122 THE WEEK • JUNE 30, 2019
LAST WORD
SHASHI THAROOR[email protected]different fate with Tipu. The Mundaraths were the
zamindars and rulers of Elavanchery and a large part
of the surrounding countryside. When news came of
the imminent invasion of Tipu into Malabar, the then
Mundarath karanavar loaded all the family treas-
ures—their vessels, their jewels, the gold ornaments
of the women—onto several carts and took them
deep into the countryside to bury them for safekeep-
ing. (Some versions say the workers who did the job
were blindfolded till they got to the spot; others claim
worse, that they were killed to preserve the secret.)
The Mundaraths showed great prudence and
foresight, including sending off two Mundarath wom-
en to some far-flung place in the hills so that if the
family was massacred by Tipu’s troops, the Mundar-
ath bloodline would continue. Except for the fact that
by the time Tipu withdrew from
Malabar (and then was defeated
by the British), the karanavar him-
self had breathed his last, having
failed to confide the secret of the
location of his treasure trove to
any survivor. A frantic search was
launched the moment it was safe
to do so; but the family could not
find a single item ever again.
Anyway, this was a cataclysmic
trauma for the Mundarath tharavad, which overnight
lost vast wealth and riches—all that remained was
11th-century copper-plate inscriptions giving them
title to their lands. I saw these inscriptions in the
attic of the ancestral home in my childhood, but in a
mishap they were junked along with other scrap and
are lost to the family forever.
Historical memory and family memory—how
curiously they cross! In Palakkad, where the ruins
of one of his forts still stands, the memory of Tipu’s
depredations against the Nairs is still as sore as an old
wound that never healed. But for the two sides of my
family, Tipu is not just a figure from the history books.
It is entirely possible that I am descended from two
Palakkad families, one of whom invited Tipu Sultan to
attack Palakkad and the other who lost their fortune
out of fear of his attack.Tipu and the Tharoor connection
ILLUSTRATION BHASKARANM
y recent tweet praising Pakistan PM Imran
Khan for remembering the birth anniver-
sary of Tipu Sultan, when no Indian leader
had done so, created predictable reactions in our
political space, with Twitterati of a particular polit-
ical stripe castigating me for my alleged soft corner
for Pakistani leaders in preference to our own.
I have learned to ignore such comments, and
did so again, but one Facebook post sent to me
by a friend drew me short. Its author asked “Who
invited Tipu Sultan to invade Kerala?” and pointedly
replied, “Well, it was the Palghat Raja, Raman Kombi
Achan of the Tharoor Swaroopam!” In other words,
the author alleged, I was merely carrying on a tradi-
tion of disloyalty up my family tree.
This took me aback. It is true that Palakkad was
ruled by a Nair rajah of the
Tharoor Swaroopam for a few
centuries before Tipu. It is also
presumed that we belonged
to a collateral branch of the
Palakkad Raja’s original thar-
avad and are descended from
them. The Tharoor branches
dispersed and at some point
my father’s ancestors settled in
Chittilamchery village where
they essentially became farmers and landlords. So
it is possible my critic may be right—but it is not a
connection that has played a major part in family
lore, and I have never heard a family member speak-
ing of Raman Kombi Achan.
So I am reluctant to accept that my anti-colonial
regard for Tipu Sultan (as a great nationalist hero
who challenged the British, sent emissaries to
Napoleon and remained unconquerable in battle)
is really some sort of genetic predisposition derived
from being a Tharoor. But it is also complicated by
the fact that the mother’s side of my family—and in
matrilineal Nair households, that may actually be
more important than the paternal line—had a very
different attitude to Tipu.
For my mother’s family, the Mundaraths of
Elavanchery (also in Palakkad district), suffered a