Terani Singh, ruler of Gingee, is imprisoned by the Mughal Emperor for failing to tame a horse. At the time, Terani Singh’s wife is pregnant with his son Desingu. When Desingu is eight years old, he goes to Delhi, tames the horse and receives it as a gift from the Emperor, who sets Terani Singh free. The precocious Desingu becomes the ruler of Gingee, when his father dies. The Nawab of Arcot — Sadatullah Khan — sends a letter asking Desingu to pay the money his father owed the Crown.
Desingu treats the missive with contempt. War is declared. The Nawab marches with 80,000 horsemen and 10,000 sepoys against Desingu who has only 350 horsemen and 500 troopers. Desingu asks his friend Mahabat Khan for help. Mahabat cancels his wedding and rushes to help Desingu. Desingu has never seen his young wife, because of some astrological reasons, and speaks to her from behind a curtain. She begs him not to go out to fight, for the omens are bad. Desingu seeks permission for the battle from Lord Ranganatha of Singavaram. The deity turns his head away, to show his disapproval. And yet Desingu rides towards what is certain death.
Mahabat is killed in battle. Desingu’s horse’s forelegs are cut off, and Desingu fights on foot. Finally, he flings his sword in the air and impales himself on it. His young wife commits Sati. This is the story of Desingu Raja of Gingee in the well-known ballad about him and this is probably the story most people will tell you about Gingee.
But the ballad differs from historical accounts. Desingu’s father was Sarup Singh, not Terani Singh. Desingu was born in Bundelkhand, and came to Gingee in January 1714, after his father’s death. Desingu was killed in October 1714. Desingu’s father was never imprisoned in Delhi. He was a mansabdar — an official whose rank was determined by the Mughal Emperor. And it was not a hereditary post, which meant Desingu could not automatically succeed to the position.
In fact, the historical account says that Desingu was warned by his officers to get permission from the Arcot Nawab to continue as mansabdar. The Nawab did not have 80,000 horsemen as the ballad says, but only 10,000. Finally, Desingu did not kill himself. The Nawab’s order was that he should be captured alive. He was shot dead, upon the orders of Bangaru Yachamanayaka, when Desingu killed the soldier who tried to capture him. So why is it that the ballad version has overwhelmed historical accounts? Therein lies the appeal of folk songs. Songsters knew how to use simple words to versify events and give them a dramatic twist. Desingu’s story had all the elements needed for an appealing story — adventure, valour, a young tragic hero and heroine.
Aru Ramanathan, folklore scholar
Dr. Aru Ramanathan, folklore scholar who researched folk songs about Desingu, says that the earliest record about Desingu is perhaps the Desingu kummi, a palm leaf manuscript which he found in the Oriental Manuscripts library, Madras. “The kummi just talks about the battle of 1714, and was probably written soon after. Chronologically next is ‘Desingu Rasa Paattu.’ Saraswathi Mahal library has a manuscript of Desingu Raja candai, which must be later than the other two. The ballad, ‘Desingu Rasa Kathai,’ which is the most popular version came afterwards. While the early published editions of the ballad do not mention the name of the author, later editions mention Pugazhendi Pulavar. There is also a later Telugu ballad,” he says.
For a long time, Narayana Pillai’s ‘Carnataca rasakkalin savistara charitram’ was the only historical account about Desingu.
Narayana Pillai claimed to be a descendant of Ananda Kon, who first built a small fort in Gingee in 1190 C.E. The Kon dynasty ruled Gingee till 1330. However, historian C.S. Srinivasachari, observed that Pillai’s work had many chronological and sequential inconsistencies.
In the Desingu Kummi, Mahabat is not mentioned. In Narayana Pillai’s account and in Desingu Raja candai, Mahabat is mentioned as fighting alongside Desingu, but there is no mention of a dramatic departure from his impending wedding.
Jesuit letter
In 1659, Gingee fell to the forces of the Bijapur Sultan. The Sultan’s men looted Gingee and took away its wealth of 20 crores in cash and jewels. A Jesuit letter of 1666, from Andrew Friere to Paul Oliva, says, that nothing could equal the cruelties of the new rulers. Andrew Friere writes: “Expression fails me to recount the atrocities, which I have seen with my own eyes.” The kummi was written hardly 60 years after these events, and the people might not have forgotten the cruel treatment meted out to them by the conquerors, or their iconoclasm. Ramanathan theorises that this is perhaps why the kummi does not mention Mahabat Khan.
The earliest published version of the ballad, which Ramanathan found, was dated 1862, and assuming that it was written around this time, we get to a time after the Indian Sepoy Mutiny, when it might have been thought that Hindu-Muslim unity was necessary to take on the British. Hence the exaggerated account of Mahabat giving up his marriage for the sake of his friendship, according to Ramanathan.
The kummi mentions that Desingu’s wife committed Sati, but in the Candai and ballad, she gets permission from the Nawab to commit Sati. At this point in the conversation, Ramanathan throws a question at this writer: “What do you think could be the reason, for this change in version?” This writer recalls reading a collection of East India Company papers, which had a whole section dedicated to Hindu widows. The correspondence was about abolishing Sati, with Lushington, the magistrate of Kumbakonam, recording that 100 instances of Sati took place in 1813, despite the Raja of Tanjore opposing the practice.
Lushington writes that the Company should ban the practice. Sati was commonplace when the kummi was written around 1714. But in the early 1800s, the East India Company was already trying to dissuade women from sati. And by the time the ballad appeared, Sati had already been abolished. Could disapproval by British authorities be a reason for later versions of the Desingu story saying that his wife sought permission to become a Sati? Ramanathan concurs that this was the reason.
Desingu is spelt Tej Singh in Sewell’s List of Antiquities. The name is spelt Jeyasingh in the Mac Kenzie manuscript collection, and Taygy Singh in the Company’s despatches to England. But no matter what the historical accounts say, it is the folk ballad which has succeeded in capturing popular imagination. (The MGR film Raja Desingu was also mostly based on the ballad, with a few changes).
Folk songs record the angst of those who would have otherwise remained voiceless. In the 1940s, the Japanese army brought in many Tamils from Malaysia, to work on the Siam-Burma railway. This project earned the name death railway, because of the thousands of people who died due to the harsh conditions under which the Japanese made them work. The unlettered Tamil labourers composed folk songs capturing their miserable condition. These songs were collected in the 1980s by Ra. Baladandayudam, and published posthumously in 1998.
Prisoners of war belonging to the Allied forces, were also made to work on the railway. While the ordeals of the prisoners of war have been well-documented, the only records of the suffering of the Tamils, who worked on the death railway, are their folk songs, says Ramanathan.