Velu Thampi Dalawa - Rebellion Quelled

Rebellion Quelled

Colonel Leger came with Indian troop reinforcements from Madras on 6 February 1809 and camped on the Aramboly pass. The Maharajah who never openly supported the rebellion, now turned against it under the influence of Ummini Thampi, who was a government official and later went on to become the Dalawa of Travancore. Together with the Maharaja's troops, Col. Leger entered Travancore the next morning and attacked the lines of the Nair troops near the Palamcottah fort. The Nair troops were defeated and the Dalawa himself fled to Trivandrum. Having secured entry into Travancore the Maharajas's and British troops now moved into the interior and within a few days the two important forts of Padmanabhapuram and Udayagiri also fell into their hands. Meanwhile at Quilon where the Nair troops were planning yet another final attack heard of the fall of these forts and lost heart and dispersed to their homes. The allied army camped on the outskirts of Trivandrum in Pappanamcode.

Velu Thampi himself fled from Trivandrum to Kilimanoor where he called on the Royal family there. After staying there for the night, he proceeded northwards but was overtaken in the Bhagawati Temple at Mannadi where he was surrounded by the Maharaja's troops. However the Dalawa did not wish to be taken alive. In the temple he asked his younger brother to cut his throat, which request on being refused, he did it himself. Velu Thampi died in the Mannadi Temple. His body was brought back to Trivandrum and gibbeted on the Kannammoola hill.

His brother surrendered and was taken to Quilon and executed there. Velu Thampi's body was taken to Trivandrum and exposed on a gibbet. Velu Thampi's ancestral home was razed to the ground and his relatives after being flogged and banished, were taken to the Maldives when, while at Tuticorin, many of them committed suicide.

Velu Thampi failed militarily against the British Indian Army even though he commanded a well trained army armed with muskets and artillery organized on European military system with 3000 men and 18 guns. Large sections of the warrior Nair caste and the common people supported the Dalawa. At the height of power, Velu Thampi, though a good administrator, was stern and tough, and thus alienated some nobles and officials of the crown. The East India Company entered in a treaty with the Maharaja of Travancore, offering their troops to ward off internal and external threats. Though this meant that the Nair army who had fought for the crown during the Third Mysore war would be disbanded, the Maharaja signed it because the treaty helped him maintain his throne, taking away a threat to his rule from future local rebellions because he could call up the English East India Compan's army to put down civil uprisings. And the Maharajah could save the money needed to maintain a standing army and this was an added incentive to his decision to sign the treaty. This treaty of Subordinate Isolation was used by the East India Company in other princely kingdoms in India.

The Travancore army mainly consisting of Nairs who fought so well in defense of Nedumkotta against Tipu Sultan's army in 1790, was the first native force to defeat a colonial power in Asia - the Dutch East India Company in Travancore-Dutch war. The army consisted of athletic troops who had to pass a very tough selection procedure to join, and were trained in the European model of warfare by "Valiakappittan" Eustachius De Lannoy. However, Velu Thampi himself had disbanded most of the States's Army following the mutiny against him in AD 1805. Velu Thampi may not have realized a number of his supposed friends were planning to betray him and that the Maharaja, who was notorious for his weakness of character, would not hesitate to sacrifice his former Dalawa to normalise relations with the East India Company.

The Pazhasshi Raja commanding no more than 1000 men mostly armed with swords, spears and bows-arrows and a territory that was limited to present day Wynad district and Talasseri taluk of Kannur district of Kerala, was able to hold out against the Company's and his own uncle's troops for nearly a decade till he was betrayed by one of his followers.

In memory of the courage of Velu Thampi Dalawa, the Kerala State Government instituted a memorial, a research center, a museum, a park and a statue at Mannadi. Another statue of Velu Thampi Dalawa can be found in front of the "old secretariat" of Kerala in Trivandrum.