When the Secretariat went to Chittoor, and the lions were shot

T J S George

In its singularly chequered history, the Indian Express has passed through fires, strikes, closures, government prosecutions, and persecutions of all kinds. Never did it, along with its home city of Madras, face the kind of crisis that arose in 1942. A heavily armed Japanese naval fleet sailed into the Bay of Bengal - and the British Governor of Madras went into a panic. A Frightened Fortnight followed. An exodus of not only people but government offices and business houses turned life in the city into a nightmare. The Express soldiered on, reporting the panic and drawing attention also to the hardship it caused and the tragedies that befell animals and birds. Here is a general account of those days, pieced together from the paper’s old files.

On April 28, 1942. The Indian Express carried a small advertisement - small but electrifying in its importance. It said:

Cheerful breakfast in the morning

Luxurious lunch in the afternoon

NOTHING LIKE AT ARYA BHAVAN

Service as usual: 6 am to 10 am;
2 pm to 6.30 pm. ON ALL DAYS.

The operative words were ‘‘service as usual’’. The news that Arya Bhavan, easily the finest place in the George Town area for finger-licking tiffin, was serving its delicacies AS USUAL was as sweet as Palani Panchamritam to the harried people of Madras. Arya Bhavan idlis as usual? What could be more reassuring to a populace that had been bullied and buffeted by an administration that had gone nuts at the first sight of a Japanese warship. Those few lines from Arya Bhavan told them at last that life could again be lived as it was meant to be - with dosas and pongal and coffee just as they were meant to be.

The extent of the relief was in direct proportion to the extent of fear the Government had spread in Madras. Japanese warplanes had attacked Colombo on April 5. But the British Governor of Colombo advised the people to keep calm and avoid panic.

The Governor of Madras presented a study in contrast. On April 6 a Government press note warned the public of ‘‘increased risk to Madras’’. All kinds of restrictions were announced. It suddenly became an offence, for example, to be found on the Marina beach after sunset. On the first day, April 6, 14 persons found enjoying the breeze were fined three rupees each.

If anyone missed the message, the Government drove it home by immediately shifting key offices to places they considered unreachable by the Japanese. The most important departments were moved out of Madras altogether - the Secretariat to Chittoor, Madanapalle and Ooty; the High Court and the University to Coimbatore; the Surgeon-General’s office to Anantpur; Inspectress of European Schools to Bellary; the Revenue Board to Salem; Accountant General’s office to Bangalore. Several other offices were shifted out of the beach-front areas - the GPO to the Church Park Convent on Mount Road; the Collectorate to Pachaiyappa’s College in Chetput; the Reserve Bank to Nungambakkam High Road; the Commercial Taxes Office to Khaleeli Mansion on Mount Road.

No wonder a lot of others moved out too. Kishinchand Chellaram took no chances and shifted as far away as Coonoor; Kewalram went to, of all places, Adoni; Narayanan and Co. went to Coimbatore. Interestingly cinema houses stayed open in the city although patrons were few. Indian Express of course stayed put. And it kept asking the Government to ‘‘set an example’’ by calling off all plans to shift its offices and the civilian population.

Because the Express stayed on doing its job, some tell-tale details of those historic days were recorded for posterity. It described the sad end to the practice of housewives offering a lump of cooked food to crows with the traditional call of ‘‘caw, caw’’. With very few housewives remaining in the city, the crows were now hovering around homes in vain while cats and dogs had become very lean.

Prices of everyday needs had of course shot up. A coconut selling normally for 9 pies now cost 3½ annas. Small change had become scarce. Dhobies were not available and it was difficult to look clean.

The greatest of all tragedies, however, was enacted in the zoo. With the Japanese about to capture the city, the authorities wondered, what about the wild animals? The British seemed to imagine that the Japanese would let tigers and lions loose on the hapless population.

The Mayor and the Municipal Commissioner suggested that the animals be sent to zoos in Mysore, Hyderabad and Bhopal. But the big bosses like the Governor and the Collector could see only problems in such proposals. A last-minute attempt to send the animals to Erode also came to naught when the railway authorities said no transport would be available before April 16.

The panicky Governor could not wait that long for he was convinced that the wild animals would be unmanageably dangerous in the event of an air raid. Then the desperate orders to kill them were issued. On April 12, the zoo’s stock of tigers, lions, bears, panthers and reptiles were shot dead. Only ‘‘ineffective’’ creatures like elephants, giraffes and ostriches were spared.

A week after that slaughter, the Government issued a statement that the danger to the city of Madras had passed. But it was too late for the lords of the forest as also men, women and children of Madras who had been subjected to a wholly avoidable fortnight of terror and dislocation.

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