It is such an important historical fort and landmark, which is defaced by a stupid road for motor vehicles. We in India are really exceptionally dumb in how we ruin our heritage. The consummate destruction of our heritage in colonial times didn’t help either. https://twitter.com/vertigowarrior/status/1350720813213704197

The Kondavīdu fort was an extremely important stage in the colonization of India. In 1753, the Nizam of Hyderabad donated the coastal Andhra region (northern circars) to the French, which made them the largest European power in India. Indians had no idea what was about to follow.

In fact, the French advances in India by bribing Islamic rulers alarmed the British, and they proceeded with a similar strategy in Bengal. It was a sheer turn of fate that Napoleon lost in Europe, and the French possessions in India were very meekly handed over to the British.

This is the reference where I posted the above screenshot.

https://archive.org/details/descriptivehisto00morrrich/page/210/mode/1up

Why did the Nizam surrender such highly productive fertile region of Krishna-Godavari deltas to the French? The exact same reason why the Mughals invited the British to set up shop in Bengal.

It is to ward off the growing threat of rising Maratha power. http://indiafacts.org/mughal-tax-break-cost-india-freedom/

We must understand that the British move to topple Siraj-us-Daulah in Bengal and set themselves up as rulers of India came in 1757, *after* the French successively established themselves on the southern coast, controlling the important ports of Machilipatnam and Coringa.

If only the Marathas were savvy enough to control the eastern coast of South India (with its high density of Hindu population) instead of leaving it to the dominion of the Nizam, my theory is that foreign colonial rule would not have established in India at all !

So the loss of Kondavīdu fort, which is now defaced with the stupid motor road, resulted in centuries of horrific economic devastation and slavery for the Indian race. As the proverb goes, “for want of a nail..”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail