Many of us, especially those of us residing in Chennai, are familiar with the name Thillayadi Valliammai primarily due to the Premier Co-optex showroom situated on Pantheon Road that also bears the same name.
22nd February 1898
Johannesburg – the gold-city of South Africa
On this day a baby girl was born to Munuswamy Mudaliar and Mangalathammal. The young immigrant couple from a small village called Thillaiyadi in Tarangampadi taluk had come to work their way out of difficulty. Munuswamy ran a small shop to make a living. The couple named her Valliammai.
Valliammai grew in an environment that was rather hostile to Indians. But the young child did not even know that it was not right to be segregated so until she was in her early teens.
A law was passed that any marriage that is not according to the Church or according to the marriage law of South Africa would be held null and void.
Indians were hit very badly. Wives lost rights over husbands’ property, husband’s protection. Children were to be nothing more than bastards. Doubts regarding inheritance of wealth of parents arose. With no safety, the situation of women was the extremely bad.
Mohandas Gandhi began his opposition.
14th March 1913
15-year-old Valliammai joined her mother in the march by women from the province of Transvaal to Natal which was not legally permitted without passes. They talked to the Indian miners of New Castle and they were convinced about joining the fight for rights. The miners struck work.
As they crossed into Natal, along with many others, Valliammai courted arrest. She spent 3 months in jail. The cold and unhygienic conditions in jail affected her severely. She suffered a fatal fever and when she was released there was nothing more than skin and bones held alive together by her sheer grit.
She heard somebody tell, “Why don’t you people register and become South Africans instead? Indians! India doesn’t even have a flag! What are you really fighting for?”
“If having a flag is what would give form to India, then here it is,” she said, tearing off her sari and she waved it triumphantly, “MY FLAG! MY MOTHERLAND!”
Gandhi heard of the gutsy young Valliammai and asked for her when he came to meet those who had been released from jail. He was taken aback by the skin-and-bones body of the tall girl. “Look at you, child,” he said, “there is no need for you to get involved at such a young age.”
Her eyes flashing, in a barely audible voice, she replied, “If going back to jail again would add to the cause, I would do it again!”
22nd February 1914
Valliammai, the one with a heart of steel breathed her last. Too early by any standards. Gandhi was to later write, “The loss of Valliammai would perhaps affect me more than that of my elder brother (Lakshmidass).”
Her death was a reflection of the travails Indians — mostly descended from indentured labour — were going through at a time when Britain was more interested in soothing Afrikaaner feelings after the Boer War than offering Africans and Indians a fair deal.
On 31st December 2008, over a decade since the Government of Tamil Nadu first made demands, India Post released the First Day Cover with Thillayadi Valliammai’s picture as postmark costing rupees 5/-
As a mark of respect her memorial was opened on 13-08-1971. Her statue, life history and photographs displayed here to visit public at the area of 2451.65sqm. The Library also functioning regularly in this memorial. Situated in Thillayadi Valliammai Village at Tarangambadi Taluk.
The significance of Co-Optex’s Thillayadi Valliammai outlet being a saree showroom cannot be missed in the context!
–MRS.YAMUNA HARSHAVARDHANA
