2020 has been driving at the highest paces as every person in the country is finding themselves locked more often than not. Amidst all the negativity, India has specifically positive things to look forward as it celebrates the 100th-year anniversary of the Malabar uprising next year i.e in the year 2021.
The Rebellion is not much talked about except locally. The Malabar rebellion, is also commonly known as the Moplah rebellion. This rebellion by the Mappila Muslims of Kerala was one of a kind as it was an armed revolt staged against their Hindu landlords and the British authorities in 1921. The duration of the revolt says a lot of their efforts and neglect as India pauses to salute the six-month long movement. Despite being one of the first cases of nationalist uprisings in Southern India, it was actually occurred within the broader spectrum of the Non-cooperation movement led by Mahatma Gandhi, which is also popularly called as the Khilafat movement.
Moplahs or the so called Mappilas were of two known cultures. One being the Muslim tenants also called as Kanamdars and the other were the cultivators, locally called as Verumpattamdars. These two cultures resided in the Malabar region, a place where most of the landlords were upper caste Hindus. The majority having a say is particularly evident today as well as which gives us the idea on how the dominance could have been unprecedented then and totally shrilling. The Moplahs however, had gained some prominence when Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan invaded Mysore. But the domination of the Hindu landlords was re-established soon following the 3rd Anglo-Mysore war, also around time after British occupation of Malabar in 1792. And in no time, the Mappilas found themselves at the mercy and under the shackles of their Hindu landlords who ultimately served as British agents and were sustained by them.
The history of feudal conflicts in the Malabar region was nothing but the years of pressured ostracizing as it particularly stands as one of the causes of the revolt. The tenant-landlord relations were historically strained. A total 32 uprisings between 1836 and 1919 were evidently organized by the Moplahs against their high caste Hindu landlords, the relatives of the landlords and also against the assistants of British officials.
The economic condition of Mappila tenants had deteriorated overtime which brought in Agrarian discontent among them. It was caused by the oppressions on them by the draconian British policies which had increased taxation, unsecured their tenancy, racked the renting, forced numerous evictions etc. This had also given rise to anti-feudal and anti-British sentiments among the Moplahs.
The Congress, specifically Gandhi, had tried to reached out to the Mappila cultivators to mobilize support and encourage them for independence through the non-cooperation movement. This led to the formation of Khilafat in Malabar in June 1920, which with time became increasingly active. Consequently, in August 1920, Gandhi along with Shaukat Ali, the leader of the Khilafat movement in India, visited Calicut with an aim to spread the idea of Khilafat and message of non-cooperation among the residents of Malabar. By January of 1921, the Mappilas under the shed of Mahadum Tanga, their religious head, had pledged to support the proposed movement.
But it was only under the leadership of Variyamkunnath Kunjahammed Haji that the Mappilas took up arms in August 1921 after the arrest of their Khilafat leader Ali Musaliyar. The immediate cause was led by a widespread rumour that the prominent mosque in Thirurangadi was raided.
The course of the rebellion largely took the shape of guerrilla-type attacks on the police, troops and janmis. The symbols of the colonial state including the stations, telegraph lines, courts, offices etc. alongwith the houses of the landlords were attacked.
The rebellion spread across the Malabar district so much that the British officers and the local police officers had to escape leaving the huge territory under the control of the rebels.
The territory was then declared an ‘independent state’ under the ruling of Haji in August 1921. The territory headquartered in Nilambur and also had its own separate currency, system of taxation and passport for nearly six months. The Khilafat regime was run parallelly along with the state affairs. The local tenants were granted the power over their lands in which they cultivated and grew along with tax incentives.
Although the movement started off explicitly as a protest against British authorities, it had acquired the sights of communal implications that later culminated into communal violence. The independency did not last long as the British suppressions of the revolt led to the British government responding largely to the movement with much more aggression. They returned to bring in Gurkha regiment with the aim to suppress it. They succeeded and had imposed martial law.
Approximately 60 Mappila residents were sent on their way to a prison and suffocated to death in a closed railway goods wagon from which the movement is also referred to have given birth to the ‘Wagon Tragedy’. By January 1922, the British had taken back all the areas which were held by the rebels by capturing all the key Mappilan leaders. In this process, Haji was also arrested to be sentenced to death.
The ending in this particular rebellion is not celebratory but the struggles of the ancestors have certainly been. The courage, the revolts and the first uprisings which eventually led to India’s Independency is undoubtedly the kind of happy forward motivation the residents need as we are fighting the small little struggles of our own against as deadly a pandemic as Covid-19. So, with open arms, the 100th year of Malabar Rebellion is all welcome!
Eduindex News 
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