CHEPAUK PALACE
Among the interesting buildings in Madras must be included Chepauk
Palace, which was built about a century and a half ago as a residence
for the Nawab of the Carnatic, and which is now the office of the
Board of Revenue. The high wall that enclosed the spacious Saracenic
structure in its palace days has been pulled down, and the public can
now gaze at a building that was once carefully screened from the
public eye, and can enter at will without having to satisfy the
scrutiny of armed men at the gate. A change indeed--from the sleepy
residence of a Muhammadan ruler, with his harem and his idle crowd of
retainers, to bustling offices where a multitude of officials and
clerks are working out the cash accounts of the Government of Madras!
The 'Carnatic' was a dominion that extended over the territory that is
now included in the Collectorates of Nellore, North Arcot, South
Arcot, Trichinopoly, and Tinnevelly. The town of Arcot was the capital
of the dominion, and the Nawab of the Carnatic was sometimes spoken of
as the Nawab of Arcot. Chepauk Palace belongs to the history of the
Carnatic, and a few historical notes will make things clear.
In our first chapter we intimated that Madras, when Mr. Francis Day
acquired it, was within the domain of the disappearing Hindu Empire of
Vijianagar, of which the living representative at the time was the
Raja of Chandragiri, from whom Mr. Francis Day accordingly obtained a
deed of possession. Seven years afterwards, the Raja of Chandragiri
was a refugee in Mysore, driven from his throne by the Muhammadan
Sultan of Golconda, who assumed the sovereignty of Hyderabad and the
Carnatic. The Sultan of Golconda thus became the recognized overlord
of Madras; and the Company were careful to secure from their new
sovereign a confirmation of their possession. But the power of the
Sultan was destined to fall in its turn; for Aurangzeb, the Moghul
Emperor at Delhi, being desirous of uniting all India under Moghul
rule, waged war against the Sultan of Golconda--who, as a Shiah
Mohammedan, was a heretic in Aurangzeb's eyes--and defeated him.
Aurangzeb put Hyderabad under a Nizam whom he named 'Viceroy of the
Deccan' and the Carnatic under a Nawab who was to be subordinate to
the Viceroy. But the Emperor who succeeded Aurangzeb had none of their
predecessors' greatness; and soon after Aurangzeb's death the Nizam of
Hyderabad assumed independence, with the Nawab of the Carnatic as his
vassal.
In 1749 there was a quarrel for the Nawabship. The French at
Pondicherry supported one claimant, and the English at Madras
supported the other. This was the gallant Clive's opportunity.
Exchanging the clerk's pen for the officer's sword, the youthful
'writer' marched with a small force to Arcot and captured it on behalf
of the Company's nominee, and then sustained most heroically a lengthy
siege. Clive triumphed; and Mohammed Ali, otherwise known as Nawab
Walajah, became undisputed Nawab of the Carnatic. Later, with British
support, the Nawab renounced his allegiance to Hyderabad, and reigned
as an independent prince.
In his capital at Arcot, Nawab Walajah, who had many factionary
enemies, would assuredly have found himself in a dangerous centre of
intrigue; but he was wise in his generation; for as soon as he had
gained his independence he sought and obtained from the Governor of
Madras permission to build a palace for himself within the protective
walls of Fort St. George. Arrangements for the work were made; and one
of the streets of the Fort--the street which still bears the name of
'Palace Street'--received its name because it was the street in which
the Nawab's residence was to be built. Eventually, however, the scheme
was set aside; and in the following year the Nawab acquired private
property in Chepauk, and engaged an English architect to build him a
house. Chepauk Palace thus came into existence. The grounds of the
Palace, which the Nawab surrounded with a wall, formed an immense
enclosure, which included a large part of the grounds of Government
House of to-day and a great deal of adjoining land.
Chepauk Palace was the scene of some grand doings in its time; and
soon after it was built the Nawab entertained the Governor of Madras
and his Councillors, one of whom was Mr. Warren Hastings, at 'an
elegant breakfast;' and, when the feast was over, he divided some Rs.
30,000 among his guests. The Governor got Rs. 7,000, and, on a sliding
scale, the Secretaries, who were last on the list, got Rs. 1,000 each.
The relations, however, between Nawab Walajah and a later Governor of
Madras were not so cordial. In 1780 Haidar Ali with an immense army
suddenly invaded the Carnatic, and annihilated a British force that
was sent to oppose him; and Tipu, his son and successor, continued the
campaign. The Company's treasury at Madras was straitened with the
expenses of the war, and the Nawab, whose capital was in the hands of
the enemy, was unable to contribute thereto; but when Tipu was
eventually defeated, the Nawab was induced to assign the control of
the revenues of the Carnatic to the Company. A few months later the
Nawab felt that he had made an unwise bargain, and he declared his
renunciation of the agreement; but Baron Macartney, the newly
appointed Governor of Madras, kept him strictly to his word. The Nawab
wrote various official letters, complaining in one that Lord Macartney
had 'premeditatedly' offered him 'Insults and Indignity,' and in
another that he had shown him 'every mark of Insult and Contempt.' The
Directors in London, expressly declaring their desire to content the
influential Nawab, decided in his favour; whereupon Lord Macartney,
who in the opinion of his friends had been set at naught for the sake
of the wealthy potentate, indignantly resigned the Governorship of
Madras, and went home. Friendly relations between the Nawab and the
Madras Government were thereupon resumed, and when Nawab Walajah died,
at the age of seventy-eight, he was eulogised in an official note in
the _Fort St. George Gazette_.
The career of his son and successor, Umdat-ul-Umara, was less
auspicious. Although his accession was the occasion of friendly
letters between himself and the Government of Madras, the Nawab's
rejection of the Governor's suggestion that the financial arrangements
between himself and the Company should be made more favourable to the
Company irritated the Governor, and the Governor's efforts to induce
the Nawab to change his mind irritated the Nawab. Meanwhile Tipu
Sultan was preparing for another war with the Company, and when, after
a brief campaign, Tipu was killed while fighting bravely in defence of
his capital, it was declared that an examination of Tipu's
correspondence showed that the Nawab of Arcot had been guilty of
treasonable communications with Mysore. It was accordingly resolved
that the Company should assume control of the Carnatic; but, as the
Nawab was seriously ill, nothing was done until his death, when
British troops were sent to occupy Chepauk Palace.
The Nawab's son refused to recognize the Company's right to control
his father's dominions, whereupon the Company set him aside, and put
his cousin on the throne in his stead. The Company were now the actual
rulers of the Carnatic, and the future Nawabs were styled 'Titular
Nawabs.' In 1855 the third of the Titular Nawabs died without any son
to succeed him. Lord Dalhousie was Governor-General of India at the
time, and it was Lord Dalhousie's declared policy that if the ruler of
any native state died without issue, his dominions should formally
lapse to the Company. On this principle the Carnatic now became a
formal part of the British dominions, and the dynasty of the Nawabs
came to an end; Chepauk Palace, which was the personal property of the
Nawabs, was acquired by the Company's Government for a price, and was
eventually turned into Government offices.
The many thousands of Mohammedans, however, who dwelt in the crowded
streets and lanes of Chepauk, and who had looked upon the Nawab as
their religious chief, would have been afflicted at the cessation of
the Carnatic line; and after the Indian Mutiny the Government of
India, respecting Mohammedan sentiment, recognized the succession of
the nearest relative of the late Nawab and obtained for him from the
King of England the hereditary title of Amir-i-Arcot, or 'Prince of
Arcot'--an honorary title but higher than that of Nawab. A sum of Rs.
1,50,000 per annum--(not an excessive sum in relation to the revenues
of the Carnatic, which are now collected by the Madras Government)--is
expended annually in pensions to the Prince and to certain of his
relatives; and he lives in a house called the 'Amir Mahal' (the Amir's
Palace), which was given to him by the Government. The Amir Mahal
stands in spacious grounds in Royapettah. At the principal entrance,
the gate-house is a tall and imposing edifice in red brick. At the
gateway, sentries, armed with old-fashioned rifles, stand--or
sometimes sit--on guard; and the Prince's Band is often to be heard
practising oriental music in the room up above.
Regarded in relation to its history, Chepauk is something more than
'one of the Government buildings on the Marina.' Let us remember that,
when it was enclosed within the walls that are now no more, it was the
home of Mohammedan potentates--sometimes a scene of gorgeous
festivity--sometimes a scene of desperate intrigue. In imagination we
may people the front garden with the gaily-uniformed Body-Guard of the
Carnatic sovereign, mounted on gaily-bridled steeds; and we may see
the Nawab himself coming magnificently down the front steps and
climbing into the silver howdah that is strapped on the back of a
kneeling elephant. A blast of oriental music, and the procession goes
on its way; and we may wonder at which of the tiled windows on the
upper floor the bright eyes of the Lalla Rookhs and the Nurmahals of
Chepauk are slily peeping at the spectacle. The vision vanishes. The
procession now is a procession of clerks to their homes when their
day's work is over; and the music is a ragtime selection by the Band
of the Madras Guards on the Marina, close by, with ayahs and children
around. We are in the twentieth century; but for a moment we have
lived in the past.