A warrior, a military genius, a shrewd and capable administrator and arguably the man to whom the credit for having fought India’s First War of Independence must go.
Kamal Haasan, in an earlier interview, spoke at length about the huge amount of money that the British had to spend to quell Maruthanayagam’s rebellion.
There are different versions of Maruthanayagam, but one of the most extensively researched accounts is by an Englishman called S Charles Hill in his book “Yusuf Khan, The Rebel Commandant”.
Born a hindu he ran away from home and later converted to Islam. He took the name Muhammad Yusuf after which he entered the services of a couple of Europeans.
Despite remitting his rent regularly to the British, he was able to set up and equip a force which could take on the combined forces of the Nawab and the British!
More importantly, he was never guilty of tyranny or oppression, and the people loved him for that. Hill comes to this conclusion going by the way people stood by him till the end.