Kittur revolt and Rani Chennamma

• Commemorating 200th year of the victory of Rani Chennamma over the British in the first Kittur War of 1824, several social groups across the country, including Act Now for Harmony and Democracy (ANHAD) and the National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW), organised a national campaign, Naanoo Rani Chennamma(I am Rani Chennamma too) on February 21.
  • The campaign begun from Kittur (Karnataka).
• Rani Chennamma was among the first women to lead a revolt against British rule.

ABOUT RANI CHENNAMMA AND KITTUR REVOLT

• Chenamma was born on October 23, 1778, in Kagati, a small village in present-day Belagavi district in Karnataka.
• At the age of 15, she married Raja Mallasarja of Kittur, who ruled the province until 1816.
• After Mallasarja’s death in 1816, his eldest son, Shivalingarudra Sarja, ascended the throne.
• Before his death in 1824, Shivalingarudra adopted a child, Shivalingappa, as the successor.
• However, the British East India Company under Lord Elphinstone (Lieutenant-Governor of Bombay) refused to recognise Shivalingappa as the successor of the kingdom under the ‘doctrine of lapse’.
  • Under the doctrine, any princely state without a natural heir would collapse and would be annexed by the Company.
  • It was the first instance of imposition Doctrine of Lapse, even before officially articulated by Lord Dalhousie in 1848.
• John Thackery, the British official at Dharwad, launched an attack on Kittur in October 1824.
• The Kittur army, under the leadership of Rani Chennamma, retaliated and opened tremendous fire. Thackeray was killed and Rani Chennamma emerged victorious.
  • However, this victory was short-lived.
• On December 3, 1824, the British army attacked the Kittur Fort and captured it.
• Rani Chennamma and her family were imprisoned and jailed at the fort in Bailhongal, where she died in 1829.