India@75: Story of the Punnapra Vayalar uprising

25 October 1946. The 34th birthday of Tiruvithamkoor Maharaja Chithiratirunal Balarama Varma. The day the Maharajah and his Dewan Sir CP Ramaswami Iyer decided to declare cessation from the soon-to-be independent Indian Union. 

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Thiruvithamkoor was one of the five native states which decided to remain independent kingdoms. The Second World War created widespread food shortages. The poor peasants and coir workers of Cherthala and Ambalappuzha talukas in Alappuzha were suffering extreme starvation and diseases. 

More than 20,000 people had died in five years. Yet, the landlords continued their brutal exploitation, aided by the police. Unable to bear it any longer, the people led by the Communist Party hit back. A policeman was killed. Peasants took over the region. 

Soon what began as a struggle for survival grew into a major political agitation against the royal government's plans for an independent kingdom. On Maharajah's birthday, the peasants at the neighbouring Vayalar attacked the police station.  

The Dewan was enraged. He decided to suppress the revolt by armed military. On 27 October, he declared martial law in the region. Two days after the royal birthday, a large contingent of army and police forces surrounded Vayalar, a region with water bodies on its three sides. 

Trapped inside the village, the peasants armed with only crude weapons were no match to the highly-armed army, which opened fire at them. The firing continued for hours at the end of which about 500 dead bodies lay strewn all around. The coastal white sand at Vayalar turned red with blood. Corpses were dumped into mass graves.

The Punnapra Vayalar uprising was an agitation against both the native royal government as well as the foreign colonialists. A resistance movement against poverty and torture by landlords transformed into a major political agitation against the royalty. It was also the first movement by the organised working class against both indigenous and foreign authorities.  

The repression of Punnapra Vayalar emboldened the royal government to reiterate its plan to form an independent Tiruvithamkoor even two months before India won its freedom. But Dewan Sir CP was grievously injured when a revolutionary made a violent attempt on his life. The Dewan immediately left Tiruvithamkoor to his home in Madras and never returned. A week later, the Maharajah agreed to accede the kingdom to Indian Union.

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