Ravi varma Raja ..not many had heard of him in Kerala Iam sure .
The reason is the distorted history taught in our schools and colleges .
A History which eulogises tyrants and bigots like Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan known to have converted ,massacared,maimed,raped,and looted thousands of commen men and women who lived in erstwhile Malabar .
They destroyed and desecrated many temples stripping it of wealth and denigrating and vilyifying its deities .
As the British who ruled Madras Presidency were opposed to Tipus taking over the land that they wanted and they supported those who rose against him , was the only reason why Tipu fought the British not because he was a freedom fighter as made out !
In those days of several small fiefdoms and kingdoms there was no unitary concrpt of a country fighting for freedom from British .
Fights of freedom happened in all directions with convinient alliances and breaking away of th alliances as convinient .
Ravi varma raja belonged to Padinjare kovilakkam of Maankaavu of Zamorin family who had ruled Calicut or Kozhikode for 600 years .
Incidentally my maternal grandfather belongs to this branch of the Zamorin family ,but today they are just powerless figments of their former selfs .
Ravi varma Raja lived between 1745 to 1793 .
In 1766 Hyder Ali invaded Malabar and the Samorin with his Nair warriors fought valiantly but in 1767 Hyder Ali managed to win .
By then the Samorin had sent his relatives to safe haven in Ponanni and immolated himself instead of sure imprisonment by Hyder Ali who would forcibly convert and torture him .
Hyder is defeated in 1767 and samorin returns to take over kingdom .
There is an interval of peace till 1774
Instead of fortifying himself against Mysore or even going into an alliance with them he does neither instead goes for a fight with Cochin !
In 1774 Hyder returns to a war and samorin fleds to Travancore
In 1782 Ravi varma army get whole of Calicut but in 1784 Tipu got Malabar by traty of Mangalore .
Ravi varma keeps troubling him .
In 1788 Tipu heads a huge army to counter Ravi varma and takes over part of Manjeri called Karannavapad .
Tipus men under French commander Lally failed to subdue Ravi verma and Hyder Ali tries to get a deal with him which does not work out .
There develops a power vacum and second in line in the royal family Eralppad takes over .
Thus Raja Krishna Varma becomes the samorin and rules with the help of his nephew Ravi varma who is made the commander of the armed forces .
Ravi varma had fought Hyder Ali in 1766 initially as regular army but after a defeat as guerilla warfare he needled Hyder Ali ., who massacared more than 10000
Finally Hyder had to retreat .
Ravi Varma had rescused more than 30000 Namboothiri brahmins and sent them to Travancore for safety .
Ravi varma and his brave warriors continue thier war against Tipu till 1791 .
In 1780 Tipu willingly gave him a piece of tax free land to mollify his agression but Ravi varma took the land but continued to kill Tipus men .
Finally Tipu sent a large army to Calicut agsinst Ravi varma who now took British help to defeat Tipu .
The British reneged on thier agreement in alliance to give the samorin kingdom back once they helped win it back and Ravi varma rajas nephew another Ravi varma stabbed Swaminatha Iyer the traitor Dewan and fled to Wynad to join forces with Pazhassi Raja against British .
But Swaminatha iyer lived to tell the tale after the attack as he was taken to
Ravi varma Raja himself was captured by British and died in captivity in Cherplassery while his nephew committed suicide fearing arrest by the British .
But today Tipu Sultan is made a freedom fighter ! And no one really knows of valiant fighters who fought for thier land in defiance to the bigots who religiously persecuted millions .
The second big lie is the more recent Moplah legala or massacare which has been twisted by seculars as a freedom struggle but was actually a cruel genocide .
Strangely next year its century is planned and some films based on the false history are even planned .
I shall write on that too shortly as it was my native places which were most affected .
Picture shows Zamorin in his hey days...from online..can be deleted if needed.
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