Moplah rebellion of 1921

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Last Updated21/08/2021

August 20, marks the centenary of the Malabar rebellion, which is also known as the Mappila riots 1921.
Moplah rebellion was an uprising of Muslim tenants against British rulers and local Hindu landlords.
It was an armed revolt which was led by Variyamkunnath Kunjahammed Haji.

The uprising began on August 20, 1921, last for several months.
There were losses of around 10,000 lives, including 2,339 rebels.
The Rebellion was an extended version of the Khilafat Movement in Kerala in 1921.
It has often been perceived as one of the first nationalist uprisings in southern India.

After the death of Tipu Sultan in 1799 in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, Malabar had come under British authority as part of the Madras Presidency.
The British had introduced new tenancy laws that tremendously favored the landlords known as Janmis and instituted a far more exploitative system for peasants than before.
The new laws deprived the peasants of all guaranteed rights to the land, share in the produce they earlier got, and in effect rendered them landless.
The resistance which started against the British colonial rule and the feudal system later ended in communal violence between Hindus and Muslims.
Most of the landlords were Namboodiri Brahmins while most of the tenants were Mapillah Muslims.
Gandhiji visited Calicut in August 1920 to spread the combined message of non-cooperation and Khilafat among the residents of Malabar and he also supported the Moplah rebellion.
The anti-British sentiment fuelled by these agitations affected the Muslim Mapillahs.
Later, when the rebellion turned violent, Gandhi and other leaders distance themselves from the rebellion.
By the end of 1921, the rebellion was crushed by the British who had raised a special battalion, the Malabar Special Force for the riot.

In November 1921, approximately 60 Mappila prisoners on their way to prison, were suffocated to death in a closed railway goods wagon.