The Madras Gate at Pondicherry

Each time I drove to Pondicherry (now known as Puducherry), I would resolve to stop just before entering the city and read the inscription at the base of the massive obelisk that stands on the left. But then you know how it is – the priorities of others in the vehicle invariably takes over. But in January this year, I did make the effort and was duly rewarded. The inscription commemorated an officer in the Madras Army.  

This was Major William Stevens in the East India Company’s service and the ‘Chief Architect’ of the siege of Pondicherry in 1778. Killed in the gunfire, he was mourned by Major General Sir Hector Munro, who ensured that this obelisk was erected in his memory. Yet another man who deeply mourned the passing of Stevens was Christian Frederick Schwartz, the German missionary who was then playing an important role in mediating between the Raja of Thanjavur, the Nawab of Arcot, the French, and the British. Stevens had been instrumental in erecting the CSI Christ Church at the Thanjavur Fort for Schwartz. He is credited with engineering the massive walls of the structure.  

Reverting to Pondicherry, the siege of 1778 was the final battle that the British fought against the French at that town. It was conducted over 80 days between August and October, and Stevens died just a few days before the French surrendered. But what I am unable to understand is: what were the French defences against the Madras army in this last stand? The once-powerful fort of St. Louis, which had been the French answer to our Fort St. George, had been demolished even in 1761, when Sir Eyre Coote had besieged Pondicherry and defeated the French. Had there been some reconstruction of defences in the 17 years between the two wars? 

Whatever it was, the bastions that withstood the British in 1778 could hardly have matched the grandeur of the fort that once stood there. That was more or less on the same layout as Fort St. George and had been Dupleix’s pride. When we read Ananda Ranga Pillai’s diaries, we get to know of its layout, its gates, and its walls. One of the entrances was named the Madras Gate, and it stood in what is today Ponnaiyapet in Pondicherry. It commemorated in name what was a grand obsession for Dupleix – the conquest of Madras and its Fort St. George. Ananda Ranga Pillai too greatly desired such an outcome – in his diaries he writes of Madras as Kubera Pattinam – the town where the lord of wealth resided.  

The opportunity to make Madras their own came in 1746, but the French were unable to capitalise on this conquest. There was lack of unity in the French command with Dupleix at loggerheads with the French naval head Mahe de la Bourbonnais. A bigger headache was his inability and that of Ranga Pillai to get the merchants of Madras to move from there to Pondicherry. This was one of Dupleix’s grand schemes and it hit him hard that neither the Armenians nor the Indian dubashes showed any signs of moving. They had, on the other hand, pinned their hopes on the eventual return of the British. The latter were then camping it out at Fort St. David, Cuddalore, and Dupleix’s inability to repeat his Madras success there resulted in a three-year stalemate. What followed was the restitution of Madras to the British in 1749, a decision in which Dupleix had no role to play. There were, thereafter, sieges of Madras and Pondicherry in turn, but the former proved tougher. The French siege of Madras in 1758 was, perhaps, the most difficult but when the British successfully withstood it and what was more, repulsed the French, there was no looking back.  

Fate of Fort St. Louis

True, there was not much of Fort St. George left after the attack but it resulted in a spate of redesign and construction, culminating in the fort we know today. In sharp contrast, the British blockade and attack on Pondicherry in 1761 was so thorough that the fort there never recovered from it. So thorough was the demolition that today we cannot even identify the contours of Fort St. Louis. All we know is that it extended from the sea to somewhere near the Ayi Park. The celebrated White Town of present day Pondicherry has very little of that military past. But at Ponnaiyapet stands a faded plaque. On it is a map of what was once Fort St. Louis. It shows a walled area with die-straight streets culminating at the north at Porte de Madras. That such a precinct could have vanished without a trace is remarkable.  

The British, on the other hand, seem to have not obsessed about the French. There is no Pondicherry Gate in our city.  

(Sriram V. is a writer and historian.)