The COMPLETE History of Chennai

Summary

This video delivers an extensive historical overview of Chennai, tracing its evolution from a small British colony to a bustling metropolis. The narrative begins with the British East India Company establishing Fort St. George, facing European rivals, and gradually gaining influence through strategic alliances and trade. Overcoming challenges and engaging in numerous conflicts, the Company solidifies control over southern India. Key figures like Robert Clive and Elihu Yale play pivotal roles in Chennai's colonial history. Post-independence, Chennai evolves as a cultural and industrial hub, marking its significance in Indian history. The video encapsulates Chennai's rich cultural legacy, from cinema to classical arts, while addressing periods of colonial oppression and local resilience, portraying the city as a symbol of historical transformation.

Highlights

• Chennai's roots were surprisingly linked to a British officer's affair with a Portuguese woman. 💏
• Fort St. George marked the British entry point into southern India and facilitated their future domination. 🏯
• Robert Clive's escape during a French siege was a turning point for the British imperial mission. 🏇
• The establishment of Yale University is intricately linked to wealth generated in colonial Madras. 🎓
• The city endured numerous invasions and sieges, shaping its resilient character. 💪

Key Takeaways

• Chennai's origin as a British trading outpost showcases the unpredictability of historical events. 🌍
• The British East India Company's dominance was bolstered by strategic alliances and military prowess. 🏰
• Key personalities like Robert Clive and Elihu Yale had a lasting impact on Chennai's colonial narrative. 📚
• Chennai's later transformation into a cultural and industrial hub highlights its versatility and resilience. 🎭
• The city's name change to Chennai symbolizes a reclamation of heritage and local identity. 🌆

Overview

Chennai's story begins with the British East India Company setting foot in India not as rulers but as traders. Initially underestimated, they navigated geopolitical challenges by setting up outposts and securing strategic alliances, leading to the establishment of Fort St. George in what was then a minor fishing village. This marked the beginning of Chennai as a foothold for British expansion in southern India.

Through acts of strategic diplomacy, military engagement, and sheer resilience, Chennai grew amidst the tumults of the colonial struggle. The city witnessed key historical figures like Robert Clive, whose escape and military genius were pivotal, and Elihu Yale, whose fortunes and philanthropy founded Yale University. Amidst sieges and trade wars, the British solidified their hold, weaving a complex colonial narrative.

Post-Independence, Chennai blossomed into a hub of cultural renaissance and industrial growth, earning a place on the global stage. This metamorphosis, coupled with its cinematic innovations and classical music heritage, underlines its rich, multifaceted legacy. The shift from 'Madras' to 'Chennai' marked a new chapter in its storied history, resonating with local pride and reclaiming of cultural identity.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 05:00: British Arrival and Early Conflicts The British initially aimed just to engage in trade with India, not to rule it. The powerful Indian kingdoms posed a significant threat to the British East India Company, which was more focused on commerce, particularly in textiles and spices. The city's establishment in Madras was even initially seen as a futile endeavor back in London, hinting at the vast unanticipated changes that would soon unfold over the next two centuries.
• 05:00 - 10:00: Establishment of Madras and Growth The chapter titled 'Establishment of Madras and Growth' explores the historical events that led to the rise of a powerful political force due to the accumulation of wealth and influence by a singular company. It highlights several key events: the defeat of the Mughal Empire, the first war of independence, the freedom struggle, and the partition of India and Pakistan. These events are traced back to their origins along the east coast of India, around the fishing villages near the present-day city of Chennai. The chapter delves into the transformation of this area from a small British colony into Chennai, now recognized as the commercial capital of the region.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Political and Military Developments This chapter delves into the Portuguese dominance over the spice trade in India during the early 1600s, highlighting their century-long monopoly and extensive trade along the western coast, exporting vast amounts of spices and textiles. It then introduces the British East India Company's (EIC) initial foray into India, characterized by a timid entry akin to a new, friendless kid in school, overshadowed by the established and formidable presence of the Portuguese traders.
• 15:00 - 20:00: British Consolidation and Society The chapter discusses the tension between Indian merchants and Portuguese traders, who threatened to force the Indians out of international trade. In response, the Indian merchants began to attack Portuguese cargo ships, leading to a series of conflicts. This escalated into open warfare between the Portuguese and another European power, resulting in battles across various terrains including oceans, islands, and forts. For Indian observers, the conflict felt like a back-and-forth struggle, akin to watching a tennis match, with both sides having moments of seeming dominance.
• 20:00 - 30:00: Cultural and Industrial Evolution This chapter discusses the uneasy peace among European trading companies, including the Dutch East India Company and the British, in India. They operated in Surat and Machilipatnam, exporting cotton textiles like chint and calico. Despite agreeing not to destroy each other, these companies were not friendly, with the British aiming to source local cotton textiles to minimize costs.
• 30:00 - 40:00: Colonial Challenges and Reforms In this chapter, the narrative revolves around the challenges faced by the East India Company (EIC) as they attempted to establish their presence in various regions. Initially, the Dutch were dismissive and protective over Pulat, asserting their dominance in that area. Similarly, the Portuguese in Sanom showed no interest in accommodating the company's ambitions and were prompt in expressing their rejection. Facing resistance from both fronts, the EIC was compelled to create an outpost in a small, unimpressive town called Armaga. This setting was far from the grandiose colonial architecture that would later characterize major cities like Madras, Kolkata, and Bombay, suggesting a humble beginning for the EIC's colonial endeavors.
• 40:00 - 48:00: Independence and Modern Era The chapter highlights the mismanagement and failure of the East India Company (EIC) outpost in Armaga. The office was in a poor state, and the location was ineffective for sourcing textiles, which was its primary mission. The outpost was managed by Francis Day, an EIC officer more interested in alcohol and fleeting romances than addressing the challenges at hand. His efforts were often frustrated by disagreements with local weavers over the subpar quality of cotton cloth. This scenario illustrates the broader issues of misgovernance and unfulfilled goals during the era discussed.

The COMPLETE History of Chennai Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 the British were never supposed to rule India I know that sounds obvious but when the British first got here ruling even a small part of India was not even close to their original plan Indian kingdoms were so rich and Powerful that the British East India Company was constantly scared of them fully aware they could be kicked out of the country at any point all they wanted was to set up a few trading outposts sell textiles and spices and make some money in fact when the company set up its very first colony in Madras everyone in London thought it was a complete waste of time but the last two centuries of Indian
• 00:30 - 01:00 history the defeat of the mugal the first war of independence the freedom struggle the India Pakistan partition were the result of one company which accumulated so much wealth and power that they became an Unstoppable political force and the story of how that happened began all the way down south here along the east coast of India near a bunch of fishing villages this is the history of Chennai a story spanning its Beginnings as a tiny British colony to its rise as a the commercial capital
• 01:00 - 01:30 of South India to its emergence as the city of traditional arts and bombastic Cinema the year was 1608 and the Portuguese had enjoyed a century of Monopoly over the spice trade with India having established trading houses all along the western coast exporting crores of rupees worth of spices and textiles the British East India Company was entering India like a shy kid joining a new school where nobody knows him and he has no friends and the popular rich kid is just waiting to bully him when the EIC attempted to start trading the
• 01:30 - 02:00 Portuguese threatened the Indian Merchants that they leave India and take away their trading connections with Europe but this new kid wasn't about to back down they started attacking Portuguese cargo ships and holding them for ransom a straight up war broke out between the two European powers who fought everywhere from the open ocean to Islands to Forts for the Indians back then it must have been like watching a tennis match back in forth back and forth there were times when it seemed almost certain that the Portuguese would win the tiebreaker had happened when yet
• 02:00 - 02:30 another European power the Dutch East India Company arrived to help out the British at last there was a sort of uneasy peace among the three foreign trading companies of India in the west these companies were operating largely out of Surat while in the East they' set up trading houses in Mach patnam exporting chint and Calico cloth made of cotton but remember even if these companies agreed to not destroy each other they were definitely not on friendly terms the British wanted to locally Source their cotton textiles to get the cheapest wholesale prices but
• 02:30 - 03:00 when they went to pulat the Dutch were like no way this is our spot when they approached the Portuguese down in sanom they couldn't be happier to tell them to get lost rejected on both sides the EIC decided to set up their own little Outpost in a small miserable town called armaga now let me briefly paint a picture for you of what this would have looked like if you expected the beautiful imposing neoclassical architecture that would come to define the glittering skyline of colonial Madras Kolkata and Bombay
• 03:00 - 03:30 this was not that the EIC office in armaga was this sad dilapidated building that would have embarrassed any official visiting from London not that they would of course since armaga turned out to be a complete failure a terrible location for sourcing textiles this hopeless Outpost was run by an EIC officer named Francis day who' spent most of his days squabbling with local Weavers over the low quality of cotton cloth and on most nights found himself at the bottom of a bottle of rum and in bed with women whose names he couldn't even recall what
• 03:30 - 04:00 little he did earn seemed to quickly disappear over a game of cards along with his reputation Andrew kogan the eic's officer at machilipatnam must have been appalled at the sorry state of the armaga office but it seemed he saw something in France's day because rather than fire him and send him packing to England he instead encouraged him to seek out a new trading Outpost further south luckily day had an interpreter Berry Tima who was friends with a local chieftain in Punam Mali called damarla venkatadri nyak a vassel lord of the
• 04:00 - 04:30 vijayanagara empire together day and Tima managed to negotiate with the nyak and win the EIC a land grant in a region south of sanom by a small fishing Village Francis day claimed he chose this spot because they could get cotton cloth for 20% cheaper here but the prevailing gossip among his men was that he had a Portuguese mistress in sanom and wanted to be as close to her as possible I want you to just think about that there's a pretty good chance that the modern Metropolis of Chennai home to over 12 million people and the capital
• 04:30 - 05:00 of Tamil Nadu exists because of an affair with an officer of the British East India Company and an unknown Portuguese woman regardless Francis day and Andrew kogan docked their ship near the villages here and went assur to Begin work on their new Outpost the EIC authorities back in Surat had zero faith in the project and actively discouraged them at every step even the captains of the British warships criticized him on the new location which made it extremely hard to Anchor ships this would come back to the British royal Navy 100 years
• 05:00 - 05:30 later during the karnatic wars on April 23rd 1640 day and kogan established the Fort St George A Modest fortified enclosure around a handful of buildings just over a year later the eic's operation in the east coast would shift from machle Putnam to the new fort with kogan at the head as for Francis day he was back in England being charged with misusing company funds to build the new Fort we don't really know whether Andrew kogan threw his colleague under the bus or if D just got unlucky but regardless
• 05:30 - 06:00 neither man's name has been recorded today on any Monument or building commemorating the original founders of Madras which is kind of sad there's a couple of interesting theories why the city ended up being called Madras the one most people know is that the small fishing Village near which the Fort St George was built was called madrasa patnam but another theory suggests that there was a local headman in the area called madrasan who owned a banana Grove which the British wanted to use for their Fort so they promised to name the new settlement madas and pnam if he
• 06:00 - 06:30 agreed to give them his land another very likely theory is that it was named after a prominent Portuguese family living in sanom the madra family who are very close with the British over the years they're the ones who built the famous Our Lady of guidance Church in mil Laur historians have said that the name Madras only appeared after the Portuguese arrived in the region so this seems like the most plausible explanation for the origins of the name what do you think let me know in the comments the new settlement around Fort St George was growing rapidly now that the British were able to export textiles
• 06:30 - 07:00 without being harassed by European competitors or Indian rulers they established two neighborhoods one in and around the fort called White Town where no prizes for guessing the white skinned Europeans lived while the neighboring black town was where the local Indian Weavers and Merchants settled between the two towns was a wide prominade which served as the busy Marketplace in just a couple of years some 3 or 400 Weavers families had settled in Madras making this place an attractive spot for
• 07:00 - 07:30 Laborers Traders and Artisans to come in search of employment but while the British were slowly growing their first colony in India there were massive political upheavals taking place right in Madras backyard in the mid 1640s the vijayanagara empire was collapsing like a massive banion tree and the dean sultanat were the ones wielding the axe in the East the Gunda Sultan's Army was rapidly advancing South led by the audacious Mir jumla luckily for medras the British had developed a friendly
• 07:30 - 08:00 relationship with the Ganda nawab even if they were frustrated at how much money he was extracting from them at Mach patnam so while the various kingdoms and vassals of the vijayanagara empire fell like dominoes all around them Madras was able to quietly continue its trade with the rest of the world albe it at a steep price but even if they were technically safe anybody would be at least a little worried about getting invaded by some random king or Chieftain the British decided it was better to be safe than sorry and expanded the Fort St George improving
• 08:00 - 08:30 its fortifications the relative stability of medras also meant more people were flocking to the New Colony and it continued to grow as the British acquired more and more of the surrounding Land from the local nyaks Madras was finally becoming almost a proper City this is when we see a really interesting turning point in India's history the British monarch King Charles II was to marry the Portuguese princess Katherine of briganza and the EIC were really hoping the Portuguese would hand
• 08:30 - 09:00 over the colony of sanom to the British as D but in 1662 the Gonda General Raza kully surrounded sanom and laid Siege to it unlike the British the Portuguese had no special understanding with the sultan so he allowed sanom to starve until they were forced to give up the colony to Gunda no more Dari plans so when Charles and Katherine got married that year the Portuguese decided instead to give them a different Colony Bombay can you imagine the course of history if goonda had hadn't invaded sanom the modern city
• 09:00 - 09:30 of Mumbai the financial capital of the country the birthplace of Indian Cinema may have never even come into existence by the way you should check out my video on the complete history of Mumbai after this link below the like button there was a brief period when santhome was occupied by the French but the whole time they were fighting the Gonda Army and the Dutch who wanted to kick them out but that only lasted 2 years so why am I even mentioning this well there's two very important reasons the first is that after the French were finally
• 09:30 - 10:00 kicked out of sanom a small contingent of French officers sailed further down the coast where they established what would become the largest French colony in India pondicherry the second reason will be revealed later in this video when Madras faced an existential threat at the hands of a new enemy on the battlefield a lot of things happened in the late 17th century the marata king shivaji conquered huge parts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu the famous St Mary's Church was built the British started minting their own coins in
• 10:00 - 10:30 Madras and the Gunda sultanat was defeated by aze bringing all the land surrounding Madras under mugal control once more the farsighted diplomacy of the British was on full display when shivaji invaded they were safe because they were allies of the Gunda Sultan as for the mugal they had already cozied up to the previous two Emperors so orang was happy to give them full freedom to continue trading out of Madras and local rulers were forbidden from attacking them do you see it do you see how the
• 10:30 - 11:00 influence of the British was ever so gradually spreading it started with simple trade licenses and land grants but was slowly expanding to cover political immunity exclusive access to trade routes and even military assistance imagine if companies like Amazon or Google were given Monopoly in certain regions had their data centers protected by the Indian government and were even allowed to build their own armies in Bangalore and Hyderabad this is exactly what the EIC had started doing and just 50 years earlier they were getting kicked out of every city
• 11:00 - 11:30 they tried to set up an office in my point is Madras had become this epicenter for some serious Commerce there was this one guy who became an insanely wealthy diamond and slave trader while serving as the president of Madras and went back to London to become a philanthropist at one point he donated gifts worth over £800 Sterling to the colony in Boston in the US which was enough money to establish a whole new building for a university there they were so grateful that they named the university after him and it still exists
• 11:30 - 12:00 today any guesses well the philanthropist was eliu Yale who funded the Yale University one of the top 10 universities in the world today using the fortune he acquired in Madras oh and another fun fact about Yale he's the one who started the first ever Municipal Corporation in India The Madras Corporation to manage Civic works in the growing city 327 years later it was renamed to the greater Chennai Corporation in 2015 and is still the municipal body overseeing the the city's infrastructure so if you have a problem
• 12:00 - 12:30 with the roads or flooding in Chennai take it up with this guy now a lot of interesting people have found themselves in Madras at some point or another but few are more important to the history of colonial India than a certain office clerk who sailed from London to India in 1744 this 19-year-old boy was shipped off to Madras by his father where he had to endure the suffocating heat and unfamiliar surroundings while doing the uninspiring work of a shopkeeper's assistant for 2 years the boy's mind
• 12:30 - 13:00 wandered to dark unforgiving places in the lonely nights and he even tried to take his own life on two occasions his only Solace was the governor's Library where he spent almost all his free time devouring books but the world outside mad's walls were in just as much turmoil as the boy's mind for the last 20 years the British and French in India were locked in ugly hostilities with each other both the European powers were amassing their own private armies and fleets of warships in anticipation of
• 13:00 - 13:30 conflict the British launched a naval attack in 1745 and when the French retaliated the British commander just retreated to the safety of Bengal leaving the entire coromandel Coast wide open the inevitable happened on 7th September 1746 when The French naval fleet sailed to the shores of Madras cannons at the ready they began firing at the city whose meager fortifications couldn't withstand the heavy bombardment the soldiers soon lost their morale and began drinking heavily leaving the
• 13:30 - 14:00 civilians to man the defenses in desperation but it was a losing battle and 2 days later they surrendered to the French who seized the town and made the civilians swear an oath to never take up arms against the French those who refused were thrown in jail the Young office clerk was among the prisoners awaiting God knows what fate the French intended for them except he didn't wait he and a few others disguised themselves as Indians and managed to slip past the guards and Escape Fort St George over the next 3 days they made their way to
• 14:00 - 14:30 the nearest British Outpost Fort St David in present day cure being careful to avoid both locals and patrolling French troops when they finally arrived at the Fort the young man decided to resign from his job as office Clerk and found his calling in the East India Company Army this young man was Robert Clive the man who would go on to lead the EIC Army to victory in the Battle of plassy establish company rule in Bengal and become the governor of the Bengal president which would grow into the
• 14:30 - 15:00 largest British colony in all of India in 1747 Clive won great honors when he defended the Fort St David against the French and again the next year when the British laid Siege to pondichery this brought an end to the first kartic war but the French were not about to be so easily subdued and cive spent the next 6 years leading the British armies in various battles and sieges across Tamil Nadu in 1753 cive got married to Margaret masculine in the St Mary's Church one one of the oldest British
• 15:00 - 15:30 buildings in India before sailing back to England the next year when he returned to India in 1755 his campaigns would take him all the way to Kolkata where he would leave his deepest mark on Indian history the final chapter in the conflict between the British and French in India was written on the field surrounding Madras where the French launched a 5-day assault on the city with guns and Siege weapons it took several weeks of constant fire to At Last breach the walls but before they could take Madras British reinforcements
• 15:30 - 16:00 arrived on the scene forcing the French to retreat the British pursued them to pondicherry where they comprehensively destroyed the French Resistance 150 years after arriving in India as a powerless Underdog playing third fiddle to the Dutch and the Portuguese the British had finally defeated their only remaining competitor in India allowing them to establish military and political Supremacy over both foreign and local Powers a new era of Indian history history was beginning with Madras at the
• 16:00 - 16:30 very center of it by the way if you're enjoying this video so far just take a second to like And subscribe because it'll help me create even more highquality videos on Indian history for you to enjoy now just try to imagine living in Madras during this period constant Wars sieges and invasions would have been utterly exhausting both for the European colonists and the local Indian population the streets would be heavily militarized with soldiers transporting equipment from one part of the fort to to another construction work
• 16:30 - 17:00 would have been near constant in an effort to rebuild what was destroyed in the last battle and in preparation for the next one but amidst all this uncertainty the residents of Madras somehow had to find some semblance of normaly on any given day the city would be crowded with Sailors and Merchants from all over the world thronging the streets and bazaars to get the best wholesale deals on spices or find the finest quality cotton cloth to take back to their Homeland markets would be B in with colors and smells mounds of pepper
• 17:00 - 17:30 turmeric clove and cinnamon an assortment of fragrant flowers pearls harvested from the shallow seabeds of the coast nearby and diamonds from the mines of Gonda the air would be stuffy and humid and hot particularly in the Summers so the city and buildings were laid out in such a way that the streets would catch the coastal winds the docks would be one of the busiest places in the city the shouts of sailors Traders and laborers over the incessant noise of seagulls and waves lapping against the
• 17:30 - 18:00 sides of ships at night the bars and Arch houses would come to life music playing loudly within the sounds of laughter filtering through the smoke from bees and chillums the British part of town was also seeing commercial establishments coming up at every street corner in 1788 a Welshman named Thomas Parry started a banking firm which slowly grew into the business of processing and selling sugar which would have been a prized commodity back then that's how we got one one of the oldest companies in India and the oldest in
• 18:00 - 18:30 Chennai Eid Parry limited which today has Diversified into chemicals bio products Investments and infrastructure chennai's famous business district of par Corner was named after the man himself Thomas parry and if you're old enough to remember bie Mills that company was also started by an Englishman John Binny in 1797 before they were Acquired and split up in 1987 they were involved in everything from textiles to Electric trams to insurance but if we zoom out of this small piece
• 18:30 - 19:00 of land hugging the coromandel coast we start to see the beginnings of a new political upheaval farther Inland The Rise of An Unexpected power in the Mur Kingdom led by hayar Ali you see after hayar Ali began a campaign to expand the kingdom of Myer into the East he tried to form an alliance with the East India Company on multiple occasions but the British severely underestimated him thinking he was some over ambitious local ruler who was acting too big for his boots besides the n of Hyderabad and the maratas wanted to defeat hayar Ali
• 19:00 - 19:30 so they' already Allied themselves with the British and were preparing for war what they didn't expect was how well Tred haer's armies were as he won battle after battle taking Forts and marching closer and closer to Madras the British panicked and tried to discuss peace but Hayer Ali refused the terms in 1769 with a force of 6,000 Cavalry troops and several infantry haer marched his army for 3 days straight arriving at the very gate Gates of Madras the city had been
• 19:30 - 20:00 left defenseless since most of the army was spread out across Tamil Nadu and Karnataka during the war he probably could have taken the city if he really wanted to and India's history might have taken a very different turn imagine if Madras had become a part of the Myer Kingdom but the British made a final peace negotiation promising to come to his Aid if Myer was attacked if there's one lesson you can take away from this bit of History it's that you should never trust the British because just 30 years later hayar Ali's son tipu Sultan
• 20:00 - 20:30 was slain in battle and the entire Kingdom of Myer was yet another addition to the East India company's growing collection of stolen Treasures by the late 18th century the British had Consolidated land and Powerful political alliances all across South India like Thanos collecting the Infinity Stones allowing them to form the Madras presidency an administrative region that covered almost all of Tamil Nadu and Andra Pradesh oh and even if it looks like myour and cor aren't part of this
• 20:30 - 21:00 they were just subsidiary allies of the company which means the British were still calling the shots along with the Bombay and Bengal presidencies just one company employing maybe 2 or 3,000 British men had almost complete control over nearly all of India Bangladesh Pakistan and parts of Myanmar there's never been anything like it at any point in history now that the British had dealt with all their biggest enemies and emerged Victorious they were able to really settle in and enjoy the Comforts that came with colonizing a resourcer
• 21:00 - 21:30 subcontinent with plenty of cheap labor this was the period when all the major Colonial outposts Bombay Kolkata and of course Madras began expanding both vertically and horizontally as more people flocked to Madras in search of work its population steadily began to rise and the British began to rebuild the city in a quintessentially British aesthetic creating tall impressive churches and administrative buildings that brought their distant Colonial Outpost somewhat closer to home clubs
• 21:30 - 22:00 were started where the British could socialize and play sports during the day and make Merry in the bomy evenings schools and colleges were instituted for both British and Indian youngsters to benefit from a proper English education an engineering College a medical college and even a school of industrial art was started in the mid 19th century at some point the British must have gotten rather sick and tired of the constant oppressive heat in Madras and they found themselves resorting to spending time in the much cooler neir Hills during the Summers they liked it so much that in
• 22:00 - 22:30 1821 the first British Outpost was built in utan or UTI pretty soon most of the members of The Madras government started regularly going to Outi to avoid the summer heat which the EIC Supreme government in Kolkata did not approve of I found this hilarious series of letters from 1840 between the court of directors in Kolkata and the governor of Madras Lord Elfin Stone where the directors were like no you can't just drop everything and leave Madras come back and immediately so the governor replied
• 22:30 - 23:00 no way man it's too hot there me and my guys are constantly falling sick we're just going to chill here for a few months and that's eight I swear the directors were like this is illegal you can't do this so the governor just ghosted them for 4 months the directors must have known they couldn't really do much about it because UTI eventually became the summer capital of The Madras presidency something tells me that the Kolkata guys were maybe a bit jealous that the Madras guys had a convenient Hill station to cool off during the summer want to know a fun fact the game of snooker which is basically a
• 23:00 - 23:30 variation of Billiards was invented in Outi a British army officer Neville Chamberlain created the rules for the game in the Stonehouse Bungalow in ITI the name snooker comes from a slang term used to Haze newbie soldiers in the Army today snooker is a global Sport and the annual World Championships are watched by tens of millions of people so many new institutions were established in Madras during the mid 19th century The Madras rail way was started in 1845
• 23:30 - 24:00 connecting the city with towns all across South India and eventually as far out as Bombay and Kolkata The Madras High Court one of the oldest in India was built in 1862 107 acre Court complex built in the emerging Indo saric style its imposing structure and bright red Towers symbolizing the strength and permanence of the British Empire the oldest shopping mall in India the iconic Spencers Plaza opened its doors to the public just two years later a collection of over 80 department stores in the
• 24:00 - 24:30 heart of Madras it seemed like nothing could stop the meteoric rise of the British Raj and its Great Southern presidency but the fragility of even such a powerful Colonial Empire was cruely exposed just a decade later when the Great Famine of 1876 ravaged the dean Plateau resulting in widespread crop failures and a massive blow to the food supply to Madras Bombay Myer and hyra when a famine had struck Bihar 3 years
• 24:30 - 25:00 earlier the leftenant governor of Bengal Sir Richard Temple had ordered the import of huge quantities of grain from Burma to feed the local population and prevent Mass starvation for that humanitarian act he was harshly criticized for having spent too much government money on Aid so when South India was hit with a severe food shortage in 1876 he allowed trade to continue as normal and drastically reduced the relief operations putting tight restrictions on who qualified for Aid and reducing wages in relief camps
• 25:00 - 25:30 the British government had no intention of spending any more than the absolute bare minimum to feed the starving and impoverished the result was this 58 million people suffered acute food shortages approximately 8.2 million men women and children died from starvation wherever you looked there was no escaping it emaciated bodies little more than Skin and Bones lying led up in government relief camps desperately
• 25:30 - 26:00 waiting for rations to be doled out even as they watched massive sacks of Rice and Grain stacked on the beaches of Madras right there in front of them ready to be shipped off to some Far Away place the 2-year famine shook the nation inciting deeply anti-colonial sentiments among not just Indians but some sympathetic British observers as well just 8 years later in 1885 the Indian National Congress was formed in Bombay organized by Alan Octavian Hume and
• 26:00 - 26:30 headed by daai naoi 2 years later the Congress held their third session in Madras which was attended by 362 delegates as we approached the new century the Indian Freedom Movement was really beginning to take shape if you were to walk down the famous Mount Road in the late 19th or early 20th century you would witness a hub of commercial activity showrooms selling carriages and luxury goods and some of the first cars in India massive firms like TV s saw their Beginnings on this road and the
• 26:30 - 27:00 cream of the city's crop had set up Offices here including Madras biggest newspapers like the male but many Indians were fed up with these British run newspapers which mysteriously had the tendency to avoid criticizing the oh right British run government and ignoring the very real issues of Indians living there in 1878 a group of six disgruntled law students led by G subramanya Ayer started a purely Indian Run newspaper that wouldn't hesitate to call out the shortcomings of the
• 27:00 - 27:30 colonial government this newspaper with its new office on Mount Road was the Hindu a voice for the voiceless native population of the city of course this was an English language paper in the early 20th century Madras where most of the local residents spoke Tamil to reach a wider Indian audience Ayer founded the swades mitran in 1882 the first Tamil language newspaper owned and operated entirely by Indians the paper boldly proclaimed nationalistic views using Tales from the ramayana and Mahabharata
• 27:30 - 28:00 as familiar reference points for their anti-colonial rhetoric subramanya bharati one of the most famous Tamil writers in the early 20th century also joined the paper as an editor writing scathing columns and introducing political cartoons lampooning the British as the political atmosphere heated up in Madras several activists including subramanya Ayer were imprisoned for their Publications in the 1920s and 30s the Freedom Movement in The Madras presidency took a very different turn from what was happening
• 28:00 - 28:30 in the rest of the country a strong anti- bramman sentiment had gripped the region opposed to the Brahman Monopoly of jobs in the Indian civil service and the government and even their overwhelming majority in the Congress when the Congress finally came into power in Madras in 1937 and imposed the use of Hindi and educational institutions Madras rose up in protest with several political groups rallying behind the anti-hindi movement this uniquely regional political movement gave rise to a strong Pro Tamil secular ideology that eventually led to the
• 28:30 - 29:00 formation of draer kagam a new political party founded by EV ramasami with the goal of dismantling the cast system and establishing a dravidian nation separate from the rest of India the ripples of this new movement still echoed deeply in the politics of modern day Tamil Nadu and would lead to the creation of the two most prominent political parties in the state the DMK and AIA DMK after Independence the states of India were organized on the basis of regional language at which point Andra Pradesh
• 29:00 - 29:30 demanded that Madras be made part of their state after all there had been so much intermingling between the city and the nearby telgu speaking regions but of course the tamilans weren't about to give up the capital of The Madras presidency so a compromise was made and Andra got to have tirupati while Madras stayed with Madras state which was renamed to Tamil Nadu in 1968 with the British totally out of the picture now was really the time for Madras to blow up as the Metropolis of the South the city became the automotive manufacturing
• 29:30 - 30:00 capital of India with pretty much all the major brands setting up factories and headquarters here BMW Ford Mahindra Hyundai mrf the list goes on and on Tamil Cinema was giving the Bombay film industry a serious run for its money with Innovative cinematography unique stories and Immortal music by some of the greatest composers in the country the city even developed a Vibrant Community of ktic music and art being recognized by UNESCO for its contributions to the cultural heritage
• 30:00 - 30:30 of Indian classical music today the Fort St George is the seat of the Tamil Nadu government coming full circle from the time the fort was segregated from the neighboring Indian areas way back when they were still called White Town and black toown in 1996 Madras was renamed to Chennai shedding some of its Colonial baggage and adopting a name that was coined by the locals but where did that name come from well you got to rewind all all the way back to when the city was first founded when damarla
• 30:30 - 31:00 venkatadri Nayak gave the British some land to build their Fort he wanted the area to be named chenna patnam after his father dharla chanapa Nayak of course history took the town in a different direction but the locals continued to use that name chanap patnam to describe a certain part of that town before it was gradually swallowed up by the greater city of Madras and was largely forgotten that is until the day the people of Tamil Nadu decided to revive that centuries old name a local name an
• 31:00 - 31:30 Indian name and that's how the modern Metropolitan city of Chennai was born thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed this video please like And subscribe cuz I'm making lots more videos on Ancient medieval and modern Indian history there's lots of stories of Chennai I couldn't possibly cover in one video so if I miss something drop a comment below until next time see you soon