Against Lord and State

Title: Against Lord and State – Religion and Peasant Uprisings in Malabar 1836 - 1921

Author: K N Panikkar

Publisher: Oxford University Press 1992 (First published 1989)

ISBN: 9780195631807

Pages: 232

K N Panikkar, who is one of the prominent Marxist historians, analyses the factors behind the worst communal riot ever witnessed by Kerala – the Mappila Rebellion of Malabar in 1921. As expected, he assigns economic reasons alone for the outbreak. This incident had received much attention among scholars. Panikkar presents a factual presentation of the agrarian scenario that prevailed in Malabar during the 19^th century, when the district came into British hands from the defeated Tipu Sultan of Mysore. A genuine picture of the relationship between the landlord and the tenant is given, but the book falls short of convincingly explain why the Hindus, who constituted numerical supremacy, didn’t rise up in revolt but the Mappilas did. Panikkar painstakingly compiles an exhaustive set of facts and figures to present his arguments on taxation. This is quite convincing, but don’t spell out why Mappilas alone were thrown into agitation, who then turned against their own brothers facing extortion from the landlord in equal measure. What commonsense tells us is to club the revolt in the category of violent jihad we see happening in countries like Iraq and Syria under the auspices of Islamic State. We read about the chilling repressive measures perpetrated in those regions against its religious minorities, like rape, pillage and killings. The comparison is eerily similar. We have to deduce that Kerala came very close to the establishment of an Islamic State in Malabar during the 1920s, which was foiled by British military might alone.

When the world was stepping on to modernity in mid-18^th century, Malabar was still ensconced in the middle ages. Feudal relationships defined social interactions and there was no taxation on land. The three decades of conquest first under Hyder Ali and later under his son Tipu Sultan, had changed all that. Land was considered to be taxable and the fertile plots were assessed by the administration. But Tipu’s reign was interspersed with local and remote insurrections. The governor of Malabar found too little time in his hands for a proper assessment of land revenue than for preparing for another fierce battle with another chieftain. Consequently, injustice and incorrect estimation of the yield of some areas of land crept in. When Tipu was defeated in 1792, and the land changed hands to the British East India Company, the existing assessment was taken as such. Moreover, the British wanted to cultivate a social base all to themselves. They found the Janmis, who controlled most of the land, eminently suitable for the job. Whereas traditionally, the Janmi’s rights on the land was rather vague, the British erroneously equated him to the European feudal lord. Subsequently, the Janmis – most of them were upper caste Hindus – were made the owners of the land. The farmers who actually tilled the land were transformed overnight into tenants. As part of the establishment of Rule of Law, courts and police were constituted. This helped the Janmis enormously. They could evict the farmers toiling in their land in a laborious way previously, but found it far easier to obtain an eviction order from a court of law, as it recognized the Janmi as the sole owner. The tenants’ lives became precarious, since the Janmi could submit them to all kinds of blackmail to increase the rent or lease amount. Any gesture of opposition, however feeble, was enough to provoke the Janmi to get a court order of eviction. In this way, Panikkar sets out the background for peasant unrest in a very illuminating way accompanied with relevant statistics. The author has been successful in placing before the readers the desolate plight of the poor peasant of Malabar.

Even though the yoke of taxation was said to be repressive, British rule allowed peace to prevail and the Mappila population surged nearly 6 times from 1807 to 1921, increasing their share in population from 24% to 33%. Panikkar opposes the argument that Mappilas confiscated the land left vacant by Hindu landlords who flew to Travancore during Tipu’s invasion as “except general statements in official records about the flight of Hindu chieftains and their retainers who had opposed Tipu and hence feared punishment and of a few substantial Namboodiri Janmis, there is no definite information of a mass Hindu movement out of Malabar during this period” (p.55). Panikkar himself had declared earlier that only 8% of the landlords contributed 74% of the total land revenue (p.23). The book states that Unni Mutha Mooppan, Chempan Pokkar, Athan Gurukkal and others amassed considerable landed property during Tipu’s rule (p.57). So isn’t it logical that even though only a small proportion of the Janmis made the exodus, a large portion of the land came under Mappila occupation? When the owners came back, this created tensions. The British were initially more sympathetic to the Mappilas as evidenced by the scrapping of taxes like Purushantharam, which was a kind of death duty levied on them. But this attitude soon underwent change (p.56). This was when the authorities realized the sole driving force that animated the Mappila spirit – unbridled religious fanaticism and the desire to dominate other religions. We know the destructive role played by ‘fatwas’ issued by a religious leader during communal riots. But the author justifies even them as “the purpose of these fatwas appears to be the integration into the community of newcomers from the lower castes towards whom they were mainly directed” (p.62). The Mappila uprisings often resulted in indiscriminate killing of Hindus, including lower castes who were as severely oppressed by the landlords as the Mappilas themselves. Panikkar justifies the atrocities by nitpicking on the professions of the murdered. Regarding one person no such antecedents could be obtained and he concludes that the person was “in all probability a Janmi” (p.68). Most of the deductive reasoning in this book goes on this line of subjective and prejudiced mood. The Mappilas exhibited the ferocity we now associate with suicidal jihadi fighters now operating in Syria or Afghanistan. Official records describe them as “rabid animals than creatures possessing a spark of reason”. Panikkar downplays the desecration of temples on the ground of “food grains stored there and better fortifications” and destruction of idols as “only incidental”. The author’s double standard is evident as he trumpets the police search for arms in the mosque at Tirurangadi as desecration that rightfully agitated the Mappilas to begin violent insurrection.

Mappilas had no concern about the national freedom struggle and were obsessed only with the fate of the inept Turkish sultan, who was also the Islamic caliph. The author states that the main issues of the Congress’ Manjeri conference in 1920 were the Jalianwala Bagh atrocities, the Khilafat question and constitutional reforms, with Khilafat issue receiving precedence over the others (p.123). Forcible conversion of Hindus of all castes was a prominent item on the agenda of the rebels. Most of the conversions were sanctified and performed by Konnara Tangal, Abdu Haji, Abu Becker Musaliar and Moideen Kutty Haji, who were also Khilafat leaders (p.180). Sometimes, the rebels brought a maulavi among them to do conversion on the spot. Those who refused were summarily killed. In certain areas, the Mappilas began assigning Muslim names to the women of some prominent Nair families long before the rebellion actually began, in anticipation of their eventual conversion to Islam (p.179-180). The menfolk in those families were not so fortunate; they were destined to be dealt with the sword! Panikkar’s analysis of the situation hits the nadir as he cites the reconversion of the converted Hindus as one of the issues that further alienated the Mappilas! (p.190).

Being a leftist historian who blindly believes in indiscriminate application of Marxian theories of class struggle to every situation at hand, Panikkar does a bevy of intellectual somersaults to ‘prove’ the economic aspect behind the Mappila rebellion. There were definitely economic and agrarian concerns behind the mutiny, but the overarching reason was religion, in which the fanatics wanted to install an Islamic state called Mappilastan in Malabar. The leaders called their followers to do jihad till martyrdom, but tried to save their skins when the time came to test their own commitment. All the major leaders of the rebellion, including Ali Musaliar of Tirurangadi, Variamkunnath Kunhammad Haji, Chembrasseri Tangal, Konnara Tangal, Karat Moideenkutty Haji and Sithi Koya Tangal meekly surrendered to the police in the hope that they will be pardoned. While thousands of their followers were falling before British bullets and bayonets, the leaders were trying to save their necks even by dishonourable means. For instance, in a bid to prove their innocence, both Sithi Koya Tangal and Karat Moideenkutty Haji did not hesitate to give incriminating evidence against Chembrasseri Tangal and Abdu Haji respectively (p.163). The government’s retaliation was swift, strong and brutal. All the leaders faced the firing squad in a matter of months after captivity. The rioting Mappilas found to their dismay that the army resorted to the same inhuman practices which they were meting out to their Hindu brethren. Thousands of Mappilas perished in action and the brutality of Wagon Tragedy demonstrates the government’s commitment to hold on till the last perpetrator of crime is accounted for. It may also be remembered that there never was an uprising again in Malabar thereafter. The Mappilas may be late to learn a lesson, but they ingrain it exceedingly well that force is the remedy to extremism.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star