“Saraswati’s Children”

“Saraswati’s Children”
Mangalorean Catholics – Bi-centenary of ‘Release from Captivity’
Maxwell Pereira
April 27, 1999

At one of Mangalore’s gateways of yesteryears – on its former outskirts at Nanthoor near Padav hills, stands a large Cross. Erected there during the mid-nineteen hundreds by late Bishop Victor Fernandes to honour the memory of martyrs in what Mangaloreans term as the ‘Canara Captivity’ during a not much known about chapter of Indian history.
It is believed that at this place were herded over two hundred years ago one of the groups of hounded and captured Catholics of the Kanaras, who were then marched 200 miles to Tippu Sultan’s Seringapatam via dense jungles and gorges of the western ghats, along the Kulshekar – Virajpet Coorg – Mysore route.
The Catholic community of Mangalore on Karnataka’s Konkan coast along the western peripherals of the southern Indian peninsula claims to trace its origins to a people of Aryan heritage – from Brahmavarta on the banks of the legendary but now defunct Saraswati River. On its drying up some 5000 years ago, a segment of these people are said to have moved to the Gangtetic plains and Trihotrapura of erstwhile Bihar – to still move on to and finally settle down on the fertile coastal plains of the Konkan. This thanks to sage Parasurama, whom legend credits with having reclaimed for them from the Lord of the Sea the strip of land, by throwing his hatchet seaward while standing atop the Sahyadri mountains (Western Ghats).
These “Saraswati’s Children” – so described in his shortly to be released book with the same title by author Alan Machado Prabhu – got exposure to Portuguese incursions in their midst in the 15th and the 16th centuries. And embracing Christianity, inherited the resultant Lusitanian legacy in Goa. For various reasons cultural and religious, some of them found need to still migrate southward – to the court of the Zamorin of Calicut as skilled artisans, craftsmen and agriculturists – making nevertheless their main base enroute at Kudala (confluence of two rivers), on the invitation of the Paleyagar of the then Mangalapura. By which name erstwhile Mangalore on the confluence of rivers Netravati and Gurpur, was known.
Following his defeat at the hands of the British in the 1st battle of Mangalore, an enraged Tippu, believing that the local Christian community’s aid and support to the British had cost him his battle, unleashed his wrath on them. In a ruthless swoop by his armies, 35000 Catholics were rudely uprooted from their village homes as scapegoats, and herded off for incarceration in the dungeons of Seringapatam. Not all of them reached the destination; many died enroute due to sickness and malnutrition; many others due to hardships and the rigours of the foot march. And many more died in harness during the fifteen years of captivity. Release came to the motley bunch of survivors only in 1799 after Tippu’s death and the fall of Seringapatam following the second battle of Mangalore.
But with release came a sense of purpose, a sense of common identity, for a people who had hitherto considered themselves mainly as an extension of the larger Goan community. In its rebirth, for the first time a distinct ‘Mangalorean’ identity was born. A people who on return to home soil faced harsh and stark realities of their lands and properties usurped, found reason to reconstruct, to toil together with diligence and determination to make an entirely new beginning and to grow from strength to strength. Prompting historian Jerome Saldanha while chronicling the history of the community on the eve of the first centennial anniversary in 1899 to call the intervening 100 years as the golden era for these people. In his ‘Outlines of the History of Canara’ he wrote, “….the deliverance of the people of Kanara from the tyranny and misrule of Tippu Sultan, is the most important and happiest of events in the history of their land……..”
Unlike the close-knit and homogenous small community of 1899, today Mangaloreans are diverging. Leaving their native shores they are spread far and wide pursuing new and rewarding careers elsewhere in India and all over the world. Having made inroads into all walks of life – national and international, Mangaloreans can be found anywhere and everywhere – be it in Norway, Chile or New Zealand; Korea, Japan, the Bahamas or Papua New Guinea. And in every country in Europe, every State in the USA. In India, other than that of a President or a Prime Minister, there is no seat of honour, profession, trade or virtue that has not been claimed, graced or enriched by a Mangalorean.
The bi-centennial anniversary of the ‘release from captivity’ of the forefathers of the Mangalorean Community falls on 4th May 1999.
April 27, 1999