the hotel, where I was staying. We went to Chellappsan's home at Petta. He borrowed through his wife, Rs 10 from a neighbour and we reached our hotel back. We settled the bill, took my dresses and went back to Petta. I spent the night at Chellappan's home. In the morning, I boarded a train to Kadaikavur, and from there, reached Palakkad, via Dindigul. I had something to eat only the next morning at Palakkad since my purse was empty.

I stayed there at the house of Madhava Menon and Sankara Menon, who were the sons of Kollangode King. They had the news from dailies; A P Pillai had told the elder one, who was in Cochin the day before that a person called Ravi did the action. I was welcomed as Raveendranatha Menon, cordially by them. They informed our Thrissur camp of my arrival. Sreekantan Nair, K S Joseph, Janardanan and Gopalan reached Palakkad by evening. I was taken for a safe stay in an estate at Chittoor. I spent several days there, cut off from the outer world.

After a couple of days, the police informed the public that the assailant was Narendran of Petta. Assessing that the police had found out, I was taken to Palakkad. Baby John then was a student at Victoria College. I stayed in his lodge. We got information that the police were groping in the dark. Sir C P left on the 19th day of the attack. I began travelling for free.

I was arrested during the reign of Pattam Thanu Pillai and spent a couple of days in the police lockup. The case was dismissed by the First Class Magistrate at Thiruvananthapuram.

No one still knows how the lights went off at the academy during the episode. Police inferred that it was part of the larger conspiracy. It remains a mystery.

( Translated by Ramachandran )

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POSTSCRIPT:

A Sreedhara Menon, a noted historian, based on research has proved that Sir C P had resigned much before the assassination attempt but was continuing at the request of the King (Triumph and Tragedy in Travancore: Annals of Sir CP's Sixteen Years in Travancore.) In a note to the King (January 11, 1946) he warned that if he declined to join the Union, support of the British army would be necessary. But "English character in general and Englishmen in particular will always swim with the tide. To rely upon British help and assistance would be unwise". Yet, he met Sri Conrad Corfield, Political Adviser to the Viceroy, on February 24, 1946, and claimed an independent status for Travancore (S. Menon, pages 233-4). Sir C P changed his stand after having taken up the active advocacy of the cause of independent Travancore in the interests of the Royal Family after his return to the State.

N Padmanabhan Achari, a renowned ivory carver at the Travancore School of Arts, repaired the nose of Sir C P's bust.He was assisted by K Ramakrishnan Achari. Padmanabhan Achari’s grandfather Kochu Kunju Achari was the head craftsman who made the golden chariot for Swati Tirunal in 1842. Later, he and his son Neelakandan Achari made the ivory throne for the Great London Exhibition of 1851.

Born in Ambalpuzha (Alapuzha dist of Kerala) a traditional Communist stronghold, Mani's ancestors were feudal landlords. He was the son of Chidambara Iyer and Thangam Ammal.

After Independence, Mani served as a member of the local panchayat for more than a decade.

Mani married Lalithammal from Senkottai in 1963 at the Subrahmanya Temple in Valliyur. He was then 41 years old, 18 years older than his wife (who was born in 1940). The proposal was introduced by Mani's sister Lakshmi, who was married from Senkottai. Lakshmi knew Lalitha's father Venkatarama Iyer, who was a motor company mechanic, very well.

According to Lalitha, she was taken by Lakshmi to Konattu Madom in Ambalappuzha, and at that time, Mani was not there. Sometime later, Lakshmi told Lalitha to clean her face and feet in the pond on the southern side. After coming back to the Madom, everyone went to Ambalapuzha Sri Krishna Temple, and while going, she met her future husband speaking to a stranger in an Ayurveda pharmacy. Two weeks later, their marriage was conducted. Mani's hair had already been grey, and his teeth were removed after a serious disease at the age of 30. Mani and Lalitha did not have children. Lalitha outlived him for 30 years, finally dying on June 14, 2017, aged 77.

Mani contested the Kerala Legislative Assembly from the Kuttanad constituency in 1965, as an independent candidate (not the nominee of any political party, But RSP leaders instructed him to submit the nomination, So he could be considered as an RSP Candidate), winning only 920 votes. The election result:

Constituency 96 KUTTANAD 1 . THOMAS JOHN, KC 25319, 51.54% 2 . V. Z. JOB, CON 15067, 30.67% 3. SONNEY SEBASTIAN, IND 7684 15.64% 4 . K. C. S. MANI, IND 920, 1.87% 5 . A. K. SANKARA PILLAI, IND 134, 0.27%, ELECTORS: 64880 VOTERS: 49608 POLL PERCENTAGE: 76.46% VALID VOTES 49124.

Mani felt alienated by the party as well as the state in the later years of his life. He spent his last days abandoned and struggling with diseases. When he suffered from loneliness, he found solace in devotion. The feeling of guilt overpowered him. During some nights, after Ambalapuzha temple was closed, he conducted 'sayana pradakshinam' around the temple. Sometimes, he went to Sabarimala without informing anyone. Mani died on September 20, 1987, at age 65, in the Chest Diseases Hospital, Pulayanarkotta, Thiruvananthapuram.

While with Malayala Manorama, I met Chellappan Pillai in 1996 at his home to do a larger story on the attempt. K Pankajakshan, Secretary of the RSP, facilitated the contact. I could not complete the story then.

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Illustration of the attack done by Sarath Sunder Rajeev, Assistant Professor, Dept of Architecture, College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram. Padmanabhan Achari is his great grand uncle and Ramakrishnan Achari, maternal great-grandfather.

© Ramachandran