In 1921, a revolt against the British in the Malabar region in Kerala ended in widespread bloodshed. It has now become a lightning rod for a political battle over history. The BJP/RSS view it as a “jihadi massacre” of Hindus. The Congress party sees it as part of the freedom movement—while the Communists frame it as a peasant uprising. And at least two of the five filmmakers who planned to make a movie on the subject have dropped their projects.
Note: The lead image is a painting of the 1921 rebellion that was once displayed at the Tirur railway station in Malappuram. It has since been removed due to protests from the BJP.
Researched by: Sara Varghese and Devashree Juvekar
Last year, five filmmakers announced projects that focused on the rebellion. First up was director Aashiq Abu who announced a movie with actor Prithviraj in the lead. The announcement immediately sparked a flood of rightwing Hindutva trolling. But four other directors followed suit—each offering a different take on the events. These included an RSS sympathiser—who promised to expose the “real face” of the movement’s leader Variyamkunnath Kunhahammed Haji. But others appeared to portray Haji as a hero. For example: ‘Ranabhumi’ which carries the tagline ‘story of an unsung hero’.
The cancelation: Over the weekend, two of those filmmakers have canned their projects. In the case of Abu, there is some talk about differences with the producers—who insist they will make the film with a new team. Director Omar Lulu insisted that he has not given into pressure—but doesn’t think there is any need for yet another movie on the subject. But the other projects appear to be on track… for now.
The deletion: The announcements raised eyebrows because they came on the heels of the Culture Ministry’s decision to delete 389 names of leaders of the Malabar Rebellion from ‘Dictionary of Martyrs of India’s Freedom Struggle’—after a three-member panel decided that the revolt is not part of India’s struggle for independence. Opposition leaders called it a move to “communalise history.”
Point to note: Many Malayali intellectuals are unenthusiastic about these movie projects, worrying about the effort to recast the same episode in very different ways:
“We cannot deny the freedom to produce different films on the Malabar Rebellion. But, the different versions of the Rebellion will cause communal polarisation in the region because modern society will find it difficult to understand the context of the violent episodes in the Rebellion that occurred around 100 years ago. Presentations of contradictory versions may bring negative results.”
The 1921 Malabar rebellion is known by many names—Moplah rebellion or the Mappila rebellion or Mappila Lahala in Malayalam. It was a bloody event in Indian history that resulted in the deaths of British administrators, Hindus and Muslims. And how you view it depends mostly on your politics. So we’ll unpack the timeline of events and leave you to draw your conclusions.
The Mappilas: are Malayali Muslims, who were originally comprised of Arab traders who arrived in Kerala in the 9th century—and Indian Hindus who converted to Islam. And they became a prosperous merchant community and were held in high regard. Portuguese piracy at sea destroyed much of their trade. After the arrival of the British, Mappilas were mostly tenant farmers at the mercy of Hindu landlords favoured by the Raj.
A history of uprisings: Unhappy at their exploitation, Mappilas frequently targeted their British and Hindu overlords—and as Manu Pillai notes, these incidents often had clear religious elements:
“The result was a series of ‘outrages’ in which individual Mappilas or small bands launched ritualised suicide missions, killing Hindu grandees and officials. The triggers may have been economic but instances such as in 1852, when a temple was ‘festooned’ with the entrails of a cow, show that these violent outbreaks had religious overtones too… But the fact of the matter is that economics, radical religious ideology, and a historical sense of lost greatness all played a role.”
Enter, the freedom movement: By the 1920s, Muslims formed the majority in Southern Malabar—and most of them were poor peasants. They were first mobilised by the Khilafat Movement which sought to preserve the sultan of the Ottoman empire—which fell apart after World War I—as the Caliph of Islam. Mahatma Gandhi built an alliance with Khilafat leaders to build support for his Non-Cooperation Movement—visiting Malabar in August 1920 to deliver a rousing speech urging the Mappilas not to cooperate with the British—“who have knowingly flouted religious sentiments dearly cherished by the 70 million Mussalmans.” By 1921, Mappila leaders had pledged their support to the movement.
Point to note: As Shoaib Daniyal points out:
“While it is unclear how well the Moplah peasantry grasped either the pan-Islamist appeal of the Khilafat Movement or the Indian nationalist facet of Non-Cooperation, the political atmosphere created by these campaigns ‘removed all inhibitions’, allowing them an ‘opportunity to voice their economic grievances as well as to demonstrate their religious and cultural identity’.”
The trigger: By February 1921, the British cracked down on the Khilafat movement—and the brutal reprisals included the deaths of 60 Mappila prisoners in November 1921—who suffocated to death in a closed railway goods wagon. The movement soon became more militant. In August, rumours spread that the police were raiding mosques, and the rage finally boiled over into outright insurrection. And soon most of South Malabar was controlled by the rebels.
Targeting Hindus: Initially, Hindus were part of the uprising—and the targets were primarily Hindu landlords and British administrators. But over the months, Hindu leaders—who were primarily intellectuals and lawyers—began to abandon the movement as it turned violent. And with many of the Khilafat leaders under arrest, the uprising lost direction. Hindus were killed and many were forcibly converted, changing the nature of the rebellion:
“In recent years though, historians have reached a broad consensus about the movement starting off largely as a protest against British authorities and culminating into a savage form of communal violence. ‘It started as a protest against British authorities so it was part of the freedom struggle. However, since the British had appointed high caste Hindus in high positions as they needed their support, therefore the protest soon turned against the Hindus as well,’ says Prof M G S Narayanan, an authority on Kerala history. Asked whether the BJP is justified in calling it an instance of Jihad, Narayanan says ‘the term Jihad was not in use in those days. To coin it in reference to the movement is to introduce a term that did not exist back then. In that sense it is unhistorical.’”
The final outcome: The uprising lasted six months, and was eventually put down by the British. Its main leader Haji was imprisoned and then executed. According to official records, 2,337 rebels were killed, 1,652 wounded, and 45,404 imprisoned.
Point to note: Gandhi-ji refused to directly criticise the Mappila rebels—though he condemned the violence and the conversions. And he has been criticised by both BR Ambedkar and present-day RSS ideologues for it.
The bottomline: The Malabar Rebellion is the equivalent of a political inkblot test. Be it Communists or Hindutva supporters, everyone edits out the messy and complicated bits to suit their convenience—and they all do great disservice to history:
“The Malabar rebellion is a layered story with multiple strands that defy simplistic narrations. Erasing any of these strands or experiences—the anti-colonial impulse, religious content, agrarian moorings, police brutality—would result in an incomplete, lopsided picture of the event with potential for dangerous interpretations in our fraught present. Surely, uncritical valorisation of the rebellion or spinning a singular Hindu victimhood narrative cannot do justice to the complex tragedy that the rebellion was.”
The News Minute rounds up the five films—and the debate over them. Shoaib Daniyal in Scroll is very good at providing the immediate historical context for the uprising and its fallout. For a much broader view on the Mappilas, read Manu Pillai in The Hindu and Adrija Roychowdhury in Indian Express—or read this excellent interview with Pillai. Muhammed Niyas Ashraf in The Wire makes a case for including the Mappila rebels in the dictionary of martyrs.
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