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Indian Freedom Struggle (1707–1947 A.D.)

Notes The Mappila Rebellion
In August 1921, peasant discontent erupted in the Malabar district of Kerala. Here Mappila (Muslim)
tenants rebelled. Their grievances related to lack of any security of tenure, renewal fees, high
rents, and other oppressive landlord exactions. In the nineteenth century as well, there had been
cases of Mappila resistance to landlord oppression but what erupted in 1921 was on a different
scale together.
The impetus for resistance had first come from the Malabar District Congress Conference held at
Manjeri in April 1920. This conference supported the tenants’ cause and demanded legislation to
regulate landlord-tenant relations. The change was significant because earlier the landlords had
successfully prevented the Congress from committing itself to the tenants’ cause. The Manjeri
conference was followed by the formation of a tenants’ association at Kozhikode, and soon tenants’
associations were set up in other parts of the district.
Simultaneously, the Khilafat Movement was also extending its sweep. In fact, there was hardly
any way one could distinguish between Khilafat and tenants’ meetings, the leaders and the audience
were the same, and the two movements were inextricably merged into one. The social base of the
movement was primarily among the Mappila tenants, and Hindus were quite conspicuous by
their absence, though the movement could count on a number of Hindu leaders.
Disturbed by the growing popularity of the Khilafat-cum-tenant agitation, which had received
considerable impetus from the visits of Gandhiji, Shaukat Ali, and Maulana Azad, the Government
issued prohibitory notices on all Khilafat meetings on 5 February 1921. On 18 February, all the
prominent Khilafat and Congress leaders, Yakub Hasan, U. Gopala Menon, P. Moideen Koya and
K. Madhavan Nair, were arrested. This resulted in the leadership passing into the hands of the
local Mappila leaders.
Angered by repression and encouraged by rumours that the British, weakened as a result of the
World War, were no longer in a position to take strong military action, the Mappilas began to
exhibit increasing signs of turbulence and defiance of authority. But the final break came only
when the District Magistrate of Eranad taluq, E.F. Thomas, on 20 August 1921, accompanied by a
contingent of police and troops, raided the mosque at Tirurangadi to arrest Ali Musahar, a Khilafat
leader and a highly respected priest. They found only three fairly insignificant Khilafat volunteers
and arrested them. However the news that spread was that the famous Mambrath mosque, of
which Ali Musaliar was the priest, had been raided and destroyed by the British army. Soon
Mappilas from Kottakkal, Tanur and Parappanagadi converged at Tirurangadi and their leaders
met the British officers to secure the release of the arrested volunteers. The people were quiet and
peaceful, but the police opened fire on the unarmed crowd and many were killed. A clash ensued,
and Government offices were destroyed, records burnt and the treasury looted. The rebellion soon
spread into the Eranad, Walluvanad and Ponnani taluqs, all Mappila strongholds.
In the first stage of the rebellion, the targets of attack were the unpopular jenmies (landlords),
mostly Hindu, the symbols of Government authority such as kutcheris (courts), police stations,
treasuries and offices, and British planters. Lenient landlords and poor Hindus were rarely touched.
Rebels would travel many miles through territory populated by Hindus and attack only the
landlords and burn their records.
Kunhammed Haji also did not discriminate in favour of Muslims: he ordered the execution and
punishment of a number of pro-government Mappilas as well.

Some of the rebel leaders, like Kunhammed Haji, took special care to see that Hindus
were not molested or looted and even punished those among the rebels who attacked the
Hindus.

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