Thiyagi R Venkatraman

In the process of reconstructing my great-grandfather Venkatraman's life as a freedom fighter, I often found myself turning to archives, manuscripts, and memories. But some questions required guidance from those who have spent their lives studying India’s past. This led me to write to historian Ramachandra Guha , seeking help in deciphering a handwritten letter from Jawaharlal Nehru to the Red Star Society of Kayalpattinam. What follows is our correspondence—an important step in my journey to preserve and understand my ancestor’s legacy. Gowtham Rajan M R  Fri, 4 Jul 2025 at 5:34 pm To: Ramachandra Guha  I am Gowtham Rajan M. R., A postgraduate in History. From Tamil Nadu. My great-grandfather, Mr. R. Venkatrama Mudaliar, was a freedom fighter and the Karnam (hereditary village accountant) of Kayalpattinam. With the onset of the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1932, he resigned from his post and actively participated in toddy shop picketing, for which he was arrested. He later...

In the early 1930s, the Trichinopoly Central Prison became an unexpected meeting ground for men who had arrived at the cause of freedom through sharply different paths. In 1932, Venkatraman—a young Gandhian freedom fighter from Kayalpattinam—found himself imprisoned there after joining the Civil Disobedience Movement. At the same time, Trichy housed some of the most influential revolutionaries from North India. Among them were Jaidev Kapoor and Batukeshwar Dutt, convicts in the Lahore Conspiracy Case and the Central Assembly Bombing Case, respectively—the very cases that had sent Bhagat Singh to the gallows. Their transfer to southern prisons infused the atmosphere with an unmistakable revolutionary energy, sharply contrasting with Gandhian ideals of ahimsa and disciplined non-violent protest. One striking circumstance shaped conditions inside Trichy Prison. The British superintendent then in charge, as freedom fighter G. Ramachandran later recalled, had married an Irish woman from a f...