Elaborate Self-Government Systems Existed in North TN Villages Before the Arrival of the British: A Study

Murugan Temple at Kundrathur. File | Photo credit: M. Srinath

A recent study by the Center for Policy Studies (CPS), a non-profit research organization, in two villages in northern Tamil Nadu – Kundrathur and Ullavur – neighboring Chennai highlights how elaborate autonomous administrative systems exist. village level for many years before the arrival of the British.

Jatinder K. Bajaj, director, CPS, said the main objective of the study was to know how Indian politics worked before the British. The study was based on a survey conducted by British military officer Thomas Barnard between 1767 and 1774 at around 2,000 locations in the then Chengalpattu Jagir. The British acquired this region in 1762 from the Nawab of Arcot.

He said summary records of Barnard Survey are available in Tamil Nadu State Archives in English. In these records, the British summarized information about the working of villages in the jagir from Tamil inscriptions on Tamil leaves kept by traditional accountants called ‘kanakkupillis’.

“For the study of Kundrathur and Ullavur, the CPS consulted both archival summary records and Tamil palm leaves. Additionally, we have looked at several inscriptions from Kundrathur, Ullavur and Kasakudi copperplates of the Pallava period,” he said.

‘Economically, culturally, politically independent’

A major finding of the study, recently published in two separate books by the CPS in collaboration with the Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (INGCA), is that Indian villages were self-governing in the pre-British era. Units with well-defined boundaries, which were considered sacred.

Bajaj said the villages are economically, culturally and politically independent. Each village had its own long history. Fifty-five inscriptions have been recorded from Kundrathur, dating from the Chola period to the Mughal period, which shed light on the history of the village over centuries.

Studies have shown that Chengalpattu Jagir has an annual per capita production of one ton of food grains, which is five times the Indian average today. This study describes in detail how the abundant agricultural produce was distributed among the various institutions and functionaries of the village. A substantial portion of the produce was earmarked for the maintenance of the abundant water resources in the region and for the maintenance of elite scholars, teachers, musicians and dancers.

The study urged the central and state governments to collect inscriptions, copper plates, palm-leaf accounts, and records from various periods in various villages across the country to decolonize Indian politics and revive the self-governing administrative practices prevalent before the arrival of the British. . It also suggested reviving the water gardens, flower gardens and impressive temples at Kundrathur and Ullavur, which would restore the 18th-century grandeur of these villages and make them centers of heritage tourism.