Tiruppur Kumaran: the victim who resisted the British Raj

The year 1932 began ominously for the satyagrahis in their struggle for freedom. The British Raj was no longer in the mood to keep the Congress in good spirits. Amid the severe impact of the Great Depression, a “National” government took office in London in August, with Ramsay MacDonald of the Labor Party as Prime Minister and Stanley Baldwin of the Conservative Party as de facto second-in-command. The Liberals were also part of MacDonald’s Cabinet. Within months, she scored a landslide victory in the general election. In New Delhi, Willingdon became Viceroy, replacing Irwin, who had entered into a pact with Mahatma Gandhi in March 1931 and adopted a conciliatory approach to Gandhi and the Congress.

Willingdon was no Irwin. By the time Gandhi returned to Bombay on 28 December after a four-month visit to England where he attended the Second Round Table Conference, the Raj had not only abandoned the pact but had also begun repressive measures in many provinces, including Bengal and the United Provinces (now called Uttar Pradesh). Rule by ordinance was imposed, 15 ordinances were promulgated under which, as noted by Tara Chand in A History of the Freedom Movement in India (Vol. 4), “(the government) committed excruciating barbarities and merciless repression. Two days before Gandhi’s arrival, Jawaharlal Nehru was arrested. ‘Civil martial law’ was imposed.”

Gandhi’s arrest

On 1 January 1932, Gandhi, after a meeting with members of the Congress Working Committee, informed Willingdon of the revival of the Civil Disobedience Movement. The government’s response was swift. The Congress was declared illegal. Gandhi was arrested on 4 January, followed by Rajendra Prasad the next day. “By January 10, leading Congressmen were behind bars all over India,” wrote DG Tendulkar in Mahatma (Vol. 3).

On that day, a satyagrahi was beaten to death in the town of Tiruppur in the western region of Tamil Nadu, and his martyrdom catapulted him to prominence. He was one of the agitators who, like thousands elsewhere in the country, staged demonstrations to call attention to the Congress policy of boycotting foreign substances and liquors.

Tiruppur Kumaran Paintings in Memorial Hall near Tiruppur Railway Station | Photo credit: S. Siva Saravanan

While receiving blows from the police, the Tiruppur satyagrahis held on to the tricolor, which symbolized the national movement, and refused to part with it. He was N. Kumarasami, also known as Tiruppur Kumaran. As he held the flag aloft without touching the ground, he came to be known as “Kodi Kaatha Kumaran (Kumaran who protected the flag). He became a symbol of those who laid down their lives for the political freedom of their countrymen.

Who was Kumaran?

According to a Tamil biography by BS Sundaram, a freedom fighter and leader of the agitation team that led the demonstration in Tiruppur on the fateful day (10 January 1932), Kumaran was born on 4 October in Chennimalai, now in Erode district, to a humble weaving family belonging to the Senguntha Mudaliar community. He could study up to the fifth standard after which he joined a traditional profession. In 1923, the 19-year-old married Ramayee, who was 14 years old. He moved to Tiruppur where he worked as a clerk in a cotton ginning plant for six years.

A biography published on Independence Day 1950 states that Kumaran, wearing only khadi clothes when he emigrated to Tiruppur, was very eager to participate in the 1930 Vedaranayam Salt March led by C. Rajagopalachari (CR or Rajaji), but his parents prevailed upon him not to participate in the event. However, his interest in the national movement was such that he became involved in various agitations. He became a member of the Tiruppur Desabandhu Youth Association. His friends and relatives noticed Kumaran’s growing interest in the freedom struggle and mocked him for his actions. He continued the activity within a short time after the death of his father Natchimuthu Mudaliar in 1931. Yet he remained steadfastly focused.

Biographer Sundaram has in fact mentioned that only his mother Karupayee Ammal was in town at the time of the fateful agitation and not his wife who had gone to Kumarapalayam. “Had she been there, she would have tried to prevent Kumaran from going ahead with his decision,” the biographer pointed out.

A fateful day

As has happened on many occasions, the person who was supposed to lead the agitators in Tiruppur dropped out on the morning of January 10. At about 5 o’clock that day, a couple who had immigrated from Gujarat for livelihood and were enthusiastic participants in the national movement were picked up by the police and produced before the sub-collector at Pollachi. Eventually the responsibility of leading the satyagrahas, of which there were nine, fell on the shoulders of Sundaram.

Tiruppur Kumaran

Kumaran volunteered to lead the processions that went around Tiruppur, then a small town in Tamil Nadu. Women performed ‘arati’ (traditional welcome) at several places and gave their moral support. When the satyagrahis reached the city’s police station on the main road, 30 policemen and two officers pounced on them without any warning, Sundaram recounted.

A “rain of lathis” followed. Kumaran, who led the procession, bore the brunt of the attack. The part of the brain above the left ear was broken. Several more blows were administered at that point. Even as he fell to the ground, he held the national flag firmly in his right hand. Another satyagrahi who also received a fatal blow was R. Raman Nair. Talking about the second martyr, Sundaram noted that it was at Nair’s suggestion that he agreed to lead the riot. Nair had also earlier participated in the civil disobedience movement and was jailed. As Kumaran and Nair lay lifeless on the Tiruppur main road, the police stomped on them with their boots. As an autopsy was performed the next day, government records give the date of Kumaran’s death as 11 January 1932. His funeral was conducted in an almost secret manner, with the administration allowing only two people to carry his body and not allowing other mourners to take it openly in the procession.

Tamil scholar MP Sivagnanam, popularly known as Ma.Po.SI, in his seminal work on Tamil Nadu’s role in the freedom struggle – Viduthalipporil Tamizhagam (Second Volume) – pointed out that Circle Inspector Mohammed, who carried out the attack, was transferred from Tiruppur. “It was not a punishment for him. But it was a protection for him from the people of Tiruppur who were shaking with rage,” the scholar wrote.

Bust of Tiruppur Kumaran in Memorial Hall | Photo credit: S. Siva Saravanan

Memorial column

Within no time, the Congress party in Coimbatore, Tiruppur and many other parts of the state started organizing events to preserve the memory of Kumaran. His birth anniversary was celebrated as “Volunteer Day” and his death anniversary as “Kumar Day”. In January 1948, Cutchery Road, where Kumaran was beaten to death, was named after him and the local body decided to erect a statue as well, according to a report published in The Hindu on 5 February 1948.

On 18 August 1957, the then Chief Minister K. Kamaraj unveiled a pillar in memory of Kumaran near Tiruppur railway station. “A lofty pillar is being erected near Tirupur railway station at a cost of Rs. (₹) 8,000. It is 25 feet tall with a torch on top and depicts a picture of a volunteer holding a Congress flag. The pillar is being erected in view of the centenary celebrations of the freedom struggle,” Subm Kuramania, Sundarmaran’s finance minister, said in a daily on August 20. nephew, Lakshmanan.

In January 1965, as part of the centenary celebrations of Lala Lajpat Rai, the wife of Kumaran and Vanchinathan, who murdered the then Tirunelveli Collector and District Magistrate Robert William D’Escourt Ash in June 1911, they were honored at a function at Rajaji Hall, Chennai. Each of them received a gold-plated silver medal and a white silk khadi saree. While Vanchinathan’s wife Ponnambal got the award, Ramayee didn’t, but her sister-in-law did.

In October 1979, Chief Minister MG Ramachandran, while attending a conference of freedom fighters at the Tamukkam grounds in Madurai, announced that his government would give Ramayee a grant of ₹10,000, in addition to giving her a monthly ex gratia grant of ₹300 to ₹500. In April 1991, the state government constructed a memorial containing photographs and exhibits relating to Kumaran and the freedom fighters of Tiruppur district.

In April 1998, Ramayee died and her mausoleum is located in the memorial complex. On the occasion of the martyr’s birth centenary in October 2004, the postal department issued a stamp on him. In October 2025, the foundation stone was laid at Chennimalai for a Kumari memorial to be built at a cost of ₹2.5 million.

Although 95 years have passed, Kumaran’s legacy lives on.