Indian Antiquary Vol 46

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 254

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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(OCTOBER, 1917
Chanda Sahib's betrayal of Minakshi. After the flight of Bangåru and Vijaya Kumâra, Madura lay open to the forces of Chanda Sahib. RÂvanaiya and Govindaiya cccupied it promptly, and after securing it continued their march southward as far as Tinnevelly. The Polygars yielded and took the oath of allegiance to the queen. But it was not for long that that queen was to rule. With the conquest of Madura and Tinnevelly, with the full acquisition of the kingdom, and with the flight and exile of the king and the regent, the necessity on the part of Chanda Sahib to assume a sham loyalty to Minâkshi was gone. He could now openly throw off his disguise, and make his outward behaviour consistent with his secret desire. Chanda Sahib therefore confined the queen in her palace and openly flouted her authority. He assumed a supercilious air and a dictatorial tone, placed the defence of the fort in the hands of his own men, segured the treasury, seized the administration, and ordered the relations and followers of Minakshi to leave the fort. It must have been a shock and a surprise to them and to the people, but all defence, all hesitation, was useless. The villain had taken every precaution to back up his commands, and resistance would mean nothing but suicide.
Her Suicide. The result was that Mînakshi was a prisoner in her palace, her mon in exile and her emancipation beyond hope. The only man who was likely to present an effective check to her oppressor was an exile. Did Bangaru Tirumala know her actual condition? Or, did he believe that the army which Chanda Sahib had recently sent against him was an army in reality sent by Minakshi ! We have no materials from which we can pronounce an opinion on these questions. It is highly probable that Bangaru Tirumala was ignorant of the tyranny to which Minakshi was subjected at Trichinopoly; that he might have even believed, from his recent disaster, that Chanda Sahib. and Minakshi were on cordially amicable terms. He was, in other words, ignorant of the miserable situation of his rival, the ambitions of Chanda Sahib, and the consequent feeling of friendship which Minakshi must have in her heart entertained for him. However it might have been, he did not stir a finger, after his flight to Sivaganga, to recover his kingdom. Either his ignorance of the actual state of things at Trichinopoly, or his incapacity with the resources he then had, to go to war, made him harmless. It is not improbable that the counsels of his supporters looked on an attempt to recover the kingdom by force would end in failure. Consequently, with the lapse of days, the position of Minakshi became intolerable. Every day the Musalman was getting haughtier and she was treated with humiliation and insult. Every accident betrayed the impotence of her party and the turbulent temper of her guards, and it was not long before she realised that the conspiracy formed in her very palace-prison was too formidable to be quelled. The courtiers, who were loyal to her, were either exiles or powerless men, who had no access to her on account of the Mussalman soldiers stationed in the gateways and galleries, the Vestibule and portico of the prison, and some were prepared, thanks to bribery and persuasion, to take part in Chanda Sahib's designs. Life became a burden under these circumstances. The loss of crown and freedom, the pressure of remorse and the poignanoy of grief, prepared her for removal from this world, and the last Hindu sovereign of Trichinopoly died broken-hearted by her own hand.
Such was the ignominious fate of the last Naik ruler of Madura and Trichinopoly. She had been on the throne only for a space of five years, and the penalty she had to pay for her short-sighted opposition to her cousin, with whom she might have come to an under