Ashe : Robert William d’Escourt (1872-1911) born in Denegal, Ireland, studied at Dublin High School; 40th of 61 who passed ICS Entrance Exam in 1892, he entered Trinity College, Dublin, & began his career in 1895 as an Asst. Collector of Tuticorin, Madras Presidency. In 1907-08, fearing another 1857, the British arrested all prominent nationalist leaders inflicting harshest possible penalties. In Tamil Nadu, they wrecked Swadeshi Steam Navigation Co. started by V.O. Chidambaram Pillai & his colleagues. Pillai & Subramanian Shiva, who also delivered a speech advocating absolute Swaraj, were arrested on the 12th of March. The next day a riot broke out in Tinnevelly. Many public buildings were attacked & partially burnt, while furniture & records were set on fire. Revolutionary ideas were preached in public meetings & in newspapers. Nilakantha Brahmachari (q.v.) started a secret association called the Bhāratha-Mātha Association. He was soon joined by Vanchināthan (Sankaran) Aiyar of Shencotta, Travancore. Vanchi (1886-1911) had passed M.A. from M.T. Maharaja College in Thiruvananthapuram & was working as a clerk in the Travancore Forest Department. In December 1910, V.V.S. Aiyar, a follower of V.D. Sāvarkar at the India House, London, arrived in Pondicherry. He started revolver practice for these revolutionaries. Vanchi suggested the Mr Ashe should be first killed as he had taken a leading part in the events of 1908. On 17th June 1911 Ashe, Collector & Dist. Magistrate of Tirunelveli, was shot dead at Maniyachi railway junction by Vanchi who committed suicide minutes after. (The railway station has since been renamed Vanchi Maniyachi.) A letter in Tamil found on Vanchi’s body “stated that every Indian was trying to drive out the English & that 3000 Madrasis had taken a vow to kill George V as soon as he landed in the country. To make known their intentions to others, he, Vanchi, the least in the company, had done that deed.” This led to the Tinnevelly Conspiracy Case in which nine persons were declared guilty of conspiracy against the State. [Internet]
... of one such group of noble patriotic sons of Mother India, which spun round the murder of a British civilian officer, came to be known as 'Ashe Murder Case'. It occupies a place of honor in the history of the Indian Freedom Movement. Robert W. D. E. Ashe, a member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS, also known as the 'Steel Frame' of the British Indian Government) and a tradition-bound Britisher... fishing was the celebrated patriot V. O. Chidambaram Pillai. On 17 June 1911, Ashe was travelling by train in a first-class compartment and when it stopped at Maniyachi, a railway junction, a young man made his way into the compartment. Suddenly he whipped out an automatic Browning revolver and shot Ashe dead at point blank range. As crowds, cops and all rushed, he escaped and ran down the... immensely, a victim of the ICS despot Ashe. His drastic and Draconian measures and over-aggressive methods to put down VOC kindled bitterness, rage and hostility against him in the hearts of these spirited men. This spark soon grew into a blaze of anger. Nilakanta and his band had ideas and ambitions of murdering all Britishers in India on a particular day and Ashe, like a different kind of Abu Ben Adam ...
... Mother's Chronicles - Book Six 29 The French League Ashe, the Collector of Tinnelvelly, was shot at close range on the platform of Maniyachi Railway Station in the same District on 17 June 1911. He later died. Vanchi Aiyer who shot Ashe, committed suicide. On his body was found a letter in Tamil which stated that every Indian was trying to drive... to the refugees. They say that those Swadeshis cooperate with the party of Mr. Gaston Pierre, teach its members how to make explosives, and make explosives themselves; they allege that the murder of Ashe was prepared in Pondicherry and that one of the accused in the Tinneveli affair is hidden in Pondicherry at Mr. Aiyar's. I understand that all these allegations are false "Those are, Sir, extremely ...
... Nationalist teaching." With one stroke a bond was established between the educated class and the masses. The humiliated government, however, began to impose restrictions upon the Swadeshi Line. Ashe, Sub-collector and Joint Magistrate of Tuticorin, opined that as the Swadeshi Company admitted Indians only as shareholders and excluded Europeans, it was a clear case of promoting sedition and class... People's passion flared up. A mob smashed some furniture, broke some windows, and wrecked some government buildings, and forced some Europeans to say 'Bande Mataram.' They did not take a single life. But Ashe, the Sub-collector of Tuticorin, ordered the police to open fire which killed several men. "The campaign of repression proceeds merrily Page 202 in Madras," reported the Bande Mataram ...
... consciousness. A typical Anglo-Indian newspaper was the Madras Times. It led the chorus of hysterics over the activities of the Swadeshis which, if one were to go by it, led to the assassination of Ashe. Wildly piling conjecture upon hearsay, the paper targeted Sri Aurobindo. The following excerpts from his two letters published in The Hindu in July 1911 will help readers to draw their own conclusions... (5) that revolutionary literature is being manufactured and circulated from Pondicherry, parts of which the police have intercepted, but the rest has reached its destination and is the cause of the Ashe murder." Point by point Sri Aurobindo refuted the charges. "It is untrue that I am masquerading or have ever masqueraded as an ascetic; I live as a simple householder practising Yoga without ...
... the murder of Mr. Ashe, and were largely, if not entirely, responsible for the murder. It will be remembered that the murder of Mr. Jackson, Collector of Nasik, on December 1st, 1909, a crime precisely similar in character and execution was carried out by the Nasik branch of Savarkar's Abhinav Bharat Society. The evidence of the connection of the Pondicherry gang with the Ashe murder was so strong... From Government of India. Foreign & Political Dept., General, Conf. B. 1914. No. 2, 1-3, 12-13. SECRET. CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE OFFICE. NOTE ON PONDICHERRY. Mr. Ashe, Collector of Tinnevelly District, was shot at Maniyachi, a railway junction in the district, about midday on June 17th, 1911, and died within half an hour. His assassin Vanchi alias Sankara Aiyar... believed, of his 40th birthday. The meeting was attended by V. V. S. Aiyar, C. Subramania Bharati, a well-known writer of sedition, against whom a warrant is out for complicity in the murder of Mr. Ashe, and a few other revolutionaries. During the proceedings five pictures were garlanded with flowers, namely those of (1) the goddessKali, the patron saint of the Bengal revolutionary movement, (2) ...
... been talking sxvadeshi "During the trial of the Ashe murder case at the Madras High Court, I could get some glimpses into the sort of 'evidence' which made the police suspect me as a possible abettor. Page 231 "It would appear that some of the so-called 'conspirators' —the charge of any conspiracy to murder Mr. Ashe, be it noted, broke down in the course of the trial and was... the law. "... Subsequently the Pondicherry journals, with some of which I had already severed my connections, were proscribed by the British Government. "In the month of July 1911. Collector Ashe of the Tinnelvelly District was shot dead by a Brahmin, Vanchi Iyer, and, as though to encourage the inventive skill of the Madras Police, Vanchi Iyer committed suicide, leaving no clue whatsoever as ...
... Police, 'but a dangerous man. We owe him the recent assassination of Mr. Ashe.' Page 259 "I never heard of Mr. Ashe.... I merely replied that it seems to me quite improbable that the savant, who discoursed so knowledgeably on philosophical questions, could be an assassin. " 'He certainly did not kill Mr. Ashe himself,' retorted my interrogator. 'He got him killed.' "' "Ah, ...
... said, ‘but he is a dangerous man. We hold him responsible for the recent assassination of Mr. Ashe, a British official.’ Madam David-Néel replied that she thought it improbable that a learned man, who had spoken to her so penetratingly on philosophical topics, was an assassin. ‘He certainly did not kill Mr. Ashe himself,’ replied the chief of police, ‘he had him killed.’ So the British colonial authorities ...
... Pondicherry made the spies gnash their teeth in impotent rage. For, it was alleged that WS had trained Vanchi Iyer to shoot with a revolver. Vanchi was a married Brahmin from Shencottah who shot dead Ashe, the Collector of Tinnelvelly on 17 June 1911. Then he committed suicide. The savage treatment meted out to patriots like Chidambaram Pillai had entered the soul of Indian youth like a hot iron. ... cost you much money and anxiety and which [might] have brought you most serious trouble but for the keen sense of justice on the part of certain French magistrates."' After the assassination of Ashe the British government put a lot of pressure on the French government. This time the French government in Pondicherry yielded. The 'Aliens Act' was resurrected. "But now the law was made stringently ...
... ‘give and take’. Their concern rather was ‘give and give’ (offer). He often tried to rub into me the inherent values and virtues of work. He would say “Kajo ekta force. Kaj korlei, tar shathe shoktio ashe.” (Work itself is a force. If you work, you get the strength also with it.) If I hesitated to start a big job he would push me — “Shuru kore dao, bhebona. Shokti peye jabe, babostha hoye jabe.” (Start ...
... The next week the same newspaper published an article that spoke openly of Sri Aurobindo as "a criminal and an assassin", thus connecting him with the assassination of the British Collector Robert Ashe, which had taken place on 17 June 1911. Sri Aurobindo wrote a letter to the editor of the Madras Times denying these charges, but was not given "the opportunity of reply". He therefore wrote this ...
... you all know, who waged open war with the police at Buribalain in Orissa and died fighting, with all his followers. A third consisting of our 'refugee' patriots assassinated the tyrannical Magistrate, Ashe, through a conspiracy hatched in Pondicherry itself. Whether or not such sporadic acts and activities had any real utility may be open to question. But a great and noble movement does not keep within ...
... (5) that revolutionary literature is being manufactured and circulated from Pondicherry, parts of which the police have intercepted, but the rest has reached its destination and is the cause of the Ashe murder. It is untrue that I am masquerading or have ever masqueraded as an ascetic; I live as a simple householder practising Yoga without sannyas just as I have been practising it for the last six ...
... The Anti-Swadeshi Campaign 27-March-1908 The official campaign against the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company is now drawing to a head. The enquiries made by Sub-Collector Ashe as to the list of shareholders are sufficiently ominous, while the case against the Tuticorin lawyers is an almost undisguised attempt to ruin the Company by making it practically illegal to farther ...
... Subramaniam Bharati engaged in Vedic studies, and Bharati too learned to see India - as Sri Aurobindo had seen Her - verily as the Mother, and to sing Her praises. The murder of Collector Ashe at Maniyachi in 1911 turned the suspicion of the Indian Government to the refugee patriots in Pondicherry. They were harassed in various ways, and every attempt was made to abduct and bring them to ...
... in Orissa and died fighting with all his followers. We have a cinema film of the dramatic episode here. A third consisting of our 'refugee' patriots assassinated the tyrannical Magistrate, Ashe, through a conspiracy hatched in Pondicherry itself. Whether or not such sporadic acts and activities had any real utility may be open to question. But a great and noble movement does not keep ...
... 6 But the draconian sentence of two life imprisonments (even Tilak got only six years) was received with shock and disbelief. After the witch hunt following Tirunelveli District Collector Ashe's assassination (in 1911) by youths patently inspired by VOC, the Swadeshi Movement, with its limited popular base, petered out. VOC, languishing in prison, was left to fend for himself ...
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