Anniversary question

It was exactly a year ago that I visited this building for the first time. There is nothing in the picture which explicitly states what this building is. But the colour scheme, plus that Black Maria (okay, it is painted blue, but it was a paddy wagon alright) parked on the right should give you enough indication for making a guess. 

Here are some more clues. The original building, the core of which has been retained here, was built in 1842. In 1856, it was repurposed and continued to function as a key office until about 2012-13, after which it was unused for a while. In 2018, a restoration programme was begun, which brought the building to its current shape - and purpose - in 2021. 

So go ahead, make that guess and tell me what this building currently is. And for bonus points, what office was operating from here between 1856 and the early 21st century!

I guess you would have figured out more clues in the labels!

A riot in Madras

In 1884, the Malappuram Special Police was raised as a special paramilitary force to deal with social unrest in the (north) Malabar region. After successfully quelling a gang of fanatics, the force was made permanent in 1897. By 1921 the force had a sanctioned strength of 6 British Officers, 8 Subedars, 16 Jamadars, 60 Havildars and 600 Constables, making up six companies. By then, the Malappuram Special Police had been successful in blunting the guerrilla tactics of the Moplah rebels not only in Malappuram, but also in other parts of Malabar where the Moplah Rebellion had spread. The force was now renamed the Malabar Special Police (MSP); in 1922, a sizeable part of the MSP was moved to Madras, to deal with uprisings in that part of the Presidency. 

And that was how Jamadar TP Kumaran Nair, who had joined the MSP circa 1924, came to be in Madras in 1931, when news of Bhagat Singh's execution reached the city. There were protests all around India and in Madras, a large gathering, exclusively of women, began their protest on the Marina Beach, singing Vande Mataram and waving black flags as well as the forbidden 'national flag'. This was the kind of situation the MSP was famed for breaking up. Jamadar Kumaran Nair was tasked with lathicharging the protestors. As he marched his platoon close to them, he was struck with a sudden and stark realisation that beating unarmed, peaceful protesters, and women at that, was not what he had joined the MSP for. He refused to carry out his 'duty' and the British officer on the spot had him arrested and carted away, to be sacked from the force later.

So begins the book "Swaraj Spy". Written by Kumaran Nair's grand-nephew Vijay Balan, it is not truly fiction, but a reconstruction of how Kumaran Nair went on to become part of the Indian National Army, to be an instructor at a secret espionage school set up by them. Sadly, Kumaran Nair's story is of sacrifice. Having heard Vijay Balan talk about the book at an event last evening at the CP Arts Centre, I am looking forward to reading the story - one that promises to be a grand lesson in history, as well! 

Vijay Balan is the bearded gentleman in the picture. Talking to him is Pradeep Chakravarthy, who we have met earlier on this blog. 

Outpost

Not what one would expect a police station to be like these days, but we have to keep in mind that in 1926, a structure like this would have been a grand building. That was the year a police outpost was established here, in Sadras. It took another 40 years for the outpost to be upgraded to a police station, in 1965. 

Over the next 50 years, this police station grew to have a sanctioned strength of 29, led by a Sub-Inspector, who had 2 Head Constables and 26 constables under his (yes, at that time it was a male officer). Sadras seems to be such a peaceful, laid back place that even this seems to be far too many for the 73,500 people who were being protected by this force. 

The Sadras police station has moved to some other location; this building was empty when we stopped by about six months ago. Maybe they're thinking of building something here - there is certainly a decent bit of space available for the outpost to be upgraded into a network centre or something like that!

 

 

Top cop the first

A couple of days ago, I was wondering about the first Indian to be the mayor of ChennaiMadras. By some coincidence, I came across this photo of the first Indian to have become the Commissioner of Police of Madras. Both those appointments were from roughly the same time-frame; T. Vijayaraghavacharya served as mayor of Madras in 1916, while the first Indian top-cop of the city took charge in 1919. 

Pasupuleti Parankusam Naidu was born in 1867. When he was 20, he joined the service of the Government of Madras as a clerk in the Water-works Department. But it appears that the young Parankusam was fascinated by the police force, and after three years of dealing with waterworks, he goes off and joins the police. Even if it was at probably the lowest level of the cadre, he was now an officer - a 4th Grade Inspector of Police. Over the next twenty years, he appears to have served with distinction (though I've not been able to access any official records), and in 1911, we see him as the Deputy Commissioner of Police. 

And then, the wait seems to have gone on for a while. Parankusam Naidu's next promotion was in 1919, when he broke the white-plaster ceiling to be the first Indian Commissioner of the city's police force. The Dewan Bahadur title came later, most probably after he retired from service. When that was, or what Parankusam Naidu did subsequently seems to be a mystery even the Chennai Police might shy away from!

 

If the sea don't get you, we will

The beaches of Chennai are inviting. Very. Long stretches of sand, and the waves seem to be coming in quite calmly, almost boringly. It is very tempting to go out and ride the waves back in, which is what many people seem to do. (Going against the advice of the Outdoor Swimming Society, and other experts, who say that one should never swim with one's back to the sea). 

But the city's beaches are quite dangerous. There have been quite a number of fatalities, and an equal, if not greater, number of rescues. The most famous (or best memorialised) tragi-heroic act was off Elliot's Beach at Besant Nagar, but there are probably many more which happen off the Marina, considering the greater volume of people who throng there. 

The city police frown on any attempt to "take bath" in the sea. Well you can try and argue that you weren't bathing, but you were trying to swim. But they will still prosecute you anyway!

Treachery of images

I learnt a new word during this week. Magritte. Derived from the name of the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte, it refers to something that is not what it seems. The story is that Magritte painted a pipe, and titled it "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is not a pipe). He was right of course, for it was only a painting of the pipe and not the pipe itself. 

So, the picture up here today is of a police station. Or is it? Okay, I'm not getting all meta here. The J4 Police Station in Chennai is indeed the one at Kotturpuram, as it says on this board here. But this is not it. This building is somewhere off Cart Track Road in Velachery. The board has been placed there because it is acting - acting as a police station. 

Yes. Part of a movie. More about the movie for another post, but then, isn't every movie a treachery of images? If you've watched the Malayalam Drishyam, or its Tamizh version Papanasam, you will agree with that! 

Droning away

When we were planning on making a corporate film, the director told us that he would have a surprise for us. Turned out that the surprise was a drone-cam. The radio controlled drone was designed and fabricated by the director himself, with his brother helping out on the electronics bits. It needed two sets of controls; one to fly the drone itself and the other to manipulate the Go-Pro camera that was its payload. 

As in many other parts of the world, Chennai is grappling with issues around regulating drones. There are some basic controls in place; anyone planning to fly a drone must get the equipment cleared by the DGCA. In addition to that, each time one plans to send the drone into the air, the plans have to be cleared by the city police. The uncertainty around getting the permission from the police was the reason for our director saying that he might surprise us - there was no way he could commit to having a drone-cam for the shoot.

It was quite a curiosity and the crew took turns at trying to pilot the drone. After going up a bit - around 15m or so - they found that the signals from a nearby cellphone tower were interfering with the drone's radio controls. There was a danger that it would crash; but as it came down, the controls were re-established and the drone-cam landed safely. And then, the roles were reversed. Rather than the drone-cam focussing on us, we all pulled out our cellphones and cameras and tried to get a good shot of the drone!

Headquarters of the force

The straight columns running along the northern and eastern sides of this building symbolize the discipline of its occupants - the Tamil Nadu Police. Like many other buildings along this stretch, this one does not have a specific name; it is referred to as the "DGP's Office" (and very often, also wrongly as the "Commissioner's Office"). 

The foundation stone of this building was laid by Lord Elphinstone, then Governor of Madras, in 1839. It was not intended for the police, or any government organization at the time of its construction. The Freemasons of Madras had had this built as their Masonic Lodge, and it was named the Lodge of Perfect Unanimity. Lord Elphinstone was himself a Freemason, becoming the District Grand Master in 1840 and the Provincial Grand Master in 1841. The Freemasons seem to have used this building until 1856, after which it was closed up for a while. The first Inspector General of the Madras Police, Sir William Rose Robinson used this building as his office in 1865.

Over the past 150 years, this has been the nerve centre of the police operations of the region: the Madras Presidency, the Madras state and now of Tamil Nadu. It was acquired by the government in 1874 - reportedly at a price of Rs.20,000/-, which was far lower than the Rs.25,000/- that it cost the Freemasons to build it!

Prison gate

It is now over 5 years since the Madras Central Jail was demolished, making way for the new block of the Madras Medical College there. For the last few years of its existence, the Jail at Park Town had no inmates, all of them having been moved to the sprawling campus of the new, model prison complex at Puzhal. The earlier Central Jail in Chennai had about 11 acres of space; the suburban train track ran right next to it. The noise of traffic would not have been very far, either. 

The Puzhal complex is far bigger. For starters, it is not one prison, but three. The complex houses the Chennai Central Prisons I and II, each with a capacity of 1250 inmates. Then there is the Special Prison for Women, which can hold 500 women prisoners. All these are spread out over an area of 212 acres, almost in the middle of nowhere. At least, when the prison started functioning, there were not many other establishment on that stretch of the NH5, about 25km out of Chennai. 

Even now, there are not too many reasons to stop at Puzhal. The locality has a population of about 30,000, most of who seem to be living just across the highway from the prison gate. From the highway, the entrance looks quite neat, with arches above the gate not quite indicating what lies within. The prisoners here surely get a greater sense of loneliness than in the crowded Chennai facility earlier!

Double action

This needs two photographs, because I cannot otherwise explain this. Even now, with the pictorial evidence, I can only prove that it is so, without any pointers to the what or why of it. Or for that matter, how is it that a narrow street starts off as 'Labon Lane' and within a couple of hundred metres, adds one letter and substitutes another, before ending up as 'Lapond Lane'. 

This lane is in Chintadripet, where we have seen the office of the Anti-Vice Squad earlier. And it emerges into Laban Street, at one end of which is the Chintadripet Police Station. These clues lead one to look for a Laban / Labon / Lapond among the police officers of Madras. That search is also more or less futile, but we go a step further knowing that there was indeed a Lafond (or, as Google Maps says, Laffond) who was a Deputy Commissioner of Police in the early 1860s. 

But there is not much more that is known of him. And so, we are still stuck with those questions of 'what did he do' or 'why this man'. It will be very interesting if someone comes up with the story of a Labon now!

Nice place

If it is Chintadripet, it must be all bustle and action. That is the impression people would have about one of the most active sections of Chennai city. But going down a lane in the area, one is surprised by the quiet surroundings. The buildings are all old-world, appearing to be well past their diamond jubilees at least. Large trees, even if they are not so old, provide a lot of green cover not only to the buildings, but to the pedestrians as well.

In the midst of such surroundings, this house - that is what it seemed to be, at first look - does not appear to be out of place. It is only when you see the sign there that you are shaken out of your reverie. Anti-Vice Squad? Here? In such peaceful surroundings? Yes, this is where the Anti-Vice Squad of the Chennai City Police is housed. 

Maybe it should be in the past tense. After the inauguration of a new office for the Chennai Commissionerate, this Squad might have also shifted there. It might be good for them to continue in these surroundings, however; faced with the stench of vice in the course of their work, the police(wo)men could feel refreshed working in such a pleasant neighbourhood!

Stop-the-bus Day?

It is a celebration that is, as far as I know, unique to Chennai. When it was begun about a dozen or so years ago, it was conceptualized as a day of gratitude. Students would felicitate the crew of the buses that brought them to college - the bus would have a garland, and would move slowly along the last couple of kilometres before reaching the college. If I remember right, the MTC also earmarked a few buses for the celebration, taking them - and their crew - out of regular service and allowing the students to use them for the special run to celebrate the 'Bus Day'. The police were also on hand to ensure that the slow-moving buses, and the students marching and dancing in front of them, did not hold up traffic too badly.

But then, things began to go out of hand. No college student likes being told what to do, so 'Bus Day' was celebrated whenever the spirit moved the students of a particular college. The celebration spread from being a one-day event to a two-week nuisance. Things got so bad that a public interest writ was filed in the Madras High Court. The Court came down heavily on it and, in 2011, banned all bus day celebrations for ever. The students, however, keep finding some excuse or the other to hijack a bus, maybe for a couple of hours. 

Here is one such scene in progress, sometime towards the end of last month. 23C is the bus that has been held up. It took us about 20 minutes to get past the crowd, thanks to three or four policemen who were doing their best to minimize the general inconvenience. It was the next day I learnt that more policemen had to be called in, and they had to resort to a lathi charge to chase away the mischief makers - most of them were probably not students at all!

Old station

Take away some of those vehicles in front of the building and this picture can be dated anywhere from the time photography began. The building itself probably pre-dates photography and must have been the same when the first officer took charge here. 

Despite redbrick being the standard colour of official buildings in the British era, the police stations of those times stood out distinctly. I am not sure why I feel so, but I guess it must have been because these were the only single storey structures that had the government redbrick motif. Today, only a few of these original structures remain; most other police stations have been pulled down and rebuilt, with more floors and some approximate abomination of the classic redbrick feel.

The E-2 Royapettah Police Station may go that way soon. But until it does, it commands a unique view at the junction of Gowdia Mutt Road and Thiru Vi Ka High Road. And somewhere behind it was the locality named after masons who worked there - Kallukaranpettai, for stone workers. Maybe to thumb a nose at the police station, Kallukaranpettai became Kolakaranpettai - the locality of murderers!

They get their man!

This is truly an image from another era; maybe even forty years ago, the sight of policemen on horseback would have been enough to deter a miscreant in the mob. Their vantage point, looking over the heads and shoulders of people in a crowd, would have helped them spot suspicious characters from a distance; a policeman on foot, or even from a prowl car, would not have had that advantage which comes from sitting tall in the saddle.

There is no predicting how much longer we can get to see the Mounted branch of the Chennai Metropolitan Police in action. Even as far back as 1860, the Police Commission Report stated that the "mounted bodies are exceedingly expensive" and that they were "more lawless" and "less amenable to control" than foot constabulary. Though that report also conceded that a mounted force is useful, for instance, to "check large Organized bodies of lawless marauders", it argued that the existing "Establishments of Horse Police.....be placed on the lowest scale in regard to numbers". The police force of Bombay disbanded their Mounted Branch in the 1930s (though they're thinking of bringing them back, now); the Delhi Mounted Police, on the other hand, was set up in the 1930s. With a sanctioned strength of 95 mounts, they could have been the leaders, but they have only 62 horses on the street and thus fall behind Kolkata Mounted Police, which has 67 - and a history going back to the 1840s. Chennai can probably run Kolkata close in the history, but is far behind in horses - Chennai's force has only about 32 currently. The good thing is, that number has been holding steady for some years now, while Coimbatore and Trichy have had their mounted branches being eroded completely within the past 3 years - and Madurai is barely holding on, with just 4 mounts.

It may be archaic, but these policemen on horses seem to mean business far more than constables sitting an chatting in one of the prowl cars!

Protected building

You might think that, being the headquarters building of the Tamil Nadu Police, this long, low, white building is a well-protected one. In a way, however, you would be mistaken. Had it not been for some heritage lovers, this building would have been demolished sometime around 1993. In what was probably a first for Madras, the High Court came down on the side of conservationists led by INTACH, and stayed the demolition. Subsequently, the building was renovated and in 1998, was back to being used as the headquarters of the state's police force and the office of its Director General - and the south end of the Marina continued to have the same skyline as it had had since 1839.

It was in that year the Freemasons had begun using this building, constructed at a cost of Rs.25,000/- as their Masonic Lodge. Known as the Lodge of Perfect Unanimity, the lodge used these premises for their activities until 1856, when for some reason, the Masons moved out of this building. It seems to have lain unused until 1865, when W. Robinson, the first Inspector General of the Madras Police rented the building for use as his headquarters. The Masons were probably not particularly attached to this building, for they sold it off to the government in 1874, for Rs.20,000/-. Since then, the building has been used almost continuously by the policemen (and women - how can we forget that it is less than a month since the state got its first - and the country's second - woman DGP in Letika Saran, IPS!).

Currently, more office space is being constructed as an adjunct to this building - hopefully, all this activity points to a long innings for this classic building on the Marina!

"Jaambajaar Jaggu theriyuma,...."

Where the character came from is not really known, but given the Madrasi's penchant for alliteration, Jaambajaar Jaggu is more likely a legendary figment of imagination. I'm not sure if kids these days have any local personification of a bumbling villain, but Jaggu was it for quite a lot of people from the '60s through to the '80s. The first time he came on the scene was probably in the movie "Bommalattam", with Manorama singing "Vaa vadhiyare vootande / nee varankatti naan vidamatten / Jaambajjaa Jaggu / naan Saidapettai kokku" to Cho Ramaswamy (here's the song from the movie).

Then came Cho's stage play "Madras by Night". Cho makes his entrance asking the question "Jaambajaar Jaggu theriyuma unakku, Jaambajaar Jaggu?" ("Do you know Jaambajaar Jaggu?"). Cho plays a police constable in Madras of the '60s, forever dropping names of rowdies that he has encountered (here's a clip: Jaggu's name drops in the 2nd minute). With that, the name took off and though no one has ever seen him to this day, Jaggu continues to be a menace-laden character, appearing most recently as the villain in the children's book "Trash", published in 2001.

So, when I see the Zambazar Police Station, it is difficult for me to think of anything else but a police constable in the '60s, wearing starched khaki shorts ("...with pockets large enough to hide a monkey", as a school teacher once said), trying to show off - no matter that Zam Bazar has much more than Jaggu to offer us!

You can check out any time you like, but...

It does look like a the facade of a nice garden house, with its high-ceilinged verandah on the first floor and the arches almost inviting you to step into the portico. The most famous tenant of this building was probably Veer Savarkar. But this is not a place that you'd try to be invited to - Savarkar was transited through this en route to the infamous Kalapani at Andaman - for, it is was part of the Chennai Central Prison complex, which has now been completely razed to make way for - well, a lot of modernity.

Don't be fooled into thinking that the Chennai prison was a place of leisure; there were only a few buildings like this, which were built to accommodate convalescing prisoners - and the high-profile ones at that. Even that luxury disppeared a few decades ago, when these buildings were converted into study areas on the ground floor and maybe some office spaces on the first floor. Convalescing or not, prisoners had to stay in their cells. Along with all the other buildings of the complex, this one is gone too, and the 11-acre space will soon have a new look.

Replacing the stony blocks of prison cells will be a blood bank attached to the General Hospital, as well as a station of the proposed Chennai Metro. There are a couple of smaller buildings planned, but it seems that a reasonably large part of the space will be given over to a park and some recreational facility - what a change that would be from its previous use!





Some more photos of the former Chennai Central Prison complex are here.

Watch out

Of the major cities in India, Kolkata has an enviable crime rate (that's the number of crimes registered under the Indian Penal Code per thousand population) of 82.5, which makes it the lowest among major cities in India. Chennai's record on this is not as enviable; in 2007, the latest year for which data are available on the NCRB website, Chennai's crime rate was 256.9, far higher than even New Delhi or Mumbai. That it is much better than Bangalore (475.6) or Hyderabad (314.3) is scant consolation to a city which prides itself on its police force, one of the oldest in the country.

Of course there are always many reasons touted; Mumbai, New Delhi and even Kolkata have urban populations that are more than double that of Chennai, the Chennai police is more scrupulous about registering cases and the clincher being that the Chennai police has a better record of solving crimes than their counterparts elsewhere. Of the last, I have not been able to find data, though. Like any large city anywhere in the world, Chennai has a part of its populace leading a life of crime and like in any other large city, they find a good chunk of their victims among newcomers to the city. Overawed by getting to the city, their trust is easily obtained or attention easily diverted, which allows the petty criminal to run his trade rather smoothly.

Surely those newcomers would be better off if they could recognize such practitioners from these photographs - but this board at Chennai Central seems to be better hidden than a newcomer's valuables!

Chennai's finest

It has been almost three years since Chennai's police force was gifted these prowl cars by Hyundai Motors. Until then, the standard vehicle for the police was the Willys Jeep, or something similar. But somehow, the abiding image of cops seems to be one associated with red-white-blue lights, a low sedan with snazzy decals screeching up to the scene of action and the Chennai Metropolitan Police was nowhere in the picture on this one. In fact, with the introduction of these sedans in 2006, the CMP reportedly became the first police department in the country to use sedans.

One hundred of these were provided to the city's police force; 72 were given to the law-and-order wing, 25 to the traffic police and the rest were retained for the chief minister's convoy. They were supposed to be driven by officers of the rank of at least sub-inspector - but I suspect that the novelty having worn off, the sub-inspectors would rather have someone else drive the car these days while they call out the warnings on their hailers!

An officer and a litterateur

Not many people have been successful at combining the hard life of a police officer with the sensitivity of an author and playwright. Throw in the fact that one of his most famous works is an interpretation of Harischandra and the contrast between the two personas becomes that much sharper. It is therefore a significant credit to Diwan Bahadur Saravana Bhavanandam Pillai that he is remembered (although only just about) equally for his policing prowess as well as his literary legacy.

Bhavanandam Pillai was one of the first Indians to rise through the ranks to become the Assistant Commissioner of Police in Madras. He was also keenly interested in the history of the Tamizh language and set up the Bhavanandam Academy Trust to help scholars research into that history. Newton House on Jeremiah Road, where he lived, is now home to the library of the Academy and also serves as its head office.