T.B.M.L. College: The Rise

Tranquebar, "The Queen of the Coromandal Coast" symbolises the Portuguese - Danish - French - English heritage with its rich and glorious past. The first Christian missionaries, Bartholomaues Zieganbalg and Heinrich Pluetschau might have felt accomplished when the guiding wind of amazing grace landed them on the sea shore of Tranquebar. On learning how the waves sonorously sang, dexterously danced, opened goggle-eyed bubbles, enamelled the sands and stretched the splashing white foam fingers, to touch and bless the shore of Tranquebar, the Danish King Frederick IV would have been pleased for sending the missionaries to preach the gospel. Landing on 9th July 1706 A.D. at Tranquebar, the missionaries started laying foundation of the Protestant Christian churches in India. The New Jerusalem Church was built in 1718 A.D. at Tranquebar followed by the Bethlehem Church at Porayar. Having given the roots, the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church was born in 1919 A.D. All these ultimately paved the way for a historic commitment to serve the cause of the poor, downtrodden and the marginalized sections of the Tamil Society.

Realising the need for the establishment of a centre for higher education the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church (T.E.L.C.) chose Porayar, a rural hamlet in the erstwhile Thanjavur District for starting its first higher educational institution. The vision was brought into reality with the rise of Tranquebar Bishop Manikam Lutheran College which was named after Late Rt. Rev. Dr. R. B. Manikam, the first Indian Bishop of the church. It became an important landmark in the annals of the Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Church on 19th June 1972. The Government of Tamil Nadu approved the establishment of the college vide its Government Order No. 1888, Education Department dated 29.11.1972 and in the proceedings of the Directorate of Collegiate Education, RC No. 47187 / 52 / 71 dated 5.11.1972. The college now offers fourteen undergraduate, twelve postgraduate courses, and eight research programmes leading to M.Phil., and Ph.D.