British Graves, yet again!

We had posted an entry (Dec 12, 2008) on the abandoned graves of two British soldiers who lost their lives in the 1921 Revolt. We had ended with the hope that an agency like the Commonwealth Graves Commission would take care of these graves to prevent possible desecration. 

We were pleasantly surprised to receive a communication from the eminent British author ('The Great Hedge of India' and 'Tea - Addiction, Exploitation and Empire', among others) and a great friend of Malabar, Roy Moxham, about his efforts to take up the issue with the War Graves Commission and their reply. 

We reproduce below their reply in order to demonstrate the great care they take of their dead and the practical difficulties in looking after scattered graves of British dead. It also gently reminds us that Government of India had, in 1950, given 'assurances that these sites would be respected and remain undisturbed.' Are we in default of this?

Thank you for your e-mail of 15th December 2008.

 Firstly I must apologise for the delay in my reply but we are currently working to clear a large back log of enquiries. Please find below all the details that we hold for Private Ely and Private Hutchings, this being the information provided by the relevant service authority after the war.

Their names are commemorated on Madras memorial because their graves at Tirurangadi could not be maintained. Please see our Historical notes/explanation below.

 Private  ELEY , F M

 Unit: 2nd Bn.

 Regiment: Dorsetshire Regiment

 Service No: 5718896

 Date of Death: 30 August 1921

 Commemoration: MADRAS 1914-1918 WAR MEMORIAL, CHENNAI

 India

 Face 17.

 Additional Information: Buried in Tirurangadi Graves.

 Private  HUTCHINGS , H C

 Unit: 2nd Bn.

 Regiment: Dorsetshire Regiment

 Service No: 5718762

 Date of Death: 20 August 1921

 Commemoration: MADRAS 1914-1918 WAR MEMORIAL, CHENNAI

 India

 Face 17.

 Additional Information: Buried in Tirurangadi Graves.

 Location: Madras War Cemetery is about 5 kilometres from the airport and 14 kilometres from the central railway station. The GST Road (Great Southern Trunk Road) leads from the airport past Trident Hotel to Kathipara roundabout. The way is via Mount Poonamall Road, passing at the foot of St.Thomas Mount. The cemetery can easily be located on the right hand side of the road 1 kilometre from St. Thomas Mount. From Madras Central Railway Station the route is up Mount Road (Anna Salai) and over the bridge which crosses the River Cooun. The route passes St. Mary's Cemetery on Pallawan Road and is via LIC building (Life Insurance Corporation Building) situated on Mount Road, which leads to Anna Flyover and to Kathipara Junction.

  Visiting: The memorial stands in Madras War Cemetery. The cemetery is open  daily, including Sundays (excluding public holidays)  between 08:00am and     18:00pm. Outside of these times, access can be gained via two other gates which are always open as they lead to the resident manager's living quarters within the cemetery.

 Historical: The MADRAS 1914-1918 MEMORIAL is situated at the rear of the cemetery. It bears the names of more than 1,000 service  who died during the First World War who lie in many civil and cantonment cemeteries* in various parts of India where it is not possible to maintain their graves in perpetuity. The memorial stands in MADRAS WAR CEMETERY which was created to receive Second World War graves from many civil and cantonment cemeteries in the south and east of India where their permanent maintenance could not be assured. 

The cemetery contains 856 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War.

 * Agra Cantonment; Aligarh Civil; Allahabad New Cantonment; Arogyavaram Pothapole Union Mission Sanitorium; Bangalore Cantoment (Kulpully); Bangalore (Hosur Road); Bantra, Howrah; Bareilly; Barkacha Military Grave; Barrackpore New; Bellary Military; Benares Cantonment; Bettiah; Bezwa  Eurpean; Bolarum Cavalry Barracks, Secunderbad; Calcutta (Entally); Calcutta (Lower Circular Road); Calicut New Beach; Cannanore General; Cawnpore Cantonment New; Chakrata; Chaubattia; Chikmagalur; Cuddapah European; Dehra Dun; Dinapore No 3; Dum Dum New; Fatehgarh Cantonment Open; Fyzabad Cantonment; Gaya New; Jamalpur Railway; Jhajha; Jhansi Cantonment; Kailana, Chakrata; Kala Khan, Naini Tal; Kataphar New, Jalapahar; Kharagpur; Kohima; Kotwa Military Grave; Kydganj New, Allahabad; Landour General; Lebong Cantonment; Lucknow Cantonment Military; Madras (Kilpauk); Madras (St Andrew's); Madras (St George's) Cathedral; Madras (St Patrick's); Madras Wesleyan; Madura R.C.; Malappuram (Christ Church); Mussoorie General; Muttra; Narayan Guda Hyderbad Government; Ootacamund (St Thomas); Poonamallee; Port Blair; Puri; Purna R.C.; Raichur Railwa  Ramandrug; Rangamati; Rhanikhet New; Roorkee; Sadiya; Saharanpur; St Thomas's Mount Church; Secunderbad; Secunderbad European R.C.; Shahjahanpur Cantontoment; Sillong; Tirurangadi; Trimulgherry Cantonment; Wellington Garrison.

 In 1950, after the British withdrawal from India, it was announced in Parliament that the continued maintenance of the cemeteries could not be undertaken  by the Governments of India and Pakistan.They did however, give assurances that these sites would be respected and remain undisturbed.

It was obviously not possible for the Commission to endeavour to maintain a few war graves in a cemetery otherwise unmaintained. It was, therefore, decided that a permament commemoration of the war dead buried in these cemeteries should be on memorials at Madras, Kirkee, Karachi and Delhi.

 I hope that this information is helpful to you.

 Yours sincerely,

 Mrs J Williams

 Enquiries Section

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Kamasutra Translator in Zamorin's Mankav Palace

Sir Richard F. Burton (1821-1890) was a colourful Victorian gentleman. He is best known for his translation of the The Book of the One Thousand Nights and One Night (otherwise known as the Arabian Nights), the Perfumed Garden and of course, Kamasutra. He was so versatile that the Wikipedia entry on him describes him as an 'English explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat'.

Burton started his career in the East India Company in 1842 when his family had to purchase him a commission after his expulsion from Oxford University for unruly behaviour. He was posted in the Sindh where he devoted himself to the study of Indian languages. He also spent the time in India to learn wrestling, horsemanship and snake-charming. Because of his close proximity with the ordinary people of the country and his sympathy for them he could sense the impending threat to the British rule :'...the greatest danger in British India is the ever-growing gulf that yawns between the governors and the governed; they lose touch of one another, and such racial estrangement leads directly to racial hostility'. Coming from one whom his fellow officers would call contemptuously as 'the white nigger', this was one warning which the rulers had ignored at their peril.

Burton fell a victim to the cholera epidemic which swept Sindh in 1846, but was lucky to survive. The Bombay Medical Board granted him a convalescence leave of two years to be spent at Ootacamund which had already earned a name as a destination for British rest and recuperation. Ordinarily, British offcers travelling on r&r to Ooty would take a steamer to Calicut and then take the road vis Nadukani. But not so Burton, the inveterate seeker of thrills. He took a 'pattimar' (a country raft used for coastal trade) and broke journey in Goa where he spent considerable time studying the Portuguese

outpost and its history. Then he took another 'pattimar' and proceeded to Calicut. Although he devotes almost 80 pages of his book to describing Calicut and Malabar, he chose to give the title Goa and the Blue Mountains; or six months of sick leave giving no indication of the time he spent at Calicut.

Burton's first view of Calicut as seen from the 'pattimar' was disappointing. 'Can those three or four bungalows, with that stick-like light-house between them and the half-dozen tiled and thatched roofs peeping from amongst the trees, compose Calicut – the city of world-wide celebrity which immortalised herself by giving a name to calico? 'He asks.

Burton's keen eye soaks in the details of the town which he faithfully recorded in this first of the many books that he was to write. He notes, for instance, that Calicut did not have much of a harbour – 'Nature has made no attempt at a harbour, and the ships lying in an open roadstead, are constantly liable to be driven on the sand and mud-banks around them'. Yet trade continued to flourish there with export brisker than imports. The principal commodities exported were spices, drugs, valuable timber and cotton cloths. Imports consisted mainly of European piece goods and metals. Between September 1846 and May 1847 he noted that no less than 80 ships, besides an immense number of pattimars and native crafts touched at Calicut.

The bazars of Calicut, he notes, appeared to be well stocked with everything but vegetables and butcher's meat – these being procured from neighbouring stations (as even now!) He visits the Varakkal Temple but unlike Vasco da Gama who was ceremoniously ushered into the shrine, he does not attempt to enter the temple : 'We will not venture in, as the Hindoos generally in this part of the world, and the Nairs particularly, are accustomed to use their knives with scant ceremony'.

He visits the Samiry Rajah who he finds 'a proud man, who shuns Europeans, and discourages their visiting him on principle'. The then Zamorin, 'Mana Vikraman', apparently belonged to the Padinhare Kovilakam for Burton and company preceed to Mankavu (spelt Mangaon) 'through lanes lined with banks of laterite, and over dykes stretching like rude causeways along paddy fields invested with a six-foot deep coating of mud'. On reaching the Palace, the party did not find the Raja hostile to Europeans, as they were received warmly, with a caparisoned elephant and a troop of half-naked armed Nairs receiving them at the gate. Burton found the Raja 'injudiciously attired in a magnificent coat of gold cloth, a strangely shaped cap of the same material, and red silk tights '(!). The Raja met them with a warm, moist, and friendly squeeze of the hand and engaged the visitors in 'the small-talk of an Oriental visit'.

The piece de resistance of the visit was, however, the chance encounter of Burton with 'a crowd of dames belonging to the palace'. The translator of Kamasutra turns poetic while describing the 'sight of Nair female beauty' : 'The ladies were very young and pretty-their long jetty tresses, small soft features, clear dark olive-coloured skins, and delicate limbs, reminded us exactly of the old prints and descriptions of the South Sea Islanders. Their toilette, in all save the ornamental part of rings and necklaces, was decidedly scanty.'

We have no means of verifying whether the encounter described so graphically by Burton did indeed take place. It is difficult to believe that visitors and women of the house shared a common path causing the visitors to meet 'in the gateway a crowd of dames belonging to the palace'. It is also doubtful whether the twenty-something lieutenant of the East India Company on furlough would be so readily granted an audience by the Zamorin Raja. According to K.V.Krishna Ayyar, the Zamorin who occupied the throne between 1845 to 1848 had P.K. as initials, suggesting that he belonged to the Thiruvannur Kovilakam. It is also possible that Burton had visited the second in line the Eralpad Raja who may have been from the Padinhjare Kovilakam at Mankav.

The scepticism is prompted by some of Burton's other claims which were later proved to be rather exaggerated. For instance, his claim that he studied Hindu culture in such depth that his Hindu teacher officially allowed him to wear the Brahmanical thread (janeu) was found to be a figment of his imagination. Similarly, the oft repeated claim of Burton that he was deputed by Sir Charles Napier, the Governor of Sindh to investigate the homosexual brothels of Karachi has been found to be an unsubtsantiated claim by subsequent research. His recent (1990) biographer, James A. Casada goes so far as to suggest that Burton had invented the story. Did he also invent the story of his encounter with the Nair beauties of Mankav Palace? One wonders.

Ref: Wikipedia article on Burton

Goa and the Blue Mountains; or six months of sick leave by Richard F.Burton with an introduction by Dane Kennedy, published by University of California Press (1991)

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