The place of honour that Rani of Jhansi and Ahilyabai of Indore command in North India the same does Rani Chennama of Kittoor, Karnataka in South India. As a 16 year old girl she had hunted down a man eater lion with only a bow and arrows. Raja Mallasarja of Kittoor had also come to deal with that lion. His arrow had also hit the lion. But the arrow shot by Chennama had gone deep into the neck of the lion. Obviously it had claimed the lion. The king’s arrow had hit the butt. In that very first encounter the king had fallen for the beauty and the bravery of Chennama. The very next day Raja Mallasarja met her father Ghulappa Gaud Desai and the mother Padmavati. Ghulappa Desai was a powerful person of North Karnataka. The parents happily married their daughter Chennama to Raja Mallasarja of Kittoor. Raja was ten years senior to Chennama. He already had a queen in Rudrama. During those days it was common for the kings to have more than one queen.
It was the last decade of 18th century. Peshwas of Pune and Tipu Sultan of Mysore were often at war and the small kingdom of Kittoor suffered much being in war path. But the efforts of Raja Mallasarja and Rani Chennama bore fruit and the situation came under control. Kittoor soon became a prosperous state. Its prosperity made Peshwas jealous. They began to eye it.
Peshwa Bajirao called Raja Mallasarja to Pune on some pretext and put him in prison brazenly. Raja spent three years in the prison of Peshwas. During this period Rani Chennama looked after the affairs of the state of Kittoor.
In 1816 Raja Mallasarja died. His son out of the older queen, Shivalinga Rudrasarja sat on the throne. He was a man of arts and literature. Rani Chennama continued to run the state. The careless attitude of Raja Rudrasarja encouraged British to use some ploy to make Kittoor part of the British empire. They put pressure on the state but Rani Chennama was alert and she foiled their attempts. The British officer named Thackray was weaving plots to tighten grip on the princely states of Karnataka and Dharwar. He was trying all kinds of tricks. First he tried to spread bad blood in the royal family. He instigated members of the royal family and the subjects against Rani Chennama labelling her a manipulator. He did not succeed. Infact, the subjects worshipped Chennama as a deity. On her one signal the people could lay down their lives.
By the end of the year of 1824 the patience of the scheming Englishman Thackray ran out. He tried to strangle Kittoor by creating pressures of all kinds from all directions. Rani Chennama alerted her people by telling them, “The shackles of the slavery come easy but they are very difficult to cut away. We are a small force compared to the British might but with courage we will fight and won’t let them take over Kittoor as long as we are alive.”
The force of Rani Chenamma consisted of 7000 infantry soldiers, 2000 strong cavalry, 1000 camels and 50 elephants. There also was a militia of 8000 soldiers called ‘Certified Lions’. The artillery consisted of 11 twenty four pounder cannons and 14 small guns. The British army were many times over in numbers and their artillery was massive having hundreds of cannons of various calibres. Most of the soldiers Chennama kept inside the fort. Some were stationed outside in disguise mainly to watch the activities of the enemy and report secretly.
On October 21, 1824, Thackray sent some envoys into the fort to ask Rani Chennama to surrender without any condition. An effort was made to win over some chieftains but it failed. The commanders and chieftains were solidly behind Rani Chennama.
Thackray got his heavy artillery fire shells on the fort but he was in for a surprise. The fort gates opened and under the command of Guru Sidappa the army of Kittoor wreaked havoc on the enemy that was in relaxed mood under the impression that the foe would remain hold up in the safety of the fort. Suddenly the gate opened and Kittoor army came out under Commander Sidappa and charged on the British force with ferocity. The British fell back under sudden enemy charge. Then Chennama was directing the guns positioned atop the fort walls. The cannons were spewing fire and shelling on the enemy. The Kittoor soldiers were wreaking havoc on the British army. Rani
Chennama won the battle. A number of British officers were taken prisoner. The fort burst out in celebrations on this unprecedented victory. A small force of a tiny state had vanquished the mighty British. Rani Chennama had worked a miracle to the delight of the Kittoor folk.
The British Commander Thackray lost his life. The British could not digest the defeat. On November 12, 1824, British attacked again. This time Kolhapur king had sent 5,000 infantry soldiers, 1,000 cavalry and seven guns to reinforce Rani Chennama’s army. The battle preparations continued on both the sides. On November 30, 25,000 British soldiers laid a siege to Kittoor fort and issued ultimatum to the defenders to surrender before the midnight of 1st December. The defenders defied.
The battle broke out. Kittoor forces inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. But the enemy had too big a force. Rani Chennama was commanding her soldiers undeterred. Just then Hurakadli Mallapa and Veer Sangappa, two Kittoor chieftains betrayed. Rani Chennama proudly became a martyr. And with her the great fort of Kittoor fell and enemy shelling brought it down. But Rani Chennama had already become a legend whose glory the people would sing for ever in Karnataka and the rest of the country would revere her as the native spirit of freedom.
