16 mosques to honour 1921 rebellion martyrs

Last Updated12/11/2021

Granite plaquettes featuring the names of Variamkunnathu Kunjahamad Haji, Ali Musliyar, and other martyrs of the 1921 Malabar Rebellion will be put up at the precincts of a few mosques in Ernakulam, even as the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) is set to consider a proposal to delete these names from the Dictionary of Martyrs: India’s Freedom Struggle.

It had been an uprising of Muslim tenants or Mappila Muslims against British rulers and local Hindu landlords.
The uprising, which began on August 20, 1921, went on for several months marked by many bouts of bloodstained events.
The freedom fighter Variyamkunnath Kunjahammed Haji led the Moplah uprising against the British in Kerala’s Malabar region.
It has often been perceived as one of the first nationalist uprisings in southern India.
It has even been described as a peasant revolt.
In 1971, the then Kerala government had included the participants of the rebellion in the category of freedom fighters.
The incidents of the uprising took place in regions which are currently under the Malappuram district in north Kerala.
The year 2021 marks the 100th year anniversary of the Malabar/Moplah uprising of 1921.

During Hyder Ali’s invasion of Malabar in the 18th century, many Hindu landlords fled Malabar to neighbouring regions and the Moplah tenants had been accorded possession rights to the lands.
After the demise of Tipu Sultan in 1799 in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, Malabar got under British authority as a part of the Madras Presidency.
Then, the British gave possession rights to the Jenmis who had earlier fled the region.
This triggered a chain of riots by the Moplahs community beginning from 1836.
Between 1836 and 1896, they killed many authorities officials and Hindu landlords.

In November 1921, sixty seven Moplah prisoners were killed when they were transported in a closed freight wagon from Tirur to the Central Prison in Podanur.
They died of suffocation. This occasion is known as the Wagon Tragedy.

The Moplah rebellion is a broadly debated one with a few people arguing that it changed into a nationalist rebellion in opposition to the British at the same time as others say that it changed into a communally charged collection of riots.

A report through the ICHR-constituted committee (Indian Council of Historical Research) in 2016 has sought the elimination of names of 387 ‘Moplah rioters’ (Including leaders Ali Musliyar and Variamkunnath Ahmad Haji) from the listing of martyrs.
It also mentioned that the majority of the Moplah outrages have been communal.
They have been in opposition to Hindu society and executed out of sheer intolerance.

IHCR is under the Ministry of Education established by an Administrative Order.
The body provides financial assistance to historians and scholars through fellowships, grants, and symposia.

to bring historians together and provide a forum for exchange of views between them;
to give a national direction to an objective and scientific writing of history and to have rational presentation and interpretation of history
to promote, accelerate and coordinate research in history with special emphasis on areas which have not received adequate attention so far;