India@75: Vanchinatha Iyer, the Tamil revolutionary

17 June 1911. Tirunelveli Railway Station. The day was just breaking. A train was about to start to Kodaikanal. A VIP boarded the first-class compartment with his wife. Robert William Ashe and wife Mary. Ashe was Tirunelveli's powerful district collector, known for his extreme hostility to Indian nationalists. 

Three young men too boarded the train in third class. They were Vanchinatha Iyer from Shenkotta and two friends. The train reached Maniachi in Thoothukudi by 9.30 am. Vanchinatha Iyer came out from his compartment and entered the first class. 

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He drew out a pistol in a flash and shot Ashe on his forehead point-blank. Job done, Vanchinatha jumped out of the train and ran to the toilet on the platform. A gunshot was heard from the toilet. The 25-year-old revolutionary embraced death than being held by the British Police. 

The Bengal partition of 1905 had led to an explosion of militant activities by revolutionary nationalists under Anusheelan Samiti and Jugantar. Far away from Bengal, in the deep south, a bunch of Tamil youths were also inspired by the Bengali revolutionaries. They were also admirers of the militant nationalist trio- Lal, Bal, Pal. 

Prominent among them were Subrahmania Bharati, Subramanian Siva, VO Chidambaram Pillai, Vanchinathan's mentor Neelakanda Brahmachari, VVS Iyer, MPT Acharya and so on. Like the revolutionaries of Bengal of the age, a section of these Tamil firebrands later embraced Marxism while the other went on the Hindu religious path.

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