Mopilah Freedom Struggle and Its Aftermath

INTRODUCTION

In August 1921 the Moplah people rose united against British colonial rule and for six months controlled up to two thousand square miles of the Malabar district, in the Madras presidency. Tenacious guerrilla warfare extended the duration of the freedom struggle for a further six months, making the Moplah freedom struggle of 1921-22 one of the most significant uprisings during the British colonial rule of India. Over time, with the rise of militant and politicized Hindu nationalism in India and against the wider backdrop of Islamic “insurrection” in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, the significance of the Moplah freedom struggle has increased as its purported meaning has changed.

Present historical accounts have been widely rejected within India as being left-wing or crudely “communist”; that is; they stand accused of emphasizing the class nature of the conflict, and of glorifying the Moplah peasants in their struggle against the British. Increasingly, the Moplah freedom struggle is being portrayed polemically as a conflict between Hindus and Muslims; an honourable battle in Islam’s long struggle against oppression. Understanding religiosity and race, we are told, is the key to understanding the conflict. Collectively, these contending narratives challenge the very nature of historical inquiry; and yet, the significance of these events demands historical inquiry. While, eighty-nine years later, the nature, causes, motives, and meanings of the freedom struggle continue to attract acrimonious debate, there is now, more than ever, a real need to thus re-present an updated history of the freedom struggle. The following research thus provides a brief history of the freedom struggle, noting key events preceding and succeeding the insurrection, and concludes with an examination of how key events were portrayed or repressed by the colonial government throughout the conflict, commenting upon the veracity of terms such as ‘success’ or ‘failure’. The Moplahs of Malabar: the historical preconditions of the freedom struggle The Muslim community of Malabar (commonly referred to as Moplahs or Mappillas) is thought to be descendants of Arab traders who brought Islam to the Malabar region of Southwest India as early as the ninth century. Thus, the Moplah community is characterized as descending from either Arab settlers, mixed marriages of Arab men with local women, or from lower Hindu castes that converted to the Muslim faith. While Portuguese and Arab chronicles of the sixteenth century describe the Moplah community as being intimately associated with mercantile activities, Portuguese dominance of maritime trade was to force many Moplahs to seek opportunities in the hinterlands. In addition, it appears that through the processes of immigration, intermarriage and conversion, population pressure led to a greater percentage of the Moplah population became agricultural tenants. Certainly, by 1921, most of the one million Moplahs in the districts of Malabar were tenant farmers, particularly in the southern taluks, or districts, of Calicut, Ernad, Ponnani and Walluvanad, where Moplahs represented over thirty per cent of each district’s population. Historically, freedom struggle centred on these four districts of Calicut, Ernad, Ponnani and Walluvanad, with the intensity being greatest in Ernad, where almost sixty per cent of the population were Moplahs. British conquest and control of Malabar, especially the introduction of land revenue settlement acts by the British, served to intensify the grievances of the Moplah peasantry by augmenting Hindu landlordism.

Throughout British administration and control the independence, income, and status of the Moplah community continued to diminish. In such circumstances, Moplah's frustration and discontent expressed themselves in the form of a long series of isolated uprisings and protests that were of a distinctly religious nature. When the events of the early twentieth century Malabar are integrated with the events of the previous one and a half centuries of British colonialism in Malabar, the Moplah freedom struggle of 1921 can be seen as the culmination of Moplah disaffection with their social condition and British colonial rule. By the second half of 1921, the disaffection amongst southern Malabar‟s Moplah peasantry was intensifying. The Moplah’s situation was in many ways similar to what it had been in the eighteenth century; however, two new elements were of crucial significance, namely the global war/post-war economic crises and the Khilafat movement. On the economic front, four years of sustained price rises caused by artificial demand in 1918-21 post-war Europe, further eroded the Moplah peasantry’s economic position.

The desperation of the Moplah peasantry was heightened by the fact that nearly all Moplahs in southern Malabar had no recognized tenurial rights to land, and thus no protection against eviction or rent increases. Amidst such dire economic conditions the Khilafat movement, formed to preserve the Ottoman caliphate against the perceived threat of the British, was readily able to superimpose itself onto the existing religious network of the Moplah community. Indeed, the Khilafat organization was able to direct Moplah discontent against the British authorities as tensions increased.

THE FREEDOM STRUGGLE’S PROGRESS

In the early hours of Saturday, 20 August 1921, events in Tirurangadi were to trigger what historians generally refer to as the “Moplah freedom struggle”. Local authorities frustrated in their attempts to contain popular unrest, and unable to conduct raids or to arrest Khilafatists, asked the colonial administration of the Madras Government for military assistance. Thus, the Madras Government approved a surprise build-up of troops to facilitate raids in Tirurangadi, believing that a decisive “blow” could defuse Moplah's insurrection. In hindsight, the opposite was probably true. The initial stages of the Tirurangadi raids were without incident. One hundred special police and seventy-nine British troops were able to arrest several “leaders” at home in their beds. However, Ali Musaliar, a prominent Moplah Khilafatist, was able to elude the authorities and send messages to surrounding towns requesting assistance, asserting that the Tirurangadi Masjid was under siege. Support for Musaliar and the Tirurangadi Masjid was such that, by the early morning of the 20th, British troops and special police were in imminent danger of being overwhelmed by popular resistance in Tanur, drumbeats summoned Muslims to the Masjid at around seven o’clock in the morning. Once inside, the audience was addressed by Kunhi Qadir, a local Khilafatist and friend of Musaliar. Qadir declared that it was time to expel the British Raj and set up a Khilafat government by killing the District Magistrate and government troops at Tirurangadi, burning down government offices, and destroying the railway and telegraph lines. With enthusiastic support, Qadir then led a group of about two or three thousand Tanur Moplahs to Tirurangadi.

THE BRITISH COUNTER-ATTACK

The British, armed with the intelligence of the Tanur group’s intentions, decided to engage the Tanur Moplah group at Parapanangadi before they reached Tirurangadi. At Parapanangadi, British troops (many First World War veterans) opened fire on the Tanur group, who were mainly armed with sticks. By virtue of its modern, battle-proven firepower the British force was soon able to “subdue” the crowd and arrest Qadir, who had retreated to the local Masjid. As the British forces were returning to Tirurangadi, however, government offices and telegraph lines were destroyed by the Tanur Moplahs in Parapanangadi. Meanwhile, about two thousand Tirurangadi, Vengara, and Kottakkal Moplahs overcame the detachment left at the scene of the initial raids in Tirurangadi. Outnumbered, the detachment was forced to retreat to the sub magistrate’s office sustaining four fatalities, while perhaps forty Moplahs were killed in the withdrawal. At the sub magistrate’s office, the detachment was joined by the returning party from Parapanangadi.

The following day, 21 August, British troops and special police were forced to retreat to Calicut along an inoperable railway line, harried along the way by Moplah groups. With the British withdrawal from Tirurangadi, government forces in Southern Malabar were almost exclusively stationed in Calicut. Throughout southern Malabar, government buildings were burnt down and railways were sabotaged. Parapanangadi, Tanur, and Tirurangadi were perhaps the first sites of such action. However, the dissemination of Musaliar’s message regarding the Tirurangadi raid and the supposed attack on the Tirurangadi Masjid was accompanied by acts of freedom struggle throughout southern Malabar. The larger commercial, coastal towns of Calicut in the north and Ponnani in the south, which serve as boundaries of the area of Moplah settlement, were largely uninvolved in the freedom struggle. As Calicut and Ponnani were important centres of regional trade, the resident Moplah communities largely consisted of relatively wealthy merchants who were generally unattached to the prospect of freedom struggle. In addition, the arrival of the H.M.S. Comes at Calicut, which threatened to bombard the Muslim Quarter, is thought to have ensured a compliant response from the local Moplah community. Rather, it was in the interior regions of the Ernad and Walluvanad districts, largely free of troops or police, where the freedom struggle was most intense in nature, as it was in these regions where the highest concentration of the rural Moplah population lived. Moreover, the Moplah peasantry of these regions had a long history of social and economic grievances with the Hindu landlords (jenmis) and British authorities: grievances that had sustained militant uprisings since the beginning of British colonial rule.

As with the coastal villages of Tanur and Parapanangadi, the freedom struggle in the hinterland regions started with the news of the events in Tirurangadi. On 20 August, a group of  Nilambur Moplahs entered Manjeri and destroyed government offices, as local Hindus and Moplahs looted the stores. Similarly, at Tirur, government offices, government records, railway lines, railway bridges, roads, culverts, and road bridges, were also destroyed. Significantly, the reports of lootings and riots suggest that local Hindus were complicit in the uprisings and actively participating alongside their Moplah neighbours. In Pukkotur a crowd immediately assembled to go to Musaliar’s aid on the afternoon of 20 August. However, visiting Non-cooperation-Khilafat organizers dissuaded the crowd from marching to Tirurangadi, arguing that it was “against the principles of Khilafat and Congress Committee to attack police or disobey lawful orders”. Instead, the crowd is said to have killed seventeen members of the head landlord’s family as a reprisal for disputes in the previous month, and then set about converting the families of other Hindu landlords with whom the Moplahs had long-standing animosities.

With the British evacuation from Tirurangadi, Musaliar emerged to proclaim the end of British rule and himself as the king. Likewise, around Manjeri, Malappuram, and eastwards into the mountains, or ghats, Chembrasseri Tangal and V.K. Haji were to emerge as important regional leaders. After a meeting of leaders at Pandikkad, on 21 August, to form a Khilafat government, Tangal declared himself king of the eastern region between Karavarakundu and Mellatur. While on 22 August, Haji announced that he was king of the area between Manjeri and Pandikkad. It would appear that both men intended to establish their versions of “the Khilafat government”. Enjoying popular regional support amongst the Moplahs, it also appears that they attempted to win the trust of the local Hindus by returning stolen property and prohibiting banditry.

STICK AGAINST MACHINES

Attempts at “Khilafat government” in the eastern regions of Ernad and Walluvanad, however, came under tremendous pressure from British forces. On 26 August, one hundred and seventy British troops and some volunteer British “gentlemen” marched to relieve Malappuram. On the way, the column was ambushed at Pukkotur by a wave of Moplahs armed with sticks, daggers, and a few swords. At a terrible cost; the “fanatical assault” failed to penetrate the head of the column, nevertheless, the second rush of Moplahs attempted to break up the column in what was to be a final charge. Some three to four hundred Moplahs were killed in the skirmish, while the British lost three men. The “Battle of Pukkotur”, as it is called, was to be the largest armed conflict of the Moplah freedom struggle and was distinguished by a “fight-to-the-death” resolve among the Moplahs, hinted at during earlier incidents of unrest and uprising in the nineteenth century. The “battle” at Pukkotur was also significant in that it marked a new direction in the course of the freedom struggle. Henceforth, Moplah groups tended to adopt guerrilla warfare against the forces sent to kill or capture them.

Confined to relatively small localities and generally reliant upon local villages for supplies and use of the local Masjids as headquarters, Moplah leaders were incapable of mounting conventional offensive operations against the British. In most areas, several groups tended to operate in their respective locales autonomously. Tangal and Haji cooperated, and at various times were able to secure the cooperation of other leaders, however, both men found it very difficult to extend control beyond the regions of their respective personal influence.23 On 30 August, British troops regained control of Tirurangadi, finding that most of the Moplahs appeared to have left town. However, a small Moplah group was found to be held up at the Masjid and were subsequently besieged. After a tense standoff, twenty men charged at the British and died riddled with bullets. Thirty- seven Moplahs then emerged from the Masjid to surrender, leaving six dead inside (and one man pretending to be dead). Musaliar was amongst the thirty-seven arrested, and thus, his ten-day reign as king was brought to an end. Freedom struggle was now to be continued in the eastern part of Ernad. By September, the British authorities had good reason to expect that they could restore order. In previous outbreaks, the freedom struggle was usually curtailed after the arrest of leaders and the exemplary massacre, but in southern Malabar in 1921, authorities had failed to appreciate the depth of Moplah's resolve, hostility and resentment. Throughout September British troops scoured much of Ernad without result. Few rebels were encountered, engaged, or captured; yet rebels were active, despite the build-up of British troops. For example, as British forces left Tuvur, thirty-three Hindus and two Moplahs were executed by Haji and his forces for assisting the British troops. By the end of September, the British authorities were frustrated; secret intelligence reported that “there has been little or no progress and the end is not yet in sight”. Furthermore, authorities had decided to increase troop numbers to cope with an estimated ten thousand Moplah rebels.

There were also signs that the Moplah rebels were aware of their own shortcomings. A large rebel meeting in Kanhiramukku, attended by many rebel leaders including Tangal and Haji, decided that the enemies'‟ military forces should not be attacked; instead, the rebels should attempt to maintain their regional independence. The rebels were perhaps further disappointed by the failure of other Indian Muslims to join with them, and rise against the British during the trial of the Khilafat leaders Shaukat and Muhammad Ali in October 1921. As the freedom struggle continued, parties involved in the conflict were becoming increasingly desperate, frustrated, and cruel. In particular, foreign soldiers, unable or unwilling to differentiate, often treated all Moplahs they came in contact with as rebels. Indeed, desperation, frustration, and cruelty, may well help explain the outcome of a punitive, house-to-house raid against Moplahs in Melmuri. The raid organized on 25 October consisted of British Dorset troops summarily executing 246 men; quite literally marching into their homes, “...dragging them out and shooting them down”. By November, British forces appeared to be regaining control of much of eastern Ernad. Operations, such as the Melmuri raids, brought increasing pressure to bear against the Moplah forces that had been conducting guerrilla warfare since early September. In an attempt to regain the initiative, and perhaps maintain morale, Tannal and Haji organized what was to be the last desperate battle of the Moplah freedom struggle. On the morning of 14 November, purportedly the anniversary of the Prophet‟s death and thus a blessed day to die upon, two thousand rebels attacked a Ghurkha11 and British Army camp at Pandikkad. Armed with knives, small canes, and a dozen or so guns, the Moplah force furiously charged the encampment. Fifty-six men managed to penetrate the camp, all of whom were killed, while outside the camp‟s walls 178 Moplahs were killed, mostly within a ten-meter radius of the camp. By contrast, just four British soldiers lost their lives in the encounter. Following the defeat at Pandikkad, the forces of Tannal, Haji and other Moplah leaders gradually began to fragment. Pursued by troops and desperately pressed for food and munitions, Moplah rebels could no longer entertain the thought of large-scale cooperation. One splinter group from eastern Ernad was responsible for extending the freedom struggle to Arikkod and further north to the fringes of Tamarasheri. While sustained military pressure forced some rebels north of the Beypore River, increasingly large numbers of rebels were surrendering to the British troops. Indeed, by mid-December Tannal had surrendered, and, on 7 January 1922, Haji was captured.

MEDIA CONTROL AND THE MOPLAH TRAIN TRAGEDY

As Moplah forces gradually came to contemplate their defeat, the freedom struggle took the form of a series of ritualized, religious last stands. That is, Moplahs who felt that surrender was not an option began to stage the locations and events of their deaths, following the examples of previous Moplah shahids, or martyrs, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While intentions of fighting to the death were present throughout such actions as the battles of Pukkotur and Pandikkad, a suicidal dimension increasingly characterized the latter stage of the freedom struggle. From November to the end of May 1922, a dozen or so Moplah groups visited, or attempt to visit, holy shrines of past martyrs and religious leaders, and then having said their last prayers, proceeded to barricade themselves inside a Masjid or temple. Once inside the Masjid, they would wait for the arrival of British troops and then stage a final charge. In Cherur, on 9 December, seventy-eight Moplahs died in such a manner. Abdu Haji, a fierce puritan, provided the Moplah people with the supreme example of a shahid‟s death when he took the life of a British soldier in his climatic charge on 26 January 1922. Fittingly perhaps, Abdu Haji‟s death marks the end of the Moplah freedom struggle as a threat to British rule. As British forces continued to round up rebels well into the summer of 1922, the reasons for the extraordinary length of the Moplah freedom struggle became increasingly apparent. Largely deprived of any centralized command, isolated groups of Moplahs could conduct guerrilla warfare, utilizing the difficult jungle terrain of eastern Ernad and Walluvanad to great effect. Thus, the size of the Moplah groups, the tactics they employed, and the nature of the landscape, prohibited a quick British victory.

While the British forces certainly had a hard task, it was no doubt made easier by their suppression and distortion of the media. Government control of the media prevented all, except those involved in the highest levels of administration, from gaining a clear understanding of the events. Thus, from the very start, daily reports were peppered with stories of forced conversions, desecration of Hindu temples, rape and looting, many of which were subsequently found to be inaccurate or deliberately false. Inflammatory diatribes whipped up hatred against the Moplahs and played upon the fears of the Hindu readers. Furthermore, incidents such as the Melmuri raid, on 25 October 1921, or the execution of fifteen Moplahs “by mistake” in Kuzhimanna, on 16 November 1921, were suppressed. However, one incident that took place in Coimbatore, the “Moplah train (or wagon) tragedy”, received national, and indeed, international, attention and condemnation. On 19 November 1921, 122 Moplah prisoners were loaded into a goods wagon at Tirur, bound for Coimbatore, and their carriage was sealed. Cries made by the prisoners on the route, begging for air, were ignored by the guards. When the carriage was opened at Coimbatore, sixty-four prisoners were found to have suffocated to death. Subsequent investigations revealed that an air hole had been closed by paint and that the carriage had previously carried Moplah prisoners despite a doctor declaring the carriage unfit for human transportation. Today, a clumsy ferroconcrete monument to the “tragedy” at Tirur, large wooden plaques in an adjacent hall, and two mass graves for the victims, are the most tangible reminders of the Moplah freedom struggle.

CONCLUSION

Of course, the time has obscured much of our understanding of the Moplah freedom struggle of 1921-22, and while debate continues as to the nature of the freedom struggle, its causes, its participants, its aims, and so on, the events themselves hold meaning. For in attempting to construct a history of the Moplah freedom struggle, based on primary newsprint sources (and hence the fascination with atrocities, battles, raids, looting and counter-attacks), many associated issues are raised and elucidated. For example, while the Moplah freedom struggle involves aspects of Hindu and Muslim conflict, clearly it cannot be understood purely on religious or communal terms. “Economic” historians, inspired by Marx‟s materialist conception of history, are right to point out the economic base of conflict in Malabar, and, indeed, throughout much of Asia and the world. Nevertheless, there are elements of ethnicity and religiosity within the Moplah freedom struggle that elude, or defy, all attempts of rational scientific explanation or understanding. Since 1921, many anti-colonial struggles have, like the Moplah freedom struggle, become protracted guerrilla wars, and the suicidal last stands that so confounded the British, and worse still, punitive justice, summary executions, and the abject abuse of prisoners have now become almost too common to comment upon.