Malabar Rebellion or Moplah Uprising.

Why in news?

• The Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) has deferred its decision on a recommendation to remove the 1921 Malabar Rebellion martyrs including Variamkunnaathu Kunhahamad Haji and Ali Musliyar from the list of India’s freedom fighters.
• Earlier, a three-member panel brought out by the ICHR, is understood to have recommended the deletion as it felt that the 1921 rebellion was never part of the independence struggle but a fundamentalist movement.

About Malabar Rebellion or Moplah Uprising or Mapillah Revolt (1921)

• Reasons:
• The trigger of the uprising came from the Non-Cooperation Movement launched by the Congress in 1920 along with the Khilafat agitation.
• The anti-British sentiment fuelled by these agitations affected the Muslim Mapillahs (also known as Moplahs) of south Malabar region of
• New Tenancy Laws: 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 favoured 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 Communal Angle: Most of the landlords were Namboodiri Brahmins while most of the tenants were Mapillah Muslims.
• The Revolt: Fuelled by the fiery speeches by Muslim religious leaders and anti-british sentiments, the Mopillahs launched a violent rebellion. Numerous actions of violence were reported and series of persecutions were committed both against the British and the Hindu landlords.
• Support: In the initial stages, the movement had the support of Mahatma Gandhi and other Indian nationalist leaders, but as it turned violent they distanced themselves from it.
• Collapse: 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.
• Wagon Tragedy: In November 1921, 67 Moplah prisoners were killed when they were being transported in a closed freight wagon from Tirur to the Central Prison in Podanur. They died of suffocation. This event is called the Wagon Tragedy.