THE MAPPILA REBELLION(1921)
Some call it as a fight for freedom others call it as a genocide. I have tried to be as factual as I can and I have left it to the readers to interpret it.
The Mappila rebellion started as a resistance against the British Colonial rule, feudal system and in favour of the Khilafat Movement in the Malabar. The Khilafat Movement also known as the Indian Muslim Movement was a pan-islamist political protest campaign led by Shaukat Ali, Maulana Mohammed Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Abdul Kalam Azad to restore the Caliph of the ottoman caliphate (Leader of the Sunni Muslims). A large number of leaders started to spread awareness and develop participation on the behalf of the Caliphate. The movement was supported by Gandhi and other Indian Nationalist Leaders as they were both fighting a common enemy the British. Some historians say that the khilafat movement aimed at establishing a Islamic State in the Malabar thus they were both fighting a common enemy but had different goals.
Background of the rebellion
The Malabar agricultural system was historically based on a hierarchy of privileges, rights based on birth(jenmis). The jenmis consisting mainly of Namboothris (Brahmins) and Nair chieftains were the highest in hierarchy. The Jenmis could provide a grant of kanan (piece of land) to a kannakkaran in return for a fixed share of the crops produced. A Jenmi would have a large number of Kanakkarans under him. The verumpattakaran (kannakarans) generally thiyya and mapilla classes cultivated the land and were also part proprietors. They were given a simple lease for one year. They were entitled to one third or half of the produce. The Jenmis could not evict the tenants under him unless they were unable to pay the prescribed rent.
Mysorean Invasion of Malabar (1766-1792)
Haider Ali invaded the Malabar region and took over the region. During this invasion the jenmis were driven out and they fled neighbouring states. The tenants and Nair army men who could not escape were forcibly converted to Islam. Having driven the Jenmis out a new system of land revenue was introduced with the government share on the basis of the actual produce from the land. The rule of Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan created a sense of security among the Muslims.
Within 5 years the British took over Malabar and defeated Tipu sultan. This allowed the jenmis to return to their homes and regain their lands with the help of the British government and its courts. The British introduced several western juridical concepts such as private property rights. These were unknown to the people in the Malabar. This gave the jenmis the right to evict the tenants as they please, as conditions worsened the rents rose to as high as 75% to 80% of the net produce. This caused great resentment amongst the Muslims, the sense of security they felt during the rule of Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan was no more. They once again felt helpless at the hands of the jenmis, as the resentment grew it resulted in a long series of violent outbreaks beginning in 1836. This almost always included the murder of the Hindus.
28 April 1920- The Malabar Rebellion was introduced into the district of Malabar by a resolution by the Malabar district council at Manjeri.
30 March 1921- There was a meeting held by Musaliyar of Vayakkad and a second meeting at the Pannur Mosque, there was some friction in between the Mappilas and the Nairs and Tiyyas who resented the Khilafat movement. The Mappilas attacked the place of worship of the Hindu Adhigari of the village.
August 20 1921- This day can be considered as a turning point, the Hindu Muslim tensions had reached its peak( the police, the Hindus and the British government were seen as accomplices by the Muslim population of the Malabar, any act of the police could have threatened the status quo between the Hindu and Muslims). The police attempted to arrest Vadakevtil Muhammed alleging that he had stolen the pistol of a Hindu. 2000 Mappilas gathered and foiled this attempt of the police. At night 16 miles from Manjeri in Nilambur. A police constable and Mr Rowley, Lieutenant Johnston and 9 others were killed.
21 August 1921- The police arrested a number of Khilafat volunteers and seized the records at the Mambaran Mosque in Tirurangad. This led to rumours that the police had desecrated the mosque. A large number of Mappilas attacked the police station. The police opened fire and this triggered furious reactions among the Mappilas
The Mappila Rebellion Begins
22 August 1921- the public officers were targeted and killed.
24 August 1921-Variyam Kunnath Kunhahammed Haji made inflammatory speeches at Manjeri. The situation in the Malabar was extremely sensitive and this might have been enough to light the flames of passion in the already frustrated Mappilas. This speech is one of the most significant moments leading to the rebellion.
25 August 1921- A retired police officer is murdered and his head was paraded on a spear and was left on the common ground till 30th August.
The rebels attacked police stations, government treasuries and entered courts and registry offices destroying all records. They took over the seats of the judges and declared “Swaraj”.
Reactions and accounts of the rebellion.
“The blood-curdling atrocities committed by the Mappilas in Malabar against the Hindus were indescribable. All over Southern India, a wave of horrified feeling had spread among the Hindus of every shade of opinion, which was intensified when certain Khilafat leaders were so misguided as to pass resolutions of congratulations to the Mappilas on the brave fight they were conducting for the sake of religion". Any person could have said that this was too heavy a price for Hindu-Muslim unity. But Mr. Gandhi was so much obsessed by the necessity of establishing Hindu-Muslim unity that he was prepared to make light of the doings of the Mappilas and the Khilafats who were congratulating them. He spoke of the Mappilas as the "brave God-fearing Mappilas who were fighting for what they consider as religion and in a manner which they consider as religious ".
(Many historians have blamed Gandhi for justifying the violence. The man who stood for non- violence seemed to be supporting violence for Hindu Muslim unity which was clearly a myth in the Malabar. Gandhi could have taken steps to stop this calamity but was a mute spectator)
“Mr. Gandhi…can he not feel a little sympathy for thousands of women left with only rags, driven from home, for little children born of the flying mothers on roads in refugee camps? The misery is beyond description. Girl wives, pretty and sweet, with eyes half blind with weeping, distraught with terror; women who have seen their husbands hacked to pieces before their eye, in the way “Mappilas consider as religious”; old women tottering, whose faces become written with anguish and who cry at a gentle touch…men who have lost all, hopeless, crushed, desperate…Can you conceive of a more ghastly and inhuman crime than the murders of babies and pregnant women?…
A pregnant woman carrying 7 months was cut through the abdomen by a rebel and she was seen lying dead on the way with the dead child projecting out of the womb…
Another: a baby of six months was snatched away from the breast of his own mother and cut into two pieces… Are these rebels human beings or monsters?
A respectable Nair Lady at Melatur was stripped naked by the rebels in the presence of her husband and brothers, who were made to stand close by with their hands tied behind. When they shut their eyes in abhorrence, they were compelled at the point of sword to open their eyes and witness the rape committed by the brute in their presence.”
The Rani of Nilambur in a petition to Lady Reading:
“Many wells and tanks filled up with the mutilated, but often only half dead bodies of our nearest and dearest ones who refused to abandon the faith of our fathers
Pregnant women cut to pieces and left on the roadsides and in the jungles, with the unborn babe protruding from the mangled corpse.
Innocent and helpless children torn from our arms and done to death before our eyes and of our husbands and fathers tortured, flayed and burnt alive.
Places of worship desecrated and destroyed and of the images of the deity shamefully insulted by putting the entrails of slaughtered cows where flower garlands used to lie or else smashed to pieces.
Wholesale looting of hard-earned wealth of generations reducing many who were formerly rich and prosperous to publicly beg for a piece or two in the streets of Calicut, to buy salt or chilly or betel-leaf - rice being mercifully provided by the various relief agencies.”
A genocide or paroxysm of ferocity and frustration trapped in the Mappilas or a fight for freedom by the downtrodden. Its for you to decide.
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