MCB KOMAN, FIRST MALAYALI ICS JUDGE

He Had an Affair with the Daughter of the Governor General

Four Malayalis have become judges after getting into the Indian Civil Service. They are M C Balachandra Koman, ASP Ayyar, A L Fletcher and P T Raman Nair. While Raman Nair has been celebrated to an extent, Koman remains unsung. People from the backward communities seldom get recognition, since histories are written by the so-called elites. A S P Ayyar and Fletcher have never been identified as Malayalis.

A S P Iyer (1899-1963), or Ayilam Subramania Panchapakesa Ayyar, was born at Ayilam, a Palakkad hamlet.   K P K Menon has written a biography of him. He wrote his service story-Twenty five Years as a Civilian. He presided over the sensational  Alavandar murder cases. 

A. S. P. Ayyar was born on 26 January 1899 at Ayilam, a village near Palghat in Kerala state to a landlord father. He initially studied at Trivandrum and Madras, moved to England in 1919 to study at Oxford University, and became a lawyer. In 1933, he was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, London. He was appointed the justice of the Madras High Court during 1948–59. He married Vedanayaki Ammal in 1919.  Ayyar's son A P Venkateswaran, was a former foreign secretary.

Ayyar had published about 27 works which include novels, plays, short stories, literary criticism, religious works, jurisprudence, travelogue, biography and an autobiography. He translated several Sanskrit works into English.

Ayyar wrote his novels in the late 1940s and the early 1950s. His novels have historical settings. His first novel, A Historical Romance of Ancient India (1930) tells a story of a Gupta king who resisted the Hun invaders during the 6th century. His novel Three Men of Destiny (1039) is a story of Alexander the Great, with two other main characters: Chandragupta Maurya and Chanakya. 

Anthony Leocadia Fletcher (1909-1974) was also from Kerala. He was the son of Peter Fletcher and Helen Fletcher and was born in a Christian family in Kerala. He completed his school education at St. Joseph's Higher Secondary School, Trivandrum. He did his B.Sc. from the University of Madras and M.Sc. from the University of Nagpur. Then he went to the School of Oriental Studies for further education and joined as an Indian Civil Servant in London, in 1933. He had been the District Judge, Gujranwala (now in Pakistan) moved from the Judicial Branch to the Executive, worked as Commissioner, Jullundur Division and had a long stint as Financial Commissioner at Chandigarh. Fletcher was appointed the first Vice-chancellor of Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University on 29 March 1970 and served until his death on 14 December 1974.

It was Raman Nair, as Registrar, who led Koman to the dais for the swearing-in as Judge of the Madras High Court in September 1945. Nair opted for Kerala after the state reorganization and became Chief Justice in the Kerala High Court on 22 February 1957. Nair was the Commission that enquired about the Andhra rice scandal during the first EMS government of 1957-1959. Koman enquired about the 5.5 Lakh scandal against Panampilly Govinda Menon.

Koman was thus the first Malayali ICS judge in the Madras High Court; ASP Ayyar followed in 1948. Nair was the only ICS judge in the Kerala High Court. Nair retired as Chief Justice in 1971-the only Malayali ICS officer to become the Chief Justice. It was Raman Nair, the presiding Judge of the Kerala High Court who ordered the liquidation of Palai Central  Bank on 8 August 1960.

Dr M C Koman's home Grants Garden, Vepery

Born on 14 May 1897 at Madras and graduated from Queens College, Cambridge in the UK, Balachandra Koman was called endearingly as Kuttimon received his I.C.S.
training from Haileybury in England.

Besides A S P Ayyar (1921) and K.P.S. Menon (1922), Under Secretary Ministry of External Affairs,  M.C.B. Koman (1923) along with N R Pillai, were the next Malayalis to achieve this coveted position. Pillai became India's first cabinet secretary. After serving in executive capacities, Koman was transferred from the Revenue to Madras Judicial service as Chengalpet District and Sessions Judge in 1935. S K Chettur, the nephew of Sir C Sankaran Nair, joined ICS in 1939, at age 34 and became Chief Secretary of Madras. M K K Nayar, in his autobiography, Story of an Era Without Ill -will, has said that in the 1940s, only one Malayali, K Balachandran had passed the ICS. There was a compulsory Indian language paper; for Malayalam, marks were miserly. In 1942 M S Ram got first class for all subjects, except Malayalam. He got only 46 in Malayalam, making it to the 16 th rank-only three were selected then. If he had got 61, he would have topped.

M K K Nair seems to have forgotten V M M Nair, who got into the ICS in 1942, along with Balachandran-Nair became Balachandran's brother-in-law. Nair belonged to an illustrious family, and his father Chettur Karunakaran Nair was a District Superintendent of Police in pre-independence Madras Presidency, an uncle Sir Chettur Madhavan Nair (a son-in-law of Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair) was a member of the Privy Council, another uncle Diwan Bahadur Chettur Govindar Nair was Law Secretary of Orissa before independence, and an uncle Chettur Krishnan Nair was Public Prosecutor in Madurai before independence.

K P S Menon was the only Malayali topper in the ICS exam.

V M M Nair or Vallilath Madathil Madhavan Nair was the last serving ICS officer when he celebrated his 100 th birth anniversary in 2019. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In July 1942, he was selected for the second-to-last batch of the Indian Civil Service, both the smallest-ever batch of the ICS and the last for which direct nominations were made by the India Office in London. He was subsequently posted to Bihar Province as an assistant collector and magistrate. In 1946, he transferred to the Foreign and Political Department (the Indian Political Service. He retired in 1975 as India's ambassador to Spain.

M C B Koman was the son of Rao Bahadur Sir Dr M C Koman, Civil Surgeon, Madras General Hospital, and later Vice Principal, Madras Medical College. Balachandra Koman went to Presentation Convent, George Town, and graduated from Madras Christian College. Koman was born in the palatial bungalow, Grants Garden of Dr Koman at Vepery, Chennai. It was bought by G D Naidu in 1970 and the Gothic roof panel was demolished leaving only the tall structure.

M C B Koman was a Barrister-at-Law from the Middle Temple while a probationer with Indian Civil Service at Queens College, Cambridge in 1921. His first appointment was as Assistant Collector at Masulipatanam in Krishna District of erstwhile Madras Presidency He served the usual Revenue grades of District Collector, Under Secretary and Deputy Secretary in the Local Self Government Department and then became District and Sessions Judge at Chengalpet in 1935. 

Justice Koman was,  Assistant Collector and Executive Magistrate, Mangalore (1923 — 1935),  Judge, District & Sessions Court, Chengalpet (1935 —1940), District and Sessions Judge, Madurai (1940 - 1941), District and Sessions Judge, Tiruchirapally (1941 - 1942), District and Sessions Judge, Cuddalore (1942 - 1943),  District and Sessions Judge, Tanjore (1943-1946), Additional Judge, Madras High Court (07-09-1945 — 22-01-1946), Judge, High Court, Madras Sessions (23 -01-1946 — 01-01-1956) and Principal Judge, City Civil and Sessions Court (02-01-1956 — 31-08 -1958).

Koman was elevated to Additional Judge of the High Court in 1945 - 1946 when a European Judge went on furlough. Koman retired as Principal Judge, City Civil Court in August 1958. Thereafter he was appointed Honorary Director of  Legal studies at Madras Law College until his relinquishment.

In this biodata, it may seem that Koman, a High Court Judge, had become just a City Civil Court Judge towards the end-a case of demotion, which doesn't seem to be true. There lies the tragic flaw.

When the editor of Madras High Court Centenary Souvenir reported in 1962 that
"Koman reverted as District Judge, retired as Principal Judge City Civil Court in
1958", the year of his alleged reversal or the reason thereof was not made clear. 
There was no serious allegation or impeachment conducted against Justice
Koman. So what happened? 

Some vested interests were against Koman becoming a Judge. Chief Justice Sir Frederic William Gentle had resigned in 1948 on a difference of opinion with C. Rajagopalachari regarding Justice Koman's elevation to the High Court being made absolute the same year.

In an article on How the Madras High Court works, the High Court Registrar S.P.Thompson I.C.S. in the 1945 volume of Madras Law Journal says: "The original

side criminal work in the High Court consists of the sessions cases committed for
trial in the High Court which is quite distinct from hearing of referred trials. Since
1943 there have also been appeals from decisions at the High Court Sessions."

Randor Guy, the famous Tamil columnist admitted in his Madras Musings: "Until the end of 1955, criminal cases which originated in the city of Madras were tried by a High Court Judge sitting with a Jury of nine". This would help to dispel any adverse impression regarding Koman's alleged reversal.

A cursory reading of Letters Patent enacted by Statute 24 & 25 Vic.Cap. 104 of 1862
in connection with Chartered High Courts would remove any discrepancy regarding
the original criminal side of the High Court of the Sessions jurisdiction in Madras.
Koman's elevation to the High Court was under Section 2 Clause 2 of the same
a statute which stipulates that "members of the Covenanted Civil Service of not less than ten years standing and who shall have served as Zillah Judge shall be selected".

The sensational Alavandar murder case which rocked the city of
Madras in the early fifties was committed for trial before the single High Court sessions bench hearing of Justice M.C.B.Koman; its appeal was heard by a bench of two Judges in the same High Court complex presided over by Justice A.S. Panchapakesa Ayyar I.C.S, who became a judge in 1948. But legal luminaries seldom mention Koman's role in the case.

Alavandar case is a murder trial which was conducted in the Madras State in the early 1950s. The cause of the trial was the murder of a businessman and ex-serviceman named Alavandar whose headless body was found in one of the coaches of the Indo-Ceylon Express. After a trial which became a cause célèbre, Alavandar's ex-lover and her husband were found guilty of the murder and had been sentenced to brief terms of imprisonment.

C. Alavandar, a pen salesman from Chennai was reported missing on August 28, 1952, by his employer Cunnan Chetty (the owner of Gem and Co). The next day a headless body was discovered in a third-class compartment of the Chennai-Dhanushkodi (Indo-Ceylon boat mail) Express. It was found after passengers complained about a foul-smelling trunk when the train was nearing Manamadurai.

Police investigating the complaint, opened the trunk and found the headless body. An autopsy done at Manamadurai concluded that the body belonged to a 25-year-old male. Since it was circumcised, the investigating police officer K.Khaja Syed Mohideen decided that the murder victim was a Muslim. After a few days, police discovered a severed head on Royapuram beach, Chennai. It had been buried in the beach sand but was exposed due to tidal action. The head and body were sent to Madras Medical College for forensic examination. Dr C. P. Gopalakrishnan, who performed the examination concluded that both belonged to the same 42-year-old male. Alavandar's wife later identified them as her husband. Alavandar had served in the British Indian army and his fingerprints were on file there. They were used to conclusively prove that the murdered man was Alavandar.

He was romantically involved with many women. One of them was Devaki Menon from Kerala. In 1951, Devaki broke off her relationship with Alavandar and married Prabhakara Menon. But Alavandar continued to harass her, and hence Devaki and Prabhakaran decided to murder Alavandar. Devaki called Alavandar to her house at the cemetery road on August 28, 1952. There the couple cut his head off and buried it at Royapuram beach in Chennai. They put the body in a trunk and left it in the Indo-Ceylon Express. Then they left Chennai for Bombay.

The couple was arrested in Bombay and brought to Chennai for trial. The trial caused a sensation and large crowds thronged the hearings. Lawyer B. T. Sundararajan, appearing for the defence, argued that it was a homicide and not murder as there had been "grave provocation". The jury found the defendants Devaki and Prabhakaran guilty. On August 13, 1953, Justice A. S. Panchapakesa Iyer in the appeal, awarded a seven-year rigorous imprisonment sentence to Prabhakaran for culpable homicide and sentenced Devaki to three years in prison. They ran a hotel in Palakkad after the case.

Pending a good load of arrears of work in the business of the High Court,
Koman was elevated as Additional Judge of the High Court by the Madras Governor in consultation with Chief Justice Sir Alfred Henry Lionel Leach. As the Chief Justice went on furlough for three weeks, the oath of office was administered to Koman by Acting Chief Justice Sydney Wadsworth I.C.S. on 7 September 1945. Dressed in scarlet robes Koman was sworn in before a gathering of Judges and Advocates assembled in the Second Court hall of the Madras High Court.

The catena of judicial findings reported in Madras Law Journal 1945 — 1946, Madras Law Weekly vol.58, Criminal Law Journal volume 46, and Indian Cases volumes 216 - 221 provide incriminating evidence of Koman's ruling. After a very brief stint as Judge of the Madras High Court for almost five months, Koman was deputed by the Chief Justice to preside over the High Court of the Sessions to hear sessions matters from 23 January1946 till his retirement from office on 31 August1958. 

He left behind him an unequalled reputation of legal erudition remarkable and quite different from the pen of a prosaic and crabbed member of the Indian Civil Service. He proved to be an incomparable chief in the High Court of the Madras Sessions. Long years of experience as a veteran judicial officer at Chengalpet District and Sessions Court resulted in the stewardship of Madras High Court Sessions falling into his hands.

A keen interest in law induced Koman to take pleasure in the discussion of criminal cases. His judgments may lack the stateliness and dignity of T.Muttuswami lyer's pronouncements, or the subtlety and ratiocination of Sir Bhashyam lyengar's, although he lacked the extraordinary patience and insight of Justice Sadasiva Iyer in his appreciation of facts, Koman's judgments were instinctively sound and marked by the accuracy of thought and diction. With refreshing originality and a vivifying spirit, he brought to bear the discussion of well-worn legal intricacies. With a quick grasp of facts and a sure grip of the law, Koman's single bench pronouncement in the Alavandar murder trial remains a landmark in judicial precedents.

In the conduct of the trial, he was assisted by  Prosecutor Govind Swaminathan and by V.L. Ethiraj. Govind was the son of lawyer Subbarama Swaminathan, Tamil brahmin, and his Nair wife Ammu Swaminathan. He was the oldest of three siblings, the others being Lakshmi Sehgal or Captain Lakshmi and Mrinalini Sarabhai. He had his education at Madras and Oxford and qualified as a barrister from the Inner Temple in 1935.

Of the galaxy of Malayali judges who sat on the Bench of the Madras High Court in Colonial times were Justice Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair ( 1907 — 1915),  Sir Chettur Madavan Nair (1924 — 1939), Sir Mannath Krishan Nair,  C.Krishnan Nair (1920 —1927), Justice C.Kunhi Raman (1943 — 1948) and Balachandra Koman (1945 — 1946) and  A.S. Panchapakesa Ayyar (1948-1959). They revealed their glory and proficiency through the columns of the Madras Law Journal. 

Of these half a dozen Malayali Judges, Koman and A S P Iyer were the only ones with an I.C.S credential. Justice Koman sat with such eminent jurists as Sir Alfred Henry Lionel Leach, Sydney Wadsworth, L.C. Horwill, and M. Patanjali Sastri, and in Koman's death in 1968 it was felt that one more ring in the attenuated chain of the old order of the Madras Bench got snapped.

Koman was from Kannur and Kannur's Malikayil Chandappan family was then settled in Madras. That all of them could receive higher education from Edinburgh,
Sandhurst, Woolwich, Cambridge and London, before the end of 1920, 

is by themselves remarkable. This and several other examples from Malabar reveal
that even coastal ethnic groups from erstwhile Malabar district could strive to attain dizzy heights through intellectual attainment. They include Rao Bahadur V V Govindan (1869-1931), Asst Director, Fisheries, Madras, Govindan's niece Dr V V Janaki who became South India's first Gynaecologist in Mangaluru in 1905, V V Kunhiraman who was Magistrate in 1905, Rai Sahib P V Gopalan, President of Malabar District Board and later Member, Madras Legislative Council. Gopalan organized relief work and rehabilitation camps for evacuees and victims of Moplah Outbreaks in Ernad Taluk — taking a cue from his wife's uncle Rao Bahadur V.V Govindan who founded Fisheries Technical Schools under the Presidency (1919) P.V. Gopalan set up Elementary Schools in Malabar District known as Labour Schools (1920) to impart basic education to non - caste Hindus who fall outside Madras Education Rules. His uncle P.V.Chinnan was a boat and launch owner and stevedore contractor at the pier and was Customs Superintendent at Port and Shipping Office, Thalassery. It gives a convincing impression of the upward social mobility of the seafaring subaltern class and other backwards classes even as early as in Colonial times. The picture painted by the infamous Swadesabhimani Ramakrishna Pillai in his editorial in 1910 that the backwards are intellectual buffaloes in front of the elite intelligent horses, is blown to smithereens even with the example of Dr Palpu, who was helped in the Madras Medical College by Dr Koman,  Koman's father. Dr Koman, who was a professor there, while Palpu was a student, later became its Vice Principal.

Dr Koman

Despite a plethora of printed hocus — pocus puffing with pride on several British Knighted peers of Malayali origin like Sir C Sankaran Nair, member of the Viceroy's Council, Sir Madhavan Nair, British Privy Counselor, Sir Krishnan Nair, Madras High Court Judge, Sir Parakkat Appu Nair, Barrister at Law, and Sir Karunakaran Menon, Vice Chancellor, Madras University, in showering upon them with numerous accolades while extolling their greatness, Sir Dr M.O Koman, Civil Surgeon, General Hospital, Vice Principal, Madras Medical College, and Assistant Director of Ceremonies, British Freemasons Madras Grand Lodge, has had the most misfortune of yielding himself to interminable amateurism of interpretation. People who only have a nodding acquaintance with the Malikayil Chandappan family at Thayyil in Kannur are prone to denounce this stray remark. No one seems to know of these accomplished individuals because newspapers rarely run profiles on them. Such antagonism comes from the fact that he and his children held a mirror to realities that caste Hindus refuse to acknowledge.

For the fraternity of South Indian historians who indulge in a conspiracy of silence on Sir Koman and his equally illustrious son Justice Koman, Major Koman a product of Sandhurst and daughter Vijayalaksmi Korman of Queen Marys College, seems to appear a collection of interrogatives and a gauntlet of anxiety. Perpetual contempt for Sir Koman and his ilk who hail from a family that predominantly shares with Sir Francis Drake and Prime Minister William Pitt in British history the same resources of a common pool sadly resulted in an irascibly incorrect and slipshod approach.

Chief Justice Lionel Leach

The consolidated list of graduates of the Madras University for 1930 printed from
Thompson Press, Madras in 1934 M. Balachandra Koman's name is found changed to M.Balachandra Krishnan and numbered as 1419 who passed in second class in 1918 with Mental and Moral Science as optional subjects. Reliable sources from the M.O family at Kannur reveal that for some time in his life Balachandra Koman styled himself as Balachandra Krishnan. In the pictorial Who's Who of distinguished personages, princes, Zamindars and Noblemen in the Madras Presidency for the year 1938 published by the Pearl Press, Cochin and edited by T.M Satchit it is found on record under the caption M.C.B Koman BA, BL, ICS that he was District and Sessions Judge Chengalpet.

In the biographical details of Indian Puisne Judges mentioned in the Madras High Court centenary volume, Justice Sir Frederic Gentle is the only Judge to be elevated to the Madras Bench (1936) who was a colleague of  Justice Koman  (1945) at Queens College, Cambridge University. The only other Indian Judge who sat on the Madras High Court (1943) being a member of Queens College, Cambridge is Justice P. Rajagopalan ICS. We learn from Columnist Randor Guy's article that Koman was the Judge who tried the case when it was taken up before Madras High Court Sessions in 1952. It is primarily because the Chief Justice generally nominates one or two Judges for Single and Division Bench to preside over each quarter sessions often held four times a year to try offences committed to it arising from the limits of the city of Madras. The Judge sitting in sessions wore scarlet robes and wore wigs. The Sheriff who presents a pair of white gloves to the presiding Judge wore his ceremonial robes carrying the wand and precedes the Judge during the ceremonial procession towards the place of trial by the Jury. The ceremonial procession was escorted to the trial court by the Chopdar carrying the silver mace with two of the Sheriffs' orderlies carrying javelins. 

Although at present Additional Judges of the High Courts invariably have an enforceable right to challenge their non-appointment as permanent Judges should such vacancies in the permanent cadre arise, Koman's alleged reversal cannot be seen as a probationary sent out of office pending completion. It is because there was no Constitution under the Crown, to question or challenge a non-existing entity. Secondly, Koman's alleged reversal was worked out in such a way that no complaint whatsoever could be entertained by philandering Koman.

Koman  had in his possession two automobiles - Studebaker Avanti chassis
No. MSZ 6018 and Buick Riveria of the 1960 model of cars.

Being a chronic bachelor Koman's scandalous affair with an Iyengar lady, the daughter of India's then Governor General C Rajagopalachari, who once eloped with him was the talk of the town in closed quarters. It came in handy to his enemies to connect Koman's amorous affair with his alleged reversal. They said it resulted in his promotion being withheld; Koman was thus constrained to the defunct position of paralysis as Chengalpet District Judge instead of attaining celebrity status as becoming the official of the I.C.S. cadre. Instead, the elevation of Koman as Justice of the Madras High Court has to be seen as a logical culmination of a phenomenally successful academic pursuit.

M.C.B. Koman, during his short tenure in office as Additional Judge of the Madras High Court, delivered no less than eight Single Bench and 19 Division Bench rulings. 

When the Travancore-Cochin assembly in 1955-1956 passed a resolution condemning police high-handedness on Maharajas College students from the Rajendra Maidan (which police action was wrongfully justified by Congress Chief Minister Panampilly Govinda Menon thus leading to his government's dismissal) it resulted in instituting an impartial Commission of Enquiry into the alleged incident by any sitting Judge other than that of Travancore or Cochin High Courts. Hence by a special Notification issued by Cochin State Government, Justice Koman was appointed a Single Member Commission of Enquiry to look into allegations levelled against former Education Minister Panampilly Govinda Menon and allied matters. Menon was education Minister under Chief Minister Parur T K Narayana Pillai during 1948- 1949. Koman's conduct of public enquiry without fear or favour was most scrupulous that he was applauded both by the press and the parlour alike.

Chief Justice Frederic Gentle who resigned

There is a widespread misconception that ICS was conferred upon Koman and he did not compete for the exam from London. This is a gross misconception and error inadvertent because the question of conferment arose only after 1950 when  India became a republic. M.K. Vellodi then working with Binny and Company in Madras was the first one conferred with an ICS after 1950. Vellodi was conferred ICS, along with V Ramakrishna, T Bhaskara Rao Naidu and Mohammad Shahabudin at the instance of the Justice Party to counteract the alleged prominence of the Brahmins in superior services. Koman was a product of Queens College in London like his sister Miss V. Koman of London University and another brother Major S. Koman, a product of Sandhurst.

When Justice P.S. Sivaswami Aiyar in his Reminiscences of the Madras Bar (1924 MLJ 14) states that "Sir Arthur Collins the Chief Justice was once presiding our the sessions court when Mr Johnston was addressing the Jury," shuttle of associations start flying to 1948 MLJ 26, wherein it is found endorsed that "Justice Sir Frederic William Gentle who retired the same year was a Judge who sat on the original side of Madras High Court before his transfer to Chartered High Court at Fort Williams in Bengal". As it is only apposite and appropriate to advert to the observation made by Randor Guy in his Madras Musings afore cited, Justice M.C.B. Koman's deputation to High Court Sessions soon after his elevation to the Madras Bench attains celebrity status. In the unique case with Justice L.C.Horwill I.C.S. who was a judge of the Madras High Court from 20 July 1936 till 4 December 1936 for exactly 4 1/2 months so was the case with Justice Koman I.C.S. who was Judge of the Madras High Court for exactly 4 1/2 months. Despite a plethora of printed hocus -pocus puffing with pride belittling Koman as the only judge who sat on the Bench of the High Court for only just a few months, nothing would be more accurate and precise than drawing this analogy. A report in 1943 MLJ 45 of an unconventional appointment of a District and Sessions Judge who belongs to the permanent service as Advocate General in Sindh as to violate the very spirit of the Government of India Act of 1935 and the conventions attached to that esteemed office, may be cited in this context to show that anomalies and official follies do sometimes creep into the Judicial Department in India considering Justice Koman's alleged reversal in 1956.

Of the only five Indians of the I.C.S. cadre who sat on the Bench of the Madras High Court, the order of precedence was: Justice V.Pandurang Row I.C.S. (1933), Justice M.Shahabuddin I.C.S. (1943), Justice M.C. Balachandra Koman I.C.S.(1945), Justice A.S.Panchapakesa Ayyar I.C.S.(1948) and Justice P.V. Balakrishna Aiyar; I.C.S. (1949). In a suit (Rama Reddi Vs Seshamma dated 22 January 1946) filed against a Hindu widow on a promissory note executed by her in the renewal of a prior promissory note executed by her late husband, Justice Koman ruled that as the debt was originally incurred by her late husband, and as his estate subsequently fell into her hands it is perfectly valid to pass an order against husband's estate. Similarly, at the time of Koman's retirement in 1958, K.Subba Rao who had the privilege of appearing before him earlier on behalf of the Appellants in January 1946 at Madras had become Judge designate at the Supreme Court of India.

Rajagopalachari, Governor General

If Rajah Sir S. Ramaswami Mudaliyar's name can be clogged to Kottapuram Women and Children Hospital built in 1903 for the only reason of erecting the Hospital on his land, then the New Head Quarters Hospital (presently Beach Hospital) built at Munnalingal in 1951 can justifiably be named after another Knighted peer Sir Dr M.C.Koman, on whose land this building stands. It is learnt from reliable sources that M.C. Andi, retired Revenue Inspector and his cousin M.C.B.Koman I.C.S. relinquished and freely surrendered 71/2 acres of coconut garden land called Mukkuvathodi to the Madras Government without receiving any consideration thereof. Not only is this genuine act of munificence obliterated, but several are privy to many a snide remark attributing ownership of this building site to Dr Mugha Seth.

When Indians were allowed to enter Indian Civil Service — this service,- called heaven-born service where heaven being some pale shadow of Whitehall —became the Elysium of English educated class. A notable feature of the I.C.S. training is that riding used to be compulsory. Shadilal the Chief Justice of Punjab High Court was an I.C.S. candidate in 1902 who came out with flying colours in the written test and interview but was disqualified purely on the ground he failed in riding. This would go not a long way in showing that the riding examination in the I.C.S. was a test of one's skill in trotting, cantering, galloping and jumping over a fence. Riding instils a sense of self-confidence and fearlessness, for a man who could control a horse would also know how to control a mob. In1921 there were four Indians and four Englishmen of the I.C.S. cadre posted to the Madras Presidency. M. C. B. Koman appeared for the test at the Cavalry School at Woolwich in London. 

Normally during the 3rd and 5th year of service of I.C.S. men were generally recruited to the Political Department of the Government of India. These officers were also largely employed in the Foreign and Political Department of the Government of India directly placed under the Chief Secretary, controlled by British Residents or Political Agents. In 1924 a Royal Commission headed by Lord Lee came to India and recommended that 25 per cent of superior Indian Civil Service be Indianised. Though Justice Koman possessed two automobiles — Studebaker and a Buick it is worthy of mention that in those days, only Governors, Army Commanders and High Court Judges were the only persons allowed to use cars.

Madras lost one of the historical traditions of the legal system in 1955 — the High Court of Sessions, where cases of murder, dacoity and rape would be heard was abolished.

M.C.B. Koman undoubtedly showcased an intoxicating aura of grandiosity. That he had an affair with the Governor General's daughter may have naturally offended the conservatism of the society. But again, Koman, the first ICS from a Kerala backward family still languishing in the dark alleys of history, is a testament to the backwardness of our so-called progressive society, where intellectual hooligans like Swadesabhimani Ramakrishna Pillai, still survive as statues, making statutes.

© Ramachandran 

TEMPLE GOLD CAN'T BE TOUCHED

Congress Back Again to Loot Temple Gold

Former Congress chief minister of Maharashtra  Prithviraj Chavan’s suggestion that the government should borrow gold lying with religious trusts in the country in the wake of financial crunch amid Covid-19 pandemic has stirred controversy as several organisations and temple trusts have strongly opposed the idea.

Many blamed Chavan for targeting only Hindu trusts.

Chavan had, on Wednesday, tweeted, “Government must immediately appropriate all the gold lying with all the religious trusts in the country, worth at least $1trillion, according to the #WorldGoldCouncil. The gold can be borrowed through gold bonds at a low-interest rate. This is an emergency.” 

He said that it can be borrowed at the interest rate of 1-2% in the form of a loan. However, some did not like the idea.

Chavan on Thursday said that his idea was not a new one and that the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government had actually introduced the gold monetisation schemes. “The Vajpayee government in 1999 introduced the gold deposit scheme (GDS) as an aftermath of economic sanctions after May 1998 Pokharan Atomic tests. The scheme was targeted at individuals and institutions asking them to deposit gold in the banks. On November 5, 2015, PM Narendra Modi’s government modified the GDS and introduced the gold monetisation scheme which still exists. According to a finance ministry report, 20,547 kg of gold has been mobilised by 2,952 entities between November 2015 and January 2020 under the scheme. Two temples from Maharashtra have deposited their gold with 11 banks,” he said. 

There was a move by the Congress to take over the gold held by the temples,in 2013,while Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister.The idea to  take over the gold held by major temples in India—from Tirupati to Shirdi to Siddhivinayak to Padmanabhaswamy,then came straight from the horse’s mouth, from a person named Jamal Mecklai, an advisor to the RBI:

“The finance minister and RBI governor should jointly — and immediately — approach the trustees of TirumalaTirupatiDevasthanams (TTD),” said Jamal Mecklai, chief executive of Mecklai Financial. “Three of these (trustees) are state government appointees, and given the current political dispensation this is a distinct advantage, “he had said.

Jamal Mecklai’s statement then and Prithviraj Chavan’s statement now only underscores the urgency of the need to liberate Hindu temples from the stranglehold of state control. It is one thing that most state-controlled Hindu temples are in appalling shape. Indeed,both individuals and organizations have been tirelessly campaigning for temple liberation for decades. Now their worst fears have horribly come true—that the state can and will loot or otherwise tread roughshod on Hindu temples. Jamal—who is a Muslim—didn’t recommend the state to approach mosques and churches for the purpose. The Church is one of the biggest landowners in India, and Waqf boards own enormous expanses of land.  

Others have argued that all idle gold is useless and that “true wealth is made every day by men getting up out of bed and going to work. By school children doing their lessons, improving their minds.” And based on this reasoning, recommended the Padmanabha Swamy temple trustees to “use their vaults as a reserve to back a new, well-managed currency.” This sounds like a perfectly sensible argument except that it misses two crucial points: one, it lacks both the historical and cultural sense of what temple gold/wealth actually implies, and two, ignores the venality of the Congress party and the governments it has led so far.  

Temples used to be built by kings or communities or guilds or individuals. Temples that were built by kings were managed directly by the king. In case of pre-existing temples, the king would allow the management to run as before and in some cases, would make land grants and donations. Almost every temple of known and unknown antiquity has elaborate inscriptions that describe how the management of the temple was structured.

Temples that were built by private people were managed by a group of people—akin to a board of trustees in today’s parlance—known as sthanikas. These sthanikas were typically locals (hence the name sthanikas, meaning people from a sthana or locality) and were drawn from all the four varnas. Decisions on major and minor matters were taken collectively.

Temple management was further subdivided into two vargasor classes:

The Archakavarga—the body of priests who performed pujas and other rituals.
The Paricharikavarga—the staff who were in charge of cleaning the temple, supplying essential commodities, maintaining the temple, and such other tasks.

Both these classes were accountable to the sthanikas and stood the risk of punishment for any wrongdoing. While the Archakavarga received a salary and some emoluments in kind, the paricharikavargawas provided with arable land, clothes, food grain, a part of the collection of temple funds, and an annual sum of cash (like a bonus).

In fact, a temple was not just a place of worship but was a force that sustained an intricate economic system. Every temple had—apart from its daily puja—specific pujas unique to it. Every such puja mandated the use of prescribed amounts dravya or material—for example, specific quantities of camphor, incense, flowers, milk, sugar, jaggery, spices, prasadam (offering), artwork like rangoli, and so on.The same applied to more elaborate rituals like havans and yagnas. This system directly helped sustain the livelihood of hundreds of people engaged in various occupations, businesses, and skills.

We can also discern this temple economy in two other ways:

Graamashritaaalaya: This literally means “a temple which is sustained by the village/town.”In this case, the entire village or town contributed to the protection, maintenance and preservation of the temple.

Aalyaashritagrama: This means “a village/town which is sustained by the temple.” Classic examples of this include most temple towns in South India, where the entire village/town is sustained by the temple.

The wealth of Hindu temples was divided into sthirasti and devasva. Sthirasti means all the lands and physical structures like temple buildings, wedding halls, tanks and so on that belong to the temple.

Devasva literally means that which “belongs to God.” And it is this which concerns us in this context. Devasva includes things like jewellery, gold, diamonds, and other precious metals which are offered to the God of a particular temple.This forms part of what the dharma of daana (charity or offering) about which a wealth of treatises exists.All those millions of Hindus who make such offerings to temples even today unconsciously follow this dharma. And once this offering is made, nobody has the right to touch it much less alter or sell it for whatever reason—nobody, not even the temple to which the offering has been made can touch it. At best these temples are merely custodians of the offering.

The best illustration of this principle can be had in the very temple whose gold the venal Congress Government  eyed—Tirupati. The Venkateshwara temple at Tirumala continues to abide by a timeless tradition, which says that once any offering goes into its hundi, it belongs to the Lord and cannot be reclaimed by the donor himself. There is in Tirumala, another deity named “Koluvu Srinivasa,”regarded as the presiding officer of the entire temple and all affairs associated with it.

The role of Hindu temples as mere custodians of the gold and jewelry made as offerings has deeper roots. As custodians, they do not have the right to alter or sell this because it does not belong to them. In another sense, temples also act as the trustees of the devotion of the people who make these offerings to God.The offering is merely an outward symbol. The devotion is real. And it is of this that temples are the trustees.

And so, the planned temple heist emanating from the rotten core of the depraved Congress psyche is actually the theft of the devotion and trust of nearly a billion Hindus. Temples like Tirumala remain the custodians of offerings dating back to hundreds of years. Almost every major and minor king has made offerings to such shrines—an act indicating that his wealth and kingdom are subordinate at the altar of pure devotion.Thus, there is something deeply troubling and infinitely evil about a mind-set that wants to grab the money of such people, of the devout that are long dead. This then is the real theft planned by the Congress.

At the close of every night, the temple priests and staff give an account of the offerings they have collected that day and close the accounts for the day in his presence. More importantly, this ritual has remained intact till date, even after the lapse of several centuries.Indeed, the same or similar ritual applies in varying degrees for example, to Kashi where Kala Bhairava (Shiva) is known as the Kotwal of the city. Indeed, the word “kotwal” is a corruption of the Sanskrit Kshetrapala, meaning the policeman of the city.These rituals symbolize a lot.

The Italy led Congress  lust for Hindu temple gold also has other sinister implications. It aims to kill two birds with one stone: grabbing temple wealth will automatically stop Hindus from donating to temples, which in turn will eventually lead to the destruction of the temple culture. And by implication, this destruction will also lead to the death of one of the defining hallmarks of Hindu culture and society.

The Congress party has always been both the originator and the loudest drumbeater of secularism. And so the question remains: who or what gives the moral right to a secular party or government to interfere in the affairs of a religious institution? And if it is somehow endowed with this moral right, why doesn’t it extend its interference to other religions?

Two things should serve as a warning to the Congress  that has embarked on this dangerous adventure.

The first is history. Sri Harsha who ruled Kashmir in the 11th Century CE was infamous for looting temple wealth. The 7th Taranga of Kalhana’s Rajatarangini describes how the people of Kashmir reached the end of their tolerance with Harsha and beat him to death. And Harsha ruled for 22 years.

Coin of Harsha

 Rajatarangini gives an interesting account of Harsha( Kalhana's father Champaka was a minister of Harsha. Kalhana wrote during the time of Jayasimha (AD 1127-59).):

He destroyed both Hindu and Buddhist temples, and is credited with creating an office of "devotpaatana-nayaka", destroyer of gods. In Kalhana's time, Buddhism was flourishing in Kashmir, and was not considered a distinct religion from "Hinduism". He refers to Buddhists' idols just like Brahmnaical ones. Kalhana was very familiar with Buddhism, and mentions Buddhist concepts accurately. Buddhism appears to have survived in Kashmir for a long time. It has been suggested that somewhere at Baramulla a Buddhist monk was present until the 14th century. Abul-Fazl, author of Ain-e-Akabari was able to locate Buddhists in Kashmir.

From Taranaga (chapter) VII of Rajatarangini (Stein's translation):

1128: Other parasites plundered him by showing an old woman and saying: "There, we have brought your mother Bappika from heaven".

1129: Others brought slave girls before him and said they were goddesses. He worshipped them, and abandoning his exalted position and wealth was laughed at by people.

1148: He had carnal intercourse with his sisters, and angered by a harsh word he punished and violated Naga, the daughter of his father's sister.

It has been suggested that he had been influenced by Turushkas:

1149: While continually supporting the Turushka captains-of-hundreds with money, this perverse-minded [king] ate domesticated pigs until his death.

Here Kalhana appears be to stating that Harsha did not even follow the religion of the people he was favoring. He however does call Harsha "that Turushka":

1095. There was not one temple in a village, town or in the city which was not despoiled of its images by that turushka, king Harsha.

1096. Only two chief divine images were respected by him, the illustrious Ranaswamin in the City, and Martanda [among the images]in townships.

1097-97. Among colossal images, two statues of Buddha were saved through requests addressed by chance to the king at a time when he was free with his favors, namely the one a Parihasapura by the singer Kanaka, who was born there and other in the City by Sramana (monk) Kusalsri.

The second concerns a warning in verse concerning charity.

Swadattaamparadattaamvaayoharetavasundhara|
Shashtisahasravarshaanivishtaajjayatekrimih||

He who usurps or snatches the charity (grant, gift, donation, land) whether that charity was made by himself or by others, will suffer for 60,000 years as a worm in the gutter.

This verse was compulsorily inscribed on every dhana shasana (inscription found on land/temple grants), and can still be found on the walls or stone inscriptions of old Hindu temples and similar structures of antiquity.

(  Courtesy:Sandeep Balakrishna,Director and Chief Editor, India Facts Research Centre, the author of Tipu Sultan: the Tyrant of Mysore.)

THE WOMAN WHO SHOT LENIN

Questions on the Real Culprit Remains

Russia closed Lenin’s tomb at Red Square to the public in March,2020 due to the coronavirus scare.His 15o birth day fell on 22 April-Russian communists, led by Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov, defied the coronavirus lockdown and marched to Vladimir Lenin’s tomb.The parade, which was attended by dozens of people, marched through Moscow’s Red Square to lay flowers on Lenin’s mausoleum.A policeman said that the Communist Party had received special permission to organise the event.Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the Nationalist Liberal Democratic Party head, called for the arrest of those who participated in the parade.
On the 150 Year of Lenin's birth,I feel the first assasssination attempt on him should be revisited.It was a woman who shot him,and she was not a reactionary.

Fanny Kaplan had actually drawn a life sentence for trying the same trick on a tsarist official 12 years before, so you couldn’t say she was a reactionary element.

No, she was a member of the peasant-based Socialist Revolutionary Party, the SRs — the Bolsheviks’ onetime coalition partners who had splintered into left and right factions, the latter being shut out of power when the Constituent Assembly was dismantled by the dictator,Lenin.

A peasant herself, Kaplan was incensed at the Bolshevik power grab and shot Lenin twice at close range as he left a factory on 30 August 1918.

Taken immediately, Kaplan clammed up in interrogation.

My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot at Lenin. I did it on my own. I will not say whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the Revolution. I was exiled to Akatoi for participating in an assassination attempt against a Tsarist official in Kiev. I spent eleven years at hard labour. After the Revolution I was freed. I favoured the Constituent Assembly and am still for it.

Even Rosa Luxemburg had called Lenin a betrayer of revolution in 1917 itself.

Realizing there was no information to be had from her, the Cheka had her executed four days after her crime — an affair organized by Yakov Sverdlov, the same guy who had recently disposed of the tsar.

On the same day Kaplan took her shots at Lenin, Bolshevik and Chief of the secret police,Cheka of Petrograd,Moisei Uritsky was  assassinated,by Leonid Kannegisser, a military cadet, who was executed shortly afterwards.The two murders helped justify the Red Terror officially initiated on September 2 — which saw thousands of politically-motivated arrests and executions as the Bolsheviks consolidated their hold on power.

Kaplan viewed Lenin as a "traitor to the revolution" when the Bolsheviks banned her party. On 30 August 1918, she approached Lenin as he was leaving a Moscow factory, and fired three shots, badly injuring him. She was shot on 3 September. The Kaplan attempt and the Moisei Uritsky assassination provoked the Soviet government to reinstitute the death penalty after its abolition on October 28th, 1917.

Relatively little is known for certain about Kaplan's (1890 –  1918 )  background. She was born into an Ukranian Jewish family, as one of seven children. There has been confusion about her full name. Vera Figner (in her memoirs, At Women's Katorga), stated that Kaplan's original name was Feiga Khaimovna Roytblat-Kaplan. However, other sources have stated that her original family name was Roytman  – corresponding to the common German/Yiddish surname Reutemann. She was also sometimes known by the given name Dora.

She became a political revolutionary at an early age and joined a socialist group, the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs). In 1906, when she was 16 years old, Kaplan was arrested in Kiev over her involvement in a terrorist bomb plot, and committed for life to the katorga (a hard-labor prison camp).

She was instructed to assassinate the young governor of Kiev, however she never managed to do this because the bomb went off in her room before the attack almost killing her.

 She served in the Maltsev and Akatuy prisons of Nerchinsk katorga, Siberia, where she lost her sight (partially restored later). She was kept in the Maltzevskaya prison, where she was severely caned on her bare body as disciplinary corporal punishment. Fully undressed corporal punishment was not usual for political prisoners at that time. She was released on March 3, 1917, after the February Revolution overthrew the imperial government. As a result of her imprisonment, Kaplan suffered from continuous headaches and periods of blindness.

When released Kaplan moved to Moscow and later worked as a training specialist in Crimea, where she met Lenin's brother Dmitry. They were in a good relationship and it must have been a shock for him to find out later that a good friend of his was declared terrorist.

Depiction of the assassination attempt

Kaplan became disillusioned with Lenin some time around 1917, as a result of conflict between the SRs and Bolsheviks.The Bolsheviks had strong support in the soviets; however, in elections to a competing body, the Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviks failed to win a majority in the November 1917 elections and a Socialist Revolutionary was elected president in January 1918. The Bolsheviks, favoring soviets, ordered the Constituent Assembly to be dissolved. By August 1918 conflicts between the Bolsheviks and their political opponents had led to the banning of most other influential parties - most recently, of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries (Left SRs), who had been the Bolsheviks' principal coalition partner for some time, but had organized the Left SR uprising in July because of their opposition to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Kaplan decided to assassinate Lenin because she considered him "a traitor to the Revolution".

Lenin had become a power hungry dictator,as he had shwn by dissolving the democratically elected constituent assembly after the so called October revolution.

On 30 August 1918, Lenin spoke at the Hammer and Sickle, an arms factory in south Moscow.As Lenin left the building and before he entered his car, Kaplan called out to him. When Lenin turned towards her, she fired three shots with a Browning pistol. One bullet passed through Lenin's coat, the other two struck him: one passing through his neck, puncturing part of his left lung, and stopping near his right collarbone; the other lodging in his left shoulder.

Lenin was taken back to his living quarters at the Kremlin. He feared there might be other plotters planning to kill him and refused to leave the security of the Kremlin to seek medical attention.Dictators are cowards-In the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel,The Autumn of the Patriarch,the dictator can be seen using his own dupe to find the enemies!

Doctors were brought in to treat him but were unable to remove the bullets outside of a hospital. Despite the severity of his injuries, Lenin survived. However, Lenin's health never fully recovered from the attack and it is believed the shooting contributed to the strokes that incapacitated and eventually killed him in 1924.

Fanny was executed in Alexander Garden, with a bullet to the back of the head. Her corpse was bundled into a barrel, and set alight. The order came from Yakov Sverdlov who, just six weeks before, had ordered the execution of the tsar and his family.

Uritsky

Some historians such as Arkady Vaksberg and Donald Rayfield have questioned the actual role of Kaplan in the assassination attempt. Vaksberg states that Lidia Konopleva, another SR, was the culprit, believing it would be all too comforting that Lenin narrowly avoided being assassinated by a woman whose personality is so far from the stereotype of a national hero. In particular, it is suggested that she was working on behalf of others and after her arrest assumed sole responsibility. The main argument put forth in this and other versions is her near-blindness. Another argument points to the contradiction between the official Soviet account (which states that angry workers who witnessed the event immediately seized Kaplan) and official documents, in particular a radiogram by Yakov Peters, which mentions the arrest of several suspects.

In the official announcement of the assassination attempt, Kaplan was declared a Right Eser (Right SR). Moisei Uritsky, People's Commissar for Internal Affairs in the Northern Region and head of the Cheka in Petrograd, had been assassinated nearly two weeks prior to the attack on Lenin.

While the Cheka did not find any evidence linking the two events, their co-occurrence appeared significant in the overall context of the intensifying civil war. The Bolshevik reaction was an abrupt escalation in the persecution of their opponents.

Moisei Uritsky  studied law at the University of Kiev. During his studies he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and organized an underground network for importing and distributing political literature. In 1897 he was arrested and exiled for running an illegal mimeograph press. Becoming involved in the revolutionary movement, he participated in the revolutionary Jewish Bund. In 1903, he became a Menshevik. His activities in Petersburg during the 1905 revolution earned him a second term of exile. Along with Alexander Parvus he was active in dispatching revolutionary agents to infiltrate the Tsarist security apparatus.

In 1914 he emigrated to France and contributed to the Party newspaper Our Word. Back in Russia in 1917 Uritsky became a member of the Mezhraiontsy group. A few months before the October Revolution of 1917, he joined the Bolsheviks and was elected to their Central Committee in July 1917. Uritsky played a leading part in the Bolsheviks' armed take-over in October and later was made head of the Petrograd Cheka. In this position Uritsky coordinated the pursuit and prosecution of members of the nobility, military officers and ranking Russian Orthodox Church clerics who opposed the Bolsheviks.

Leonid Kannegisser, poet and a young military cadet of the Imperial Russian Army, assassinated Uritsky on August 17, 1918, outside the Petrograd Cheka headquarters in retaliation for the execution of his friend and other officers.Following this event, along with the assassination attempt on Lenin by Fanny Kaplan on August 30, the Bolsheviks began a wave of persecution known as the Red Terror. Palace Square in Petrograd was known as Uritsky Square from 1918 to 1944.

Leonid Kannegisser

Fanny was trained by  Semenov. The group planned actions against Bolshevik leaders, namely Trotsky and Lenin, and as Semenov wrote in his memoirs, he considered Fanny the best candidate for carrying out the attack. However, why would he entrust Lenin's assassination to this near-blind girl with no experience in attacks at all? Everybody knew that Semenov considered male workers the best candidates.

There is yet another thing proving that Semenov wasn't sincere writing about Kaplan in his memoirs. The first two attempts to kill Lenin were made by terrorists Usov and Kozlov, but both attempts failed. Kaplan was mainly involved in other activities, such as tracing Lenin.

So who made the third attempt? Witnesses said it was a woman. It might have been Lidia Konopleva, a school teacher in the past and the organizer of crimes against two leading Bolshevik leaders Uritsky and Volodarsky. She was a brilliant shooter and she was the first to put forward the question of Lenin's assassination. However, in his memoirs Semenov wrote that it was exactly Kaplan who shot at Lenin. Interestingly, in 1920 Semenov was no longer an aggressive anti-Bolshevik and even joined the Communist party. By that time for people living in the Soviet Union Kaplan was a counterrevolutionary who put the “heart of revolution” under threat. And that was it.

Of course it is possible that Konopleva was arrested before August 30th and Fanny was instructed to shoot Lenin. Could that really be Kaplan however? None of the records say Kaplan ever used a gun before or exercised in shooting (Semenov would surely write about it in his memoirs). Her eyesight was as bad as before and it would be extremely difficult for her to make two shots, she would need glasses at least. None of the witnesses said she had glasses on when they saw her not far from the crime scene. But they said she had an umbrella and a small suitcase with her, which is rather strange, because these two items would definitely make her escape far more difficult. When Lenin left the factory it was about 10pm and it was getting dark. How could she having such a bad eyesight see anything in the dark?

Fanny Kaplan

Another thing is the testimony of Lenin's driver. When questioned on August 30th Gil,the driver didn't say anything about what the woman looked like. Many years later, when the Party decided to publish his memoirs he said the woman looked exactly like Kaplan (this was later included in the official version). He also said that Lenin didn't want to go to hospital but was taken home with the injury, and refusing help he got off the car and walked up the stairs to his appartment with two shots in his body.

In a couple of hours the Party announced that two people had been arrested. One of them, Alexander Prototipov was soon executed without any investigation. The second person arrested was Fanny Kaplan. The police officer who arrested her wasn't sure where exactly he did that. On August 30th he said he arrested her near the factory, but a week later it turned out that he arrested her on the Serpukhovka street.

An official decree on Red Terror was issued only hours after the Kaplan shooting, calling for all-out struggle against enemies of the revolution. In the next few months, about 800 Right SRs and other political opponents of Bolsheviks were executed. During the first year, the scope of the Red Terror expanded significantly.

The event is portrayed in Reilly, Ace of Spies, a 1983 British TV series. Kaplan has been the subject of or character in several plays including (Fanny Kaplan by Venedikt Yerofeyev; Kill me, o my beloved! by Elena Isaeva) and books (Europe Central by William T. Vollmann).

Leonid Kannegisser was also an Ukraine jew.

His father, Akim (Joachim) Kannegisser, was a mechanical engineer and the head of Russia's largest shipyards, the Black Sea Shipyard, and his mother was a doctor. Kannegisser graduated from a private school and in 1913 became a military cadet in the Mikhailov Artillery School of the Imperial Russian Army. Kannegisser studied economics from 1915 to 1917 at the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute and was a member of Popular Socialists, a moderate left-wing anti-Communist political party. An admirer of Alexander Kerensky, on the night of 25 to 26 October 1917 (Old Style Julian Calendar), during the October Revolution, Kannegisser and several other cadets defended the Provisional Government at the Winter Palace. In 1917 he dedicated a poem to Alexander Kerensky.

On 17 August 1918 around nine o’clock, Kannegisser, wearing a leather jacket and an officers cap, turned up at the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, left his bicycle by the door and entered the building. Uritsky arrived in his car at around ten o’clock, and a few moments later he was fatally shot in his head and body by Kannegisser. After shooting Uritsky, he ran out into the street and tried to escape on his bicycle, riding quickly but was chased by a car. He threw away his bicycle and ran into the British embassy. Kannegisser left the embassy after having donned a longcoat and opened fire on Red Guards but he was arrested.

Kannegisser was tortured. He declared that he had acted alone and was executed shortly afterwards in Petrograd. Following his arrest, the Bolshevik authorities also arrested several members of his family and friends. After being released, his parents emigrated to Warsaw, where they died.

Kannegisser was part of a clandestine anti-Bolshevik group led by his cousin, Maximilian Filonenko, who had close links with Boris Savinkov, who gave the order to assassinate Uritsky. Viktor Pereltsveig, an army officer lover (Kannegisser was homosexual), was executed with a group of officers by the Cheka in the summer of 1918. Kannegisser decided to take revenge by killing Uritsky, who had signed the execution orders.

From childhood Kannegisser had written poetry and was a friend of Sergei Yesenin. He hosted in his house many literary meetings, where Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelshtam and others presented their poetry. A decade after Kannegiesser’s execution his poems were posthumously published by Mark Aldanov in Paris in 1928. A major part of Kannegisser's literary heritage is preserved in the closed files of the Central Government Archives of Literature and Art in Moscow.

MAPPILA RIOTS AND COMMUNIST DISTORTION OF HISTORY

The Soviet Role in Red Jihad

During the Great Purges of 1937-1938, Stalin had two Indians lined up against the wall and shot. One was Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, younger brother of Sarojini Naidu. He was a brilliant revolutionary, and a rival of M N Roy, one of the founders of the Indian Communist Party in Tashkent, which the CPM recognizes and the CPI doesn't. Virendranath, popularly known as Chatto, was executed by Stalin's police on September 2, 1937. He was the hero of Somerset Maugham's short story ‘Giulia Lazzari’. 

The second Indian to be killed was Abani Mukherji, who joined the Soviet Communist Party in 1918. He was a founder of the Indian Communist Party along with Roy. The party was formed using vulnerable muhajirs from India, who were on their way for a jihad in Turkey. The Ottoman sultan had been removed by the British at the end of World War I. The Muhajirs were trained in a military school set up by the Soviet Union in Tashkent. Mukherji was given charge of the school. Roy, together with Mukherji, concluded that the Turkey jihad was class war. No wonder, Mukherji, in his document on the Mappila riots of Malabar, prepared for Lenin, interpreted it as a class war between Hindu lords and Muslim peasants. 

This document, prepared in October 1921, was read by Lenin and handed over to his chief ideologue, and politburo member Nikolai Bukharin on November 14 with a note. The document was subsequently published in the German and French journals of the Communist International and was translated from the German Die Internationale by Eden and Cedar Paul and published in the March 22 issue of the journal of the British Communist Party, The Communist Review. While researching on Mukherji’s political life, I found the article in the Marx Memorial Library and Workers School, London. 

The existence of the document was never a secret. In fact, Pinarayi Vijayan, hardly an intellectual, observed in an article titled ‘Muslims of Malabar and the Left’: “Lenin had instructed Abani Mukherji, an Indian communist of that period to prepare a pamphlet after collecting all available facts regarding the agrarian issue in India and peasant struggles”.  

Mukherji’s essay was, however, the first Marxist interpretation of the Mappila Riots as  class war, and all leading Marxist historians, including K N Panicker, have subscribed to that view. It is regrettable that Panicker has not even mentioned the name of Mukherji in his thesis and book, Against Lord and State: Religion and Peasant Uprisings in Malabar, 1836-1921. If he had seen Mukherji's article and chose to omit it, it is deplorable and if he had not seen it, it is despicable.  

The contention of Mukherji that the Muslims of Malabar coast are the descendants of Arab fighters is unfounded;they are the descendants of the Hindu fishermen who were forcibly converted.There were massive conversions and widespread massacres during the campaigns of Hyderali and Tipu Sultan,if one is to go into the roots of the 1921 Malabar Jihad.Panicker cites the massacre of 34 Hindus on a day in 1921.Sober people never term a massacre a class war.Ofcourse,for Lenin,massacres were class conflicts,if we are to assess the killing of the Tambov peasants in revolt. For Stalin,purges of his enemies including Trotsky were class wars. 

Intellectuals who invested in land are called Bourgeois by Mukherji.There was no other option,and eventually they became the middle class in India,and the backbone of the Party in West Bengal and Kerala.To bracket them with Jenmis is sheer absurdity.The Hindu peasants too were down trodden and hapless.Muslim peasants alone doesn't constitute a class.The multitude of Hindus who were forcibly converted belonged to the working class.The tens of thousands of  ordinary soldiers of the Nair Brigade that was captured,converted or killed were from the working class.Out of 15000 nairs captured by Hyderali and taken to Bednur,only 200 survived.One among them,Velluvakkammaran Nambiar,converted as Ayaz Khan,became the Commander of the forces of Hyderali and his Governor.

A reason must be there for Marxist historians ignoring Mukherji's document. Clearly, the reason is that, Mukherji, while trying to interpret Mappila Riots as class war, also highlights the fanatic content of the rebellion. He observes that the Khilafat movement was coopted and subjugated by the fanatic Muslim clergy. He avows that the mullahs, forgetting the aim of the movement, diverted their rank and file, against their peace-loving Hindu neighbors. The Hindus were given the option," death or Islam". Thus, the Hindus were massacred, forcibly converted and if they refused, were hacked to death. They ransacked the military depot at Malappuram and looted treasury of 40,000 pounds. 

Of course, Mukherji’s narrative has lots of contradictions. He unabashedly compares the Malabar revolt to the peasant uprising in Oudh, proving that Marxists hardly read Marx – In The Annexation of Oude in the 28 May, 1858 issue of The New York Daily Tribune, Marx rightly pointed out that governor general Lord Canning had attached all the property of the peasants in Oudh. Mukherji should have known the difference between jihad and revolution. Maybe, he and the Marxists pushed for a revolutionary jihad – a Red Jihad. 

It is said that the Communists had no role in the Mappila riots.It is not so.In 1921, during the Mappila riot,a communist party was non existent in India.In Kerala a party was formed only in 1936,fifteen years later.What was in existence was the fraudulent N R I party formed by M N Roy in Tashkent.The so called Tashkent party had only 7 members.Two among them were Roy and his then live in partner, U S born Evelyn Trent.Others were Rosa Fitingo,Abani Mukherji,Muhammad Ali Muhammad Shafeeq and M P T Acharya.Rosa was Mukherji's wife.

This happened on 17 October 1920.

The two party members,Ali and Shafeeq were muhajirs,vowed to implement the Turkey jihad.A Soviet military school to train the Indian muhajirs was established at Tashkent with Abani Mukherji as its Chief.Among the 200 Indian muhajirs,only 26 joined the military school.These 26 militarily trained muslims could not go to Turkey; Afghan King Amanulla denied permission to the Soviet Union to smuggle weapons to India,to conduct revolution there.It is assumed that these 26 military experts joined the Mappila riots-the communists thus joined the Mappila force.It is then inevitable that they are committed to distort the history of 1921.Mukherji had two close contacts in Madras-M Singaravelu Chettiar and Dr Manilal.Chettiar presided over the founding conference of the Indian Communist Party in 1925,at Kanpur.

Chettiar,like Roy and Mukherji was a Comintern agent.Sir Cecil Kaye ( 1868-1935 ) who was the Director,Central Intelligence,during the Mappila jihad,wrote in his book,Communism in India ( 1925 ) that M N Roy had a role in the jihad.

Cecil Kaye,in Communism in India 1919-1924,writes:

"The Communist Party ( of India ) wasthe one which Roy had started at Tashkent and taken with him to Moscow.];it consisted of him and those Tashkent students who accompanied hm and who were to receive their final training at the University of Moscow.This was the ' Communist University of the Workers of the East' ,which was established in 1921 with the 'Narkomnatz' ( Peoples Commissariat of Nationalities ) at Moscow.After training,these workers to be utilised in Eastern countries,including India.The ' Commission appointed by the International ' was a sub committee called the Maliburo,whose detailed decision was as follows:

"A Communist group to be formed in Moscow whose work will be to-

1.Prepare propaganda literature in all Idian languages

2.Collect and train Indian revolutionaries and send them to India;

3.Select from Indians,now in Moscow,an emissary to India,who shall-

a.form a communist party in India;

b.establish liaison between between the Third International ,Gandhi and the Khilafat Party;

c.arrange for despatch to Russia of representatives from Gandhi and the Khilafat Party...

" In accordance with the above decisions,Nalini Gupta was selected as the emissary to India,receiving £ 200 for travelling expenses.His instructions were those set out under ( 3 ) above."

In 1920,the Soviet Party was considering the idea to use pan islamism and antagonism of the muslims  towards the British to spread communism in India.Sir David Petrie,the British Intelligence Chief in India after Cecil Kaye,wrote a sequel to Kaye's book,Titled Communism in India 1924-27.In it Petrie writes:

"( M N Roy) meanwhile received an accession of strength by the news of the arrival in India of one of his Moscow students,Shaukat Usmani,who wrote to him in Apri ( 1922 ) from Bombay.Thereafter Roy impudently claimed that his agents in India had been responsible for the Moplah rebellion."

Moulana Hasrat Mohani,who was Chairman of the Communist Party formed by Satyabhakta,justified the Mappila jihad and the conversion of Hindus to Islam.It was Mohani who coined the slogan,Inquilab Zindabad;t was Mohani who wrote the famous poem,'Chupke,Chupke,immortalised by Gulam Ali.

Marxist historians have a pervasive tendency to infer first, distort facts and then theorize. Thus, Fazal Pookkoya Thangal, leader of the Malabar jihad ,who had declared three fatwas against Hindus and hence deported to Arabia, has become an expert in class wars, in the eyes of Marxist historians like K K N Kurup. When jihad becomes class war, fundamentalists become Marxists. 

Mukherji too was a victim. The difference between him and contemporary Marxist historians is that he chose to reveal the truth, not hunting for platitudes. The fanaticism of 1921 is there in the document, making him a renegade. It is better to ignore him. He was not a historian, but a textile technologist, trying to weave Marxist draperies out of abundant absurdity.  

Both Chatto and Mukherji were Bengalis,sidelined by another Bengali,M N Roy.Comintern finally demoted them to the Academy of Sciences in Moscow.They made contact with Lenin's widow Krupskaya,and were killed by Stalin.Mukherji was shot on 26 October,1937.Execution by shooting was reserved for high ranking communists;Hanging was for the mediocre.