Context
Recently, Prime Minister paid tribute to V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, the legendary freedom fighter on his 151th birth anniversary on 5th September 2022.
- He was popularly known as Kappalottiya Tamilan (The Tamil Helmsman) and Sekkizuththa Semmal (scholarly gentry who suffered at the oil press).
About V. O. Chidambaram Pillai
- Early life
- Vallinayagam Olaganathan Chidambaram Pillai (VOC) was born 5th September 1872 to an eminent lawyer Olaganathan Pillai and Paramyee Ammai in Ottapidaram, Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu.
- VOC graduated from Caldwell College, Tuticorin. Before beginning his law studies, he worked for a brief period as a taluk office clerk.
- His tussle with the judge forced him to seek fresh pastures at Tuticorin in 1900.
- Until 1905, professional and journalistic activities consumed most of his energy.
- Politics as a Career
- Following the partition of Bengal in 1905, V.O.C. entered politics.
- V.O.C. visited Madras at the end of 1905 and became involved in the Swadeshi Movement led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Lala Lajpat Rai.
- V.O.C. was lured to the Ramakrishna Mission and met Subramania Bharati and his family, the Mandayams.
- The Swadeshi movement in the Tirunelveli district did not gain power and momentum until the arrival of V.O.C. at Tuticorin (present-day Thoothukudi).
- The Freedom Movement's Role
- By 1906, businessmen and manufacturers in Tuticorin and Tirunelveli had backed V.O.C. 's plan to establish a Swadeshi merchant shipping company called the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company (SSNCo).
- Swadeshi Prachar Sabha, Dharmasanga Nesavu Salai, National Godown, Madras Agro-Industrial Society Ltd, and Desabimana Sangam were among the numerous organisations he founded.
- V.O.C. and Siva were helped in their efforts by a group of Tirunelveli-based attorneys who established the Swadeshi Sangam, or "National Volunteers."
- With the start of the Tuticorin Coral Mills strike, the nationalist movement took on a secondary role (1908).
- V.O.C. took up the cause of the working class in Tamil Nadu even before Gandhiji's Champaran Satyagraha (1917), making him a precursor to Gandhiji in this regard.
- V.O.C. and other leaders decided to stage a massive march on the morning of March 9, 1908, to commemorate Bipin Chandra Pal's release from prison and to raise the Swaraj flag.
- V.O.C died on November 18, 1936, in the Indian National Congress Office in Tuticorin, as he had requested.
