Maritime contacts Sangam period Tamilakam Cheras Spice trade Ays Ezhil Malai Confluence of religionsMamankam festival Calicut Venad - Kingdom of QuilonValluvanad Kolattunadu CochinArakkal kingdom Minor principalities Age of Discovery Portuguese period Dutch period Rise of Travancore Mysorean invasion British PeriodBattle of TirurangadiMalabar DistrictNorth MalabarSouth Malabar Battle of Quilon Communism in KeralaLakshadweep Economy Architecture Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja (IPA: [pɐɻɐʃːi ɾaːd͡ʒɐ]) (3 January 1753 – 30 November 1805),[1] also known as Cotiote Rajah and Pychy Rajah, was the de facto head of the Kottayam Kingdom[note 1] in the Malabar region of Kerala between 1774 and 1805.

Pazhassi Raja, the fourth prince in line for succession to the throne during this period, became one of the de facto heads of state, surpassing several older royal contenders.

The conflict was renewed in 1800 over a dispute on Wayanad and after a five-year-long war of insurgency, Pazhassi Raja was killed on 30 November 1805 in a gunfight at Mavila Thodu (small body of water), in the present-day Kerala-Karnataka border.

Yet numerous princes and younger noblemen refused to flee and organized partisan bands who waged guerrilla warfare on the Mysore army from the forests and mountains that covered much of Malabar.

He set up a large number of bases in the nearly impenetrable forested mountains of Puralimala and Wynad and repeatedly inflicted severe minor losses on the Mysore army in Kottayam as well as in Wayanad.

[14] The East India Company factories at Talassery armed Pazhassi Raja's men to enable them to recover Kottayam from the Mysorean occupation army.

But at this critical moment when the Mysorean army in Malabar could have been destroyed by a joint action on the part of the Company and the Rajas, while their factories at Talassery were instructed by the Governor not to upset the nominal peace with Hyder.

Pazhassi's men, though secretly supplied with arms and ammunition by the company, could not hold or defeat this huge host and soon the Kottayam army was forced to disperse after a fight.

The year before the lease was concluded the Raja had provided asylum to a Nayar noble, Narangoli Nambiar of the Iruvazinad royal clan, who had been declared an outlaw by the East India Company for the murder of three men who had killed his kinsman.

So East India Company troops arrived in Kottayam to help Vira Varma's tax collectors, but Pazhassi Raja's men resisted them with success.

Ambu along with followers went to Kannavam [also spelled Kannavath and Kannoth], where he planned and executed a mass resistance with people's support, which made sure that Vira Varma could make no tax collection in Kottayam.

[8][page needed] Raja feared that the East India Company planned to seize him [not knowing that their truce terms were kept blocked from him by his uncle] and retreated into the depths of Wayanad.

[8][page needed] Reinforcements under Lieutenant Mealy were to reach Dow at Periya, but on way they were severely harassed by a force of Nayars and Kurichias and suffered a casualty of 105 men.

Dow decided that he will go to Talassery to consult authorities there and to plan a greater operation to deal with troops of Raja and Tipu simultaneously in Wayanad.

[52] But what they did not know was that Raja who learned of the true state of the Company expeditionary force laid a trap for them-he ordered troops lay concealed in camouflaged stockades built on both sides of the pass.

[54] Around this time, Commissioners took a decision on the advice of Swaminatha Pattar, a Tamil Brahmin who was the minister of Zamorin that sowed the eventual downfall of Pazhassi Raja.

[47][54][55] They decided to make peace as they were anxious that guerrilla warfare in a mountainous and forested terrain could last long and that Raja might join forces with Tipu or French.

[55] The Company administration at Madras appointed Major General Arthur Wellesley as the Presidency army commandant of Mysore, Canara & Malabar.

[8] Raja learned that Wellesley had left to Deccan on a military mission-Raja who understood that Major General's absence is a great chance swiftly made his move.

Baber had both a personal motive – to avenge the death of his friend Major Cameron, the first husband of his wife Helen Somerville Fearon at the hand of Pazhassi Raja on 9 January 1797 at Periya Pass.

Baber became a civil servant to protect the interests of a small but influential group of merchants that included his in-laws – the Inglis and Money families of Bombay.

In light of the above points, it will not be far-fetched to believe that Chetti who guided Company troops to Raja's hideout mentioned by Baber in his letter could be a servant or agent of Pazhayamviden Chandu.

[8][page needed] But evidently, wounded Raja did live long enough for a few more minutes to raise his loaded gun and then tell Canara Menon, an East India Company minor official, not to come too close to his dying body and pollute it.

Folklore insists that he committed suicide by swallowing a diamond ring to avoid capture after he was wounded[98] but Baber says he was killed by a clerk named Canara Menon.

[109] Criticism leveled against Raja for allying with the East India Company during his wars with Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan is not rational in light of an analysis of contemporary South Indian history.

So it was understandable that many leaders of Malabar – Pazhassi Raja included – allied with the company to fight Mysore rulers like Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan.

As part of this, he borrowed money from Tellicherry Factory and gave financial help to his peasants to resume agriculture along with distribution of seeds and cattle.

Most prominent of them are Chengoteri Chathu, Pallur Eman, Kaitheri Ambu, Kannavath Nambiar, Thalakkal Chandu, Sankaran Moopan[112] and Edachena Kunkan.

[113] In his decades-long war to oust invaders, Rajah developed an elaborate system of cantonments and forts in the jungly and mountainous part of his country.

[114] Pazhassi Raja appears in numerous folk songs in North Malabar, in which his resistance to the East India Company is the primary subject.