Gazulu Lakshminarasu Chetty: The Fearless Editor of Crescent

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How Chetty’s Madras Crescent Uncovered Colonial Injustices, Championing Hindu Rights and Native Voices

By Aravindan Neelakandan

The Governor of Madras, George Hay, Eighth Marquess of Tweeddale, was agitated and turning red with anger. ‘How is this even possible?’ The dark-skinned ‘Hindoo heathens of Madras’ had made the great British administration a laughingstock.

A secret agent working for the ‘Hindoos’ was working secretly right within the premises of the fort of St George! Governor Tweeddale, as he was called by the ‘natives’, wrung his hands. The plan was confidential.

The British East India Company (EIC), only a facade for the Crown itself, would benefit immensely from it. It would strengthen their emotional and institutional hold on the natives thoroughly.

More important than all this – it was the moral and spiritual obligation of the very presence of the British in the infidel land of Hindoostan.

But the plan got exposed to the public because of this secret agent inside. All the Governor’s men still could not find out the agent working for the ‘Hindoos’ inside Governor’s fort.

The year 1847 was not going exactly right for Hay. The process of promoting evangelism in Madras went smoothly at first, but now it had turned into a major scandal. He knew who was responsible for this.

A confidential document, which proposed including the Bible as a mandatory part of the curriculum at Madras University, was leaked by a ‘native’ tri-lingual newspaper Crescent. This newspaper was run by a ’Hindoo’ who had no formal education, at least not education in the British sense.

Gazulu Lakshminarasu Chetty (1806-1868) was a name that struck fear into every EIC administrator in India. Born in 1806, his exact date of birth is not known. as he was not the kind to celebrate his birthday.

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As a Gomati (also Komati) Chetty born to a Hindu merchant-class family, he received traditional education for his trade. At that time, British rule had already been established in South India, particularly around Madras. Chetty taught himself English and then entered the cotton trade by taking advantage of the trade feuds between America and Britain.

He believed that creating wealth (artha) was his duty (dharma) and spending it for betterment of the society was his dharmic way to liberation (moksha).

In colonial Madras, two powerful emerging British institutions were targeting Hindus for proselytizing. Access to governmental services led many families to admit their children to missionary-run schools instead of traditional educational systems like the ‘thinnai schools’.

In the missionary-run schools, children were made targets of proselytising by the missionaries. The situation was even worse in the courtrooms, where magistrate enquiries sometimes turned into evangelical gatherings attended by powerful individuals of the colonial administration.

If at all any judge opposed these unethical acts of promoting evangelical beliefs, they would face repercussions from the authorities. And it was with such men of power that this peaceful-looking man, wearing a turban and a prominent Vaishnavaitemark on his forehead, had decided to confront, pouring in all his hardearned wealth into the battle he had taken up.

The people he clashed with were the most influential individuals in the Madras of colonial times.

On 2 October 1844, forty-one years before the formation of the Indian National Congress, Chetty published the first issue of the Crescent (Matiyam), aiming ‘the amelioration of the condition of the Hindus’.

Chetty’s trusted friend, Edward Harley, a former naval officer and a Hinduphile, became the editor of Crescent. This remarkable achievement took place in the prevailing colonial atmosphere.

The magazine was published three times a month in Tamil, English, and Telugu and had a wide network of reporters, even within the government premises, including British sympathizers of Hindus.

Reporters and planted informers often obtained confidential plans made by colonial administrators aimed at subverting Hinduism and Hindu society. These plans were published under various noms de plume such as ‘Vindex’ and ‘Plain Speaking Man’.

In one issue, Crescent published a confidential government document outlining plans to use surplus revenue from Hindu temples for government expenditures. The magazine also published the minutes of the meeting of the Governor, which detailed plans to introduce the Bible as a class book in provincial schools and the Madras University.

This was the incident mentioned at the beginning of this section. It was made clear by the colonial administration that only through English education could a government job be obtained.

Then it was made clear again that those in the government who had access to state power were vastly superior to their non-English educated counterparts.

This led to a strong demand for English education in the Madras province, particularly in the urban centres. Madras University had been established to further this cause.

Missionaries and their facilitators had absolute access to the inner workings of the university, including framing exam questions with a clear Christian theological bias. Those who could not answer them were denied government appointments.

When a high number of native students failed to qualify for government jobs despite their education, it was suggested to introduce the Bible as a solution to this problem.

Chetty not only exposed the designs of the governor but also convened a public meeting on 7 October 1846 at the Pachaiyappa institution. He presided over the meeting himself.

Following the meeting, a memorandum was created to describe how the actions of the governor betrayed religious neutrality and included ‘unscrupulous violations of these sacred pledges during the regime of the Marquis of Tweeddale’.

The memorandum also documented how missionaries prevented unconverted ‘natives’ from passing competitive examinations, the ‘active co-operation of government officials with missionaries’, and the conversion policy of the missionaries.

This expose, along with the public meeting and memorandum. shocked the government. One gentleman, Henry Chamier, a senior member of the governor’s council, stated that the acts of the government had been perceived ‘as serious blows aimed at the religion of the people and as the breaches of faith on the part of the government’.

(Excerpted from A Dharmic Social History of India, published by BluOne Ink)