The Malabar rebellion of 1921 (also called Moplah rebellion, and Mappila rebellion, Malayalam: malabār kalāpam) started as a resistance against the British Raj in certain places in the southern part of old Malabar district of present-day Kerala.
The rebellion has been attributed to agrarian grievances and continued unrest among the Moplahs, which developed in the context of British policies toward the community in Malabar.
For the mappila side, the rebellion was primarily a peasant revolt against the colonial government. During the uprising, the rebels attacked various symbols and institutions of the colonial state, such as telegraph lines, train stations, courts and post offices.
There were also a series of clashes between the Mappila Muslims and the Hindu, and Muslim landlords, the latter supported by the British colonial government, throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. The heavy-handed suppression of the Khilafat Movement by the colonial government was met by resistance in the Eranad and Valluvanad taluks of Malabar. The Mappilas attacked and took control of police stations, colonial government offices, courts and government treasuries..
For six months from August 1921, the rebellion extended over – some 40% of the South Malabar region of the Madras Presidency. The British colonial government sent troops to quell the rebellion and martial law imposed.http://www.kerala.gov.in -> History -> Malabar Rebellion. An estimated 10,000 people died,A short survey of Kerala History, A. Sreedhara Menon, Vishwanathan Publishers 2006, p. 361. although official figures put the numbers at 2337 rebels killed, 1652 injured and 45,404 imprisoned. Unofficial estimates put the number imprisoned at almost 50,000 of whom 20,000 were deported, mainly to the penal colony in the Andaman Islands, while around 10,000 went missing.Malabar: Desheeyathayude idapedalukal ( Malabar: involvement of nationalism), MT Ansari, DC Books, p. 45. According to Arya Samaj about 600 Hindus were killed and 2,500 were forcibly converted to Islam during the rebellion. During the rebellion, thousands of Hindus were murdered and forcibly converted to Islam.
Contemporary colonial administrators and modern historians differ markedly in their assessment of the incident, debating whether the revolts were triggered by religious fanaticism or agrarian grievances.K. N. Panikkar, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 17, No. 20 (15 May 1982), pp. 823–824. At the time, the Indian National Congress repudiated the movement and it remained isolated from the wider nationalist movement.The labor of development: workers and the transformation of capitalism in Keralam, India, Patrick Heller, Cornell University Press, 1999, p. 67. However, some contemporary Indian evaluations now view the rebellion as a national upheaval against colonial rule and the most important event concerning the political movement in Malabar during the period.
In its magnitude and extent, it was an unprecedented popular upheaval, the likes of which has not been seen in Kerala before or since. While the Mappilas were in the vanguard of the movement and bore the brunt of the struggle, several non-Mappila leaders actively sympathized with the rebels' cause, giving the uprising the character of a national upheaval. In 1971, the Government of Kerala officially recognized the active participants in the events as "freedom fighters".
Background
Land ownership in Malabar
Malabar's agricultural system was historically based on a hierarchy of privileges, rights and obligations for all principal social groups in what British administrator William Logan sometimes referred to as the "Father of Tenancy Legislation" in Malabar,Modern Kerala: studies in social and agrarian relations, K. K. N. Kurup, Mittal Publications, 1988, p. 80. describing it as a system of 'corporate unity' or joint proprietorship of each of the principal land right holders:Peasant Struggles, Land Reforms and Social Change: Malabar 1836–1982 By P Radhakrishnan – COOPERJAL, pp. 17–20.Tenancy legislation in Malabar, 1880–1970: an historical analysis, V. V. Kunhi Krishnan (Ph.D Thesis under Dr. K. K. N. Kurup, Calicut University ), Northern Book Centre, 1993, pp. 1–24.
Jenmi The Jenmi, consisting mainly of the Namboothiri Brahmins and Nair chieftains, were the highest level of the hierarchy, and a class of people given hereditary land grants (''janmam'') by the Naduvazhis or rulers. The rights conveyed by this janmam were not a freehold in the European sense, but an office of dignity. Owing to their ritual status as priests (Nambudiris), the jenmis could neither cultivate nor supervise the land but would instead provide a grant of kanam (a form of land tenure) to a kanakkaran (holder of tenure) in return for a fixed share of the crops produced. Typically, a Jenmi would have a large number of kanakkarar under him.
Verumpattakkaran The Verumpattakkarar, generally Thiyya and Mappila classes, cultivated the land but were also its part-proprietors under the kanakkarar. These classes were given a Verum Pattam (Simple Lease) of the land that was typically valid for one year. According to custom, they were also entitled to one-third or an equal share of the net produce.
The net produce of the land was the share left over after providing for the cherujanmakkar or all the other birthright holders such as the village carpenter, the goldsmith and agricultural labourers who helped to gather, prepare and store produce. The system ensured that no Jenmi could evict tenants under him except for non-payment of rent. This land tenure system was generally referred to as the janmi-kana-maryada (customary practices).
Land reforms and Mappila outbreaks
During the Mysorean invasion of Malabar, the Jenmi took refuge in neighbouring states. The tenants and the Nair army men who could not escape were converted into Islam, as described in William Logan's Malabar Manual. Thus, Tipu Sultan's Kingdom of Mysore, having driven the Jenmi out of Malabar, reached accord with the Muslim Kanakkars. A new system of land revenue was introduced for the first time in the region's history with the government share fixed on the basis of actual produce from the land.Kerala Development Report, Government of India Planning Commission, Academic Foundation, 2008, p. 53.
However, within five years, the East India Company took over Malabar, defeating Tipu Sultan and ending his reign over the region. This allowed the Jenmi to return to their homes and regain the lands lost during the Mysorean invasion, with the help of the Company administration and its duly-constituted courts.Logan, 1951b:209-10. The Company introduced several Western juridical concepts, such as that of absolute property rights, into the existing legal system of Malabar. Up until then, such rights had been unknown in the region and as a result all land became the private property of the Jenmi. This legal recognition gave them the right to evict tenants, which was in turn enforced through the colonial civil courts. In the words of William Logan:
As conditions worsened, rents rose to as high as 75–80% of net produce, leaving the Verumpattakkar cultivators largely "only straw". This caused great resentment among the Mappilas, who, in the words of Logan, were "labouring late and early to provide a sufficiency of food for their wives and children". Resentment among the Muslim tenant population due to being vulnerable to rack renting, insecure tenancy, and eviction at the hands of Hindu landlords (jenmi) sustained by British courts, the Mappillas responded in a series of outbreaks, in which they wanted their own death, 29 in number, between 1836 and 1919 were suppressed. These usually involved the violence against Nambudiri and Nair landlords. During the nineteenth century conversions to Islam heightened dramatically as the backward caste Cheruman serfs embraced Islam so that they got liberation from the caste system and support from fellow Muslims to protest against jenmi tyranny. The colonial government referred to the outbreaks as "Moplah outrages", but modern historians tend to treat them as religious outbreaksMazumdar, 1973; Ravindran, 1973; Dale, 1980. or expressions of agrarian discontent.Houtart and Lemercinier, 1978; Namboodiripad, 1943:1–2; ; Wood, 1974. The outbreak of 1921–22 sustained this tradition of violence in Malabar with one crucial difference: this time it had also a political ideology and a formal organization.
Khilafat Movement
Diwan Bahadur C. Gopalan Nair in his book, The Moplah Rebellion 1921, writes thus:
Nair noted Ali Musliyar rose to prominence at the instance of a Khilafat conference held in Karachi. Furthermore, Musliyar was not a native of Tirurangadi. He had only moved in 14 years earlier. So, according to Nair, there was not class revolt he was handling. It was a Khilafat edifice prepared and passed from distant Karachi, possibly controlled by spiritual leaders of Islam.
The Khilafat movement was introduced into the district of Malabar on 28 April 1920, by a Resolution at the Malabar District Conference, held at Manjeri, the headquarters of Ernad Taluk. On 30 March 1921, there was a meeting at which one Abdulla Kutti Musaliar of Vayakkad lectured on Khilafat, in Kizhakoth Amsom, Calicut Taluk. And at a second meeting held the next day at Pannur Mosque, there was some unpleasantness between the Mappilas on one side, and Nairs and Tiyyar, who resented the Khilafat meeting, on the other. The Mappilas mustered the strength to attack the place of worship belonging to the Hindu Adhigari of the village.
Nature of attacks The Malabar Rebellion witnessed many attacks on British officers in the region. The Madras High Court, which adjudicated in this matter, had passed judgements on each of the cases against the various Mappila rioters who were captured. The Madras High Court said on the matter,
The District Magistrate stated that reliable information had been received about 180 forced conversions of Hindus and the actual total may run into thousands.Telegram No. 687, dated 8-11-1921 in G. Tottenham (ed.), Roland E. Miller estimates forced conversions as in the range of 200 and 2500.Roland E. Miller, In the aftermath of this violence, the Suddhi Movement was created by the Arya Samaj. They converted over 2,000 Hindus who had been forcibly converted to Islam by the Mappilas. Sumit Sarkar in Modern India quotes an Arya Samaj source that claimed about 600 Hindus were killed and 2,500 forcibly converted during the rebellion. Variyankunnath Kunjahammad Haji claimed to have killed the alleged British agents and spies responsible for the forced conversion of Hindus to Mohammadanism and killing others. However, their leader, Swami Shraddhananda was stabbed on 23 December 1926 by an Islamist at his Ashram. Some newspapers reported that certain districts were 'empty of Hindus.'
Punishments of rebel leaders The following were the various leaders of the movement, who were sentenced to death following the Malabar Rebellion: Ali Musliyar, leader of the rebellion Kunhi Kadir, Khilafat Secretary, Tanur Variankunnath Kunhammad Haji Kunhj Koya, Thangal, President of the Khilafat Committee, Malappuram Koya Tangal of Kumaramputhur, Governor of a Khilafat principality Chembrasseri Imbichi Koya Thangal, notorious for his alleged killing of 38 men by slashing their necks and throwing them into a well Palakamthodi Avvocker Musaliar Konnara Mohammed Koya Thangal
Timeline of events
Nagpur Resolution of Congress The Khilafat Committee in Nagpur (in January 1921) headed by Syed of Ponnani Juma Masjid extended full support for the Nagpur Resolution of Congress that called for non-cooperation. Syed was the highest religious authorities for the Moplahs and called for complete support of non-cooperation. However Gandhi's tenet of non-violence was not accepted by the committee.
Conference of Gandhi & Ali Brothers