The Chelas: the asad-i-ilahi

On June 30, 1782, about 300 English sailors, prisoners of the French Admiral Suffren, were offloaded into Haidar’s custody at Cuddulore. Among them were a number of boys who endured the next 10 years as chelas in the army of the saltanati-i-khudadad. Details of their experience written by one of them, William Drake, first appeared in Calcutta on December 8, 1791.[1] He had escaped from Chitradurga along with four others, among them, James Scurry, whose story was published posthumously in 1824; another, William Whiteway, added three chapters to the book. In 1792, James Bristow’s book was published in Calcutta. Additional dates and details appear from the diaries of Thompson and Lindsay, prisoners in Srirangapatna between 1780-83.

Fifty-two of them, aged between 12 and 17, were sent to Srirangapatna. Told they were to consider themselves as Haidar’s favoured sons henceforth, Whiteway writes from that moment onwards, “every method was adopted to detach him from his native country and to extinguish in his bosom all desire, and all prospect, of returning.”[2] The youngest and handsomest were selected for Haidar’s household and treated with exceptional care. They were well-clothed, fed, and schooled in Persian, mathematics, and other arts, and given every encouragement to grow into accomplished and loyal members of the palace where merit would ensure further promotion.[3] Whiteway attended a school for nearly two years where he was taught Marathi, Arabic and elementary Persian by teachers who were “indefatigable in their professions” and “reverenced by their pupils almost to adoration.” He writes, “the method of instruction was well calculated to communicate knowledge, and awaken the slumbering energies of intellect.” 

The process of conversion to Islam began with the shaving of the head. Sergeant Dempster, a moustachioed English deserter dressed as a Muslim and sporting a red turban, who had been circumcised and made trainer of the Carnatic chelas, a man Scurry and his companions grew to loathe, accompanied the barbers and politely advised them to submit.

The barbers returned a week later with guards and a dozen robust Africans. The boys were made to swallow majum, a hallucinatory pain-killer, lie on mats, and circumcised. The majum caused different reactions. Some laughed, others cried; all writhed in pain. A diet of mutton and other nourishing food saw them through their recovery period. New names and clothes cemented their Muslim identity. Scurry became Sham Sher Khan. To cleanse them from years of eating pork, fakirs prayed over them while they stood in large pots of hot water. Finally, they were “hailed as the children of the Prophet, and the favourite of the Nawab.”[4] 

Haidar’s attempts to create a chela corps had begun earlier. In 1779, 2,000 Beder boys had been translocated from the Chitradurga region.[5] Misreading Haidar’s intentions, Rev Swartz, a visitor to Haidar’s palace, wrote appreciatively of Haider for having issued orders that orphans should be looked after. He, therefore, fed and clothed them, and gave them little wooden guns to exercise with.[6] 

Meanwhile, Haidar’s offensives against the Carnatic had dislocated entire populations. A deliberate policy to destroy the Carnatic’s economy was adopted. From its ravaged lands, a continuous stream of boys and girls were brought to Srirangapatna. Thompson’s entries from August 6, 1781 to January 31, 1783, record the arrival of over 2,200 boys and girls who were converted into military slaves.[7] The true numbers were far larger. Rev Schwartz writes that 12,000 children from Tanjore alone were converted to Islam and translocated. [8]

In the first days of 1766, Haidar, unleashing a ferocious campaign, took control of Malabar. The first lines of Nair youths began their long march over the ghats to experience the stabbing pain of the circumcising blade, and the traumatic transition to becoming a chela on the training fields at Srirangapatna.

Among them was Shiek Ayaz, alias Hayat Sahib.

[1]  Selections from Calcutta Gazettes, 1789-1797, Vol II. Calcutta, 1865: 311-316

[2]  Scurry, James. 1824. The Captivity, Sufferings and Escape of James Scurry. London. Henry Fisher: 274

[3] Thompson, William. 1788. Memoirs of the Late War in Asia etc, Vol II. London: 145

[4] Scurry, James. 1824. The Captivity, Sufferings and Escape of James Scurry. London. Henry Fisher:  66

[5] Wilks, Mark. Historical Sketches of the South of India, Vol 2. London: Longman, Hurst, etc, 1817: 190

[6] Remains of the Rev C F Schwartz. London: J Hatchard. 1826: 315

[7] Thompson, William. 1788. Memoirs of the Late War in Asia etc, Vol II. London: various     

[8]  Pearson, H. Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of the Reverend Chris tian Frederick Schwartz. New York: D Appleton and Co, 1835.: 238