Chennai is a city; Madras is an emotion

After a long gap, I am writing about a southern Indian megacity that has its own chequered history comparable to Mumbai or Delhi, but in normal urban discourses, the city seldom finds much mention.

The book in hand is a comprehensive profile, providing rich glimpses from almost every sphere of social, political, cultural, and sporting life the city has lived in the past four centuries.

When its old name Madras was changed, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) was governing Tamil Nadu under the longest-serving CM M Karunanidhi in 1996. The government decided what was Chennapattanam should be made Chennai, perhaps a shortened name of the ancient town of Chenna.

There are many accounts of how the name Chennai came about or about the origin of Madras, the old name. The debate seemed to have concluded after the government officially changed the colonial name of Madras to the Tamil name of Chennai on popular demand. Surely, it was not the case of changing an Aurangabad to Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar in Maharashtra or Hoshangabad to Narmadapuram in Madhya Pradesh because the old names had a Muslim touch to them. But the ‘Madras is colonial and Chennai is democratic’ debate, triggered by two opposing groups in the city, has long subsided.

Author V Sriram, a passionate urban historian, has dug well into English and Tamil literature to write the book that deals with many historic issues while presenting a detailed profile of the famous city. It is now a commonly accepted fact that Chennai, erstwhile Madras, came into being in August 1639–384 years ago.

The East Indian Company’s officer, Francis Day, set foot on this coastal town in search of a trading hub for cotton textiles, and thus goes the story of how the city was invented. Local Tamil writers have established that much before Day’s searched Madras, it had existed.

The author tells many firsts about the city’s possessions, which include the first bookshop in India by the name of Higginbothams, founded in 1844, and a railway station.

As you flip through, you get to know the interesting fact that, like the old Gujarat practice of prohibition (thanks to Gandhiji) or the recent politically driven announcement of Bihar, Madras also banned liquor consumption. ‘’In 1936, when Rajgopalachari became the head of the Congress ministry, Madras went dry. All curbs on liquor were lifted by the Karunanidhi-led DMK government in 1971, only to be brought back in 1974 and lifted in 1981 when MGR was in power’’, it informs.

The author tells us the specialties of the city, like how UNESCO included it in its 180-strong city network of ‘creative cities’. Chennai has had a solid contribution to various forms of music, and that earned the city the creative city tag. While some were amazed by the new-found status, others believe that Carnatic music, with its miniscule following, and Bharatanatyam, the classical dance form of Tamil Nadu, helped Chennai.

Besides jazz, punk, rock and roll, heavy metal, and that kind of newage music, Pt. Ravi Shankar has done many concerts in Chennai, where he has a large number of fans, the author says. The Madras Academy (of music) was started in 1928, and many music concerts were organised in later years. This was the time that music moved from public places to venues specially meant for performances.

Madras Presidency, which was the earlier governance system, was quite an old set up, which gave way to presentday Tamil Nadu. Before that, the ancient civilization was divided into four areas: Fort St. George, Black Town, Muthialpet, and Peddanaikpet; these would eventually become Madras and then Chennai. During the Presidency days, Madras University was formed, but before, the responsibility of higher education was with the College of Fort St. George. Asiatic Societies, which were set up in Bengal in 1784 and in Bombay in 1804, had not come to Madras, but the Madras Literary Society was formed around 1817.

The author takes stock of public buildings and says, quoting a Hindu article from October 2012: ‘The list of worthy civic buildings in Chennai is as sort of as a lizard’s tail’. Surprisingly enough, there are no edifices such as palaces or administrative offices in the city from an era preceding colonial times. This is true of much of Tamil Nadu—there are no vestiges of such structures from the times of the Pallavas, Cholas, or Pandyas.

By some quirk of fate, Madras was the only harbour on the eastern side to have escaped bombing in World War II. But due to fear people would leave the city, the government also had to move the high court to Coimbatore, shops closed, and Port Trust moved to Ooty, as far away as possible from the sea. April 1942 witnessed Japan taking over many countries, and the book says Madras was evacuated many times. On April 17, 1942, only 1.50 lakh people were left behind from a population of 8.50 lakh, according to lawyer and diarist ND Vardachariar. The city looked ghostly as Burma had been taken over by the Japanese, and rumours had it that the next target was the Madras coast. Governor Arthur Hope appeared hopeless. The British army got weaker, and the city was left to defend itself as police also dispersed.

From that history of a ghost town or before that, when East Indian Company (EIC) spread its tentacles in the southern part of India, Chennai has grown into a major IT, automobile, and cultural centre of India.

K. Kamraj, as CM (1954–1963), was pro-privatisation and had opened the state’s doors to many top enterprises. Vast tracts of land were converted into industrial estates, and the World Trade Fair came to be hosted in 1968.

The city’s first master plan was prepared in 1975, after which the city grew by leaps and bounds, ‘leaving the plan in tatters’. The next plan came in 2008 for 2026, but as the author comments, “they [plans] are beyond the comprehension of the common man or woman, whose lives are nevertheless impacted by such documents.’’

This is perhaps the story of most Indian cities.