Sangolli Rayanna : Forgotten Freedom Fighter

Remembering Sangolli Rayanna : Forgotten Freedom Fighter, who shares his birth and death destiny with India.

15th August and 26th January, our independence day and the Republic day respectively, are inextricably linked to every fellow Indians. These two dates, which are connected with the destiny of our revered nation, are inextricably linked with one of the heroes of India - Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna, a forgotten hero who made his supreme sacrifice fighting the British. Krantiveera is a Kannada word used to describe Sangolli Rayanna, an army chief of the Kittur Kingdom that was then ruled by Kittura Rani Channamma. On the occasion of our Independence day, 15th August, which also happens to be the birthday of Rayanna, I had paid my reverence to him by posting a Facebook post and now on the occasion of the seventieth year of our Republic Day, 26th January, which incidentally also happens to be the day when Rayanna, made his supreme sacrifice and was hanged by the British, I am once again writing this reverential post to pay my obeisance to him. The story of Rayanna, often ignored by the Indian historians, is one of adventures, bravery and martyrdom – and it won’t be wrong to term him as one of the earliest freedom fighters of our nation.

At the stroke of that historic ‘midnight hour’, on the 15th August, 1947, India woke in to freedom and it took another 2 years and few months for ‘We, the people... to adopt, enact and give ourselves the Constitution’, on the 26th of January, 1950. While wishing all fellow Indians (including all those Indians who are spread across the globe) a very happy 70th year of our Republic Day, I wish to take this opportunity of using this auspicious occasion to pay my reverence to those millions of Indians - the freedom fighters, our military and para military brethren and innumerable others - who made supreme sacrifice in service of our nation and continue to do so. One such valiant hero who made his supreme sacrifice trying to fight the British (East India Company) for their injustice, decades before the beagle of the first battle of independence was blown by the likes of Rani Jhansi and others, was Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna, a general in the Kittur kingdom, down south of India.  Most unfortunately history writers have been majorly unfair to him and he is one among  those freedom fighter heroes, who have been mostly forgotten or at most find a foot note mention in history books. Fortunately, the state to which Rayanna belongs - Karnataka - has been fair to him and his valour gets echoed in the legendary tales that have transcended down generations from the early nineteenth century. Sangolli Rayanna, has a unique honour of sharing his  life and death destiny with our nation. He shares his birthday with our Independence Day - born on the 15th August, 1798 and he made the supreme sacrifice in service of this nation, when he was hanged by the British (East India Company) on the 26th January- Republic Day - in 1838. 

Decades before the valour of Rani Jhansi’s famed First War of Indian Independence (1857) against the British, down south in Karnataka, the forgotten queen, Veer Rani Channamma had raised the first flag of defiance against the British - Colonial Rulers - who deceitfully had introduced the ‘Doctrine of Lapse’ in 1824 to illegally usurp Kittur and accede it to the British. Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna was Rani Channamma’s Commander in Chief and a warrior par excellence. This blog tribute of mine to the great Sangolli Rayanna is also a tribute to those hundreds of millions of other unsung freedom fighters without whose sacrifice Mahatma Gandhi - the father of our nation - and an apostle of peace, whose sesquicentennial centennial birth anniversary we are celebrating, may not have been successful in getting us our freedom with his non violent, peaceful and non cooperation movement against the oppressive British rulers. It is so painful that even after seven decades of our Republic, most Indians, except those from the state of Karnataka, hardly have heard the name of Sangolli Rayanna. Not just Sangolli Rayanna, history writers have mostly been unfair to the South Indian kingdoms and their great rulers that include among others the Cholas, Vijaynagar, Hoysalas and  to some extent even the Chalukyan kingdom and their rulers, whose contributions have mostly been skimmed over by the historians. Therefore it is no wonder that for most Indians, particularly young students, the name of Sangolli Rayanna might sound like a stranger. Rayanna is regarded as one of the most valiant warriors in Karnataka, who fought till death against the villainy of the erstwhile British East India Company.

Rayanna was born on 15 August 1798, in a nondescript village, Sangolli in Karnataka. He became a prominent warrior at a very young age and raised to the significant position of the Army Chief of the Kingdom of Kittur, which was ruled at the time by Queen Rani Chennamma, who was one of the first female rulers to rebel against the British rule. Incidentally it was this very town Kittur, which was chosen by the Centre for Development of Telematics (CDOT), for creating another tryst with destiny for a digital India, when the first ever Rural Automatic Exchange (RAX), indigenously designed and developed by CDOT, was commissioned in this city on the 21st July, 1986, which kick started the start of India’s telecom revolution. 

The story of Sangolli Rayanna has been ignored by the historians and there is little that one gets to read in the history books (outside Karnataka) about the adventures, bravery and martyrdom of Sangolli Rayanna, who can also be rightfully referred to as one of the earliest freedom fighters of our country. Sangoli Rayanna’s struggle against the British began during the famous Kittur rebellion in 1824, regarded by many as the first ever rebellion for freedom of India. It was the year when the British East India Company first announced the idea of the infamous Doctrine of Lapse – a law in favor of unrighteous empowerment of the British Empire that worked by annexing the princely states that was left with no natural heir to the throne. Rani Chennamma did not have her biological son and had decided to adopt a son, Shivalingappa, to succeed her in ruling her kingdom. The British did not agree for the adopted son to rule Kittur and instead ordered for Kittur to secede to the British. Rani Channamma refused this illegal demand of the British and thus had to fight the British (1824), she fought bravely and her campaign was led by Sangolli Rayanna.

Although the battle ended with the death of the Queen Channamma, Sangoli Rayanna’s struggle against the overpowering British Empire did not end for he was adamant upon crowning the adopted son of the Rani, Shivalingappa, as the ruler of Kittur. His valour during the battle against the mighty British is now a folklore legend in Karnataka and this has been immortalised through the celluloid film ‘Krantiveera Sangolli Rayanna’, which hit the screens in 2012 and became a box office hit, breaking several records.

Sangolli Rayanna and Rani Channamma fought valiantly against a highly superior British Company, whose war arsenal was tens of times superior to what the Kittur army possessed. The battle may have ended in a loss to the Kittur Rani Channamma, but her champion Commander Sangolli Rayanna fought like a tiger leading from the front and facing the mighty enemy with an unprecedented valour, which finds a parallel in the charge of the Light Brigade of the British soldiers in the Crimean war. Sangolli Rayanna was arrested by the British and was released much later after Kittur was acceded to the British. Rayanna could not digest the injustice meted out by the British and on his release from the prisons he set out to mobilise men and materials and began a deadly guerrilla war against the British. He shifted his army from one place to another and often bled the British very badly in the deadliest of guerrilla attacks on the enemy. His army burnt government offices, waylaid British troops and plundered their treasuries and so also those other landlords who sided with the British.

Alas, like all the stories of valiant soldiers and rulers fighting against the British (East India Company), Rayanna also became the target of impossible treachery. As a result of this, one of the first ever precursor of the Indian freedom movement ended abruptly with the arrest of Rayanna. The British brain washed the landlords into influencing one of the confidant of Rayanna to cheat him. Legend has it that when Rayanna was having a bath in a stream near Dori Benachi, the British soldiers attacked and at that moment Rayanna's sword, which it is said was blessed to him by a divine power of Shakti, was in the hands of his confidant who had cheated on him. When Rayanna asked for his sword, Laxman, his confidant, gave his divine sword to the British soldiers. Unarmed and surrounded by deceit, Rayanna was overpowered and captured. Rayanna was then tried in the British kangaroo court and sentenced to death. Sangolli Rayanna was executed by hanging him from a Banyan tree about 4 kilometers from a village called Nandagad in the modern day Belagavi district in Karnataka, on 26 January 1831. The folklore story says that at the time of hanging, Rayanna is believed to have said “My last wish is to be born again in this land to fight against the British and drive them away from our sacred soil". It is also believed by the local people that a close associate of Rayanna planted a Banyan sapling on his grave at the very place where he was hanged. The sapling has now grown to a massive banyan tree, which stands to this day and serves as a befitting memorial to Sangolli Rayanna. A modest memorial has been built at this site, which continues to be revered by scores of visitors who throng this place for paying their respects to this greatest of the warrior, one of the foremost soldier, who waged the first war of the freedom struggle against the mighty and treacherous British. 

What an honour it is for this great warrior, Rayanna that he shares his date of birth with the Indian Independence Day and he was hanged to death on 26th of January - the Republic Day.  On the momentous occasion of the seventieth year of our Republic, I join my countrymen in paying our reverence to Sangolli Rayanna and those of his kind and pray that their sacrifice is never ever forgotten by our countrymen.

Jai Hind.