Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao led people of various walks of life in paying tribute to freedom fighter and ‘rebel’ King, Muthuramalinga Sethupathy, the ‘Zamindar of Ramnad’, who earned the sobriquet ‘rebel’ for raising a banner of revolt against the British and had spent nearly half of his life in prisons.
Mr. Rao, District Revenue Officer (DRO) S. Muthumari, heirs of Muthuramalinga Sethupathy and people from various walks of life garlanded his life size bronze statue, installed at the entrance of the Collectorate complex here on Saturday at the function organised by the Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR).
Paying glowing tributes, the Collector said the King had laid the seeds for freedom movement even 70 years before the Sepoy mutiny in 1857 and led from the front in the fight against the British, when his counterparts in Thanjvaur and Pudukottai had surrendered to the British.
Muthuramalinga Sethupathy who was born this day in 1760, was crowned as the King of Ramnad when he was a 72-day-old child and his mother became the regent. The Nawab of Arcot, joining hands with the British attacked his kingdom in 1772 and captured him when he was just 12 years old with his mother and sisters, Mr Rao said.
A strong advocate of Swadeshi, the King had encouraged handloom weavers and local artisans and exhorted people to avoid imported items. The king had etched his name in history by completing the world famous third corridor at the Sri Ramanathaswamy Temple in Rameswaram.
The British had imprisoned the King for about ten years before releasing him after revolts and upsurge in the district only to re-arrest him. He was lodged at Fort St George in Chennai in 1795 and died in prison in 1809 at the age of 49.