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Telugu Historyతెలుగు చరిత్ర

Vijayarama Raju II of Vizianagaram

Raja of Vizianagaram from 1759 to 1794. He was adopted as a boy after Vijayarama Raju I died at Bobbili (1757) and Ananda Raju died (1759). With his half-brother Sitarama Raju he made the Vizianagaram family the strongest power in the Vizagapatam country under the East India Company, and they took the lands of the smaller zamindars. In 1793 his estate was seized for unpaid revenue and he was ordered to leave the district. He camped at Padmanabham, and he was killed there with his Rajput followers when the Company's troops attacked on 10 July 1794.

A steep cone-shaped hill covered in green trees rising above flat green paddy fields and a line of palm trees.
A steep cone-shaped hill covered in green trees rising above flat green paddy fields and a line of palm trees. · Adityamadhav83 (opens in a new tab) · CC BY-SA 3.0 (opens in a new tab)

Vijayarama Raju was the last Raja of Vizianagaram to fight the East India Company.12 Francis’s Vizagapatam gazetteer (1907) follows Carmichael’s district manual.12 It says that Ananda Raju joined Colonel Forde against the French and died of small-pox at Rajahmundry.12 After his death, the widow of his predecessor Vijayarama Raju adopted Venkatapati Raju.12 He was “a boy of twelve and the second son of her husband’s cousin Ramabhadra Razu”, and he took the name Vijayarama Raju.12

The gazetteer’s account of the family calls him “Viziarama Razu II”.2 See Vizianagaram.

The power of Vizianagaram

While the Raja was a minor, his elder half-brother, Sitarama Raju, held the real power, and he kept it for many years.1 Francis says the two brothers “controlled almost all the district except the havili land” (land held directly by the government) round Visakhapatnam (then Vizagapatam), Kasimkota and Srikakulam (then Chicacole).1

In 1761 they seized much of the Parlakimedi estate in Ganjam.1 When the English took over the country, they made the brothers give up Parlakimedi.1 They fixed a peshkash (yearly tribute) of three lakhs on the rest of their estate.1

The other zamindars (landholders) joined against them.3 Sitarama Raju persuaded the Chief and Council at Visakhapatnam to help.3 At the end of the campaign all the zamindars of the district but two had lost their lands, and their lands were added to Vizianagaram.3

A committee was sent to look into the matter.4 In 1784 it reported “in the strongest terms of condemnation” on Sitarama’s harsh rule and the Chiefs’ weak government.4 It advised that the power of Vizianagaram be cut back.4 See East India Company.

Padmanabham

Vijayarama Raju fell further behind in his payments.5 By 1793 they amounted to eight and a half lakhs.5 On 2 August 1793 the Company seized the estate, and Colonel Prendergast took possession of the Vizianagaram fort.5

The Raja was ordered to leave the district on a pension.67 He marched out a few miles and then went with his camp to Padmanabham, “a village between Vizianagram and Bimlipatam”.67 There his dismissed troops joined him again.67 Spies reported that he meant, if overpowered, “to do as the Bobbili family did formerly”.67

The Governor, Sir Charles Oakeley, ordered him to come to Visakhapatnam with his ordinary attendants.8 No answer came, and Prendergast was told to enforce the order.8 On the morning of 10 July 1794 Prendergast attacked.8 He reported the same day: “The Raja was killed, with many of his followers.”8

The Company lost thirteen killed and sixty-one wounded.8 Of the Raja’s men 309 were killed, 208 of them Rajputs.8 The gazetteer adds that “the bodies of forty Rajputs, of the first rank in the country, formed a rampart round the corpse of Viziarama Razu”.8 The gazetteer names seven Rajput families who “all left their dead on the field”: the Datlas, Dantaluris, Sagis, Chintalapatis, Gotimukkalas, Vajarlas and Pennumetsas.89 It then says that “Padmanabham will long be remembered as the Flodden of the Rajputs of Vizianagram”.9 Flodden was a battle fought in Europe in 1513.10 The gazetteer took this whole passage, almost word for word, from D. F. Carmichael’s district manual of 1869.11 See Padmanabham.

On the eve of the battle the Raja had spoken to his son, Narayana Raju, then eight years old.912 He told the boy to surrender to the Chief and Council if he were killed, because the Company “were very just people”.912 The boy’s guardians fled with him to the hills instead.912 But after talks he came in, and he received the zamindari (landholder’s estate).912 In 1796 the zamindars whom Vizianagaram had pushed out were given cowles (written grants) restoring their estates.912

Footnotes

  1. W. Francis, Madras District Gazetteers: Vizagapatam, Vol. I (1907), p. 46 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  2. Francis, Vizagapatam (1907), p. 339 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  3. Francis, Vizagapatam (1907), p. 47 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Francis, Vizagapatam (1907), p. 49 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. Francis, Vizagapatam (1907), p. 50 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. Francis, Vizagapatam (1907), p. 51 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  7. Francis, Vizagapatam (1907), p. 52 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. Francis, Vizagapatam (1907), p. 53 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  9. Francis, Vizagapatam (1907), p. 54 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  10. Muhammad Qasim Ferishta, tr. John Briggs, History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, Vol. II (1829), p. 562, table of events in Europe and India (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  11. D. F. Carmichael, A Manual of the District of Vizagapatam (1869), pp. 218–219 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  12. Francis, Vizagapatam (1907), p. 55 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

Photos

References

Sources (3)
  1. W. Francis, Madras District Gazetteers: Vizagapatam, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Government Press, Madras, 1907, pp. 46–55, 339. [Public domain]
  2. D. F. Carmichael, A Manual of the District of Vizagapatam in the Presidency of Madras (opens in a new tab), Government of Madras (Asylum Press), 1869, pp. 218–219. [Public domain]
  3. Muhammad Qasim Ferishta (tr. John Briggs), History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India till the Year A.D. 1612, Vol. II (opens in a new tab), Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, London, 1829, pp. 562. [Public domain]

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