Historian Sriram V Leads Independence Day Heritage Walk Along Mount Road

Historian and writer Sriram V. led an Independence Day heritage walk along Mount Road to revisit key landmarks associated with India's freedom struggle in Madras.

The walk commenced at the office of The Hindu, where participants were given freshly printed copies of the newspaper's August 15, 1947 edition. The group then visited the premises of the defunct publication The Mail next door, which had represented British interests prior to Independence.

Participants stopped at the former site of the Kishinchand Chellaram showroom, an establishment on Mount Road that witnessed picketing by Congress volunteers protesting foreign goods during Mahatma Gandhi's boycott campaign. The tour also visited Blackers Road at Gaiety Palace, the site of the former Gaiety theatre where the 1938 film Thyaga Bhoomi was screened.

The walk traced connections to nationalist poet Subramania Bharathi at two stops: the VGP building, which previously housed the Swadesamitran newspaper as Victory House, and the DBS Building, the former site of AVM's Saraswathi Stores. The store was linked to the post-Independence lifting of the ban on Bharathi's songs and the release of their copyright.

Outside Higginbothams, the tour highlighted the legal victory of patriot and artist Arya Bhashyam, who successfully fought a copyright dispute after an unauthorized commercial release of his portrait of Mahatma Gandhi.

The group also observed landmarks tied to Partition outside Quaid-e-Milleth College, named after Indian Union Muslim League co-founder Mohammad Ismail, and the neighbouring Agurchund Mansions, formerly Khaleeli Mansions before being declared evacuee property and auctioned following the migration of owner Abbas Khaleeli to Pakistan.

The walk concluded at the empty pedestal at the Spencer junction, where a statue of British officer Col. James Neill stood until the Rajaji administration ordered its relocation to museum vaults in 1937 following sustained public protests.