Beyond Rampage

Title: Beyond Rampage – West Asian Contacts of Malabar and Khilafat

Author: B S Harishankar

Publisher: Bharatheeya Vichara Kendram, 2021 (First)

ISBN: 9788195394241

Pages: 328

 

The year 2021 marks the centenary of a massive communal violence that shook Malabar to its roots in 1921. Normally, by the term communal violence we mean clashes between two communities. But this was strictly a one-sided affair in which Mappilas (the local appellation of Muslims) subjected their Hindu neighbours to all kinds of outrages imaginable to a wicked mind – murder, rape, pillage, forced conversion, arson, eviction and temple destruction. The scale of violence was so high that it is often termed as ethnic cleansing like what we saw the Islamic State doing to non-Muslims who came under their rule in Iraq and Syria. However, left historians portray this pogrom as a peasant uprising and the ruling governments in Kerala has granted freedom fighter pensions to those criminals implicated in the violence. This book attempts an academic reassessment of the historical documents which have been hitherto conveniently suppressed or marginalized by left historians. It identifies the outbreaks from 1836 to 1921 as one single stream and provides an ideological framework by analyzing history from the time of the Portuguese in Kerala. B S Harishankar is a member of the academic committee of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study in Shimla. He has completed two post-doctoral researches in archeology and has six published works and numerous articles to his credit.

 

Historians who are prejudiced to paint the 1921 outbreak as some kind of class struggle routinely try to emphasize the economic condition of Mappilas as very poor and dependent on agriculture alone. The author takes the wind out of this argument’s sails. Trade and commerce in Malabar were virtually under the sole control of Mappilas at that time. Many of them were very rich, with monopoly rights on spices and timber trade. Of course, their numbers were small, but their clout in the community was considerable. Much before the outbreak, they had emerged as coastal cosmopolitan entrepreneurs and commercial tycoons who also financed other traders. Thus the leftists’ portrayal of them as tenants, landless labourers and petty traders is an outright falsehood. Muslim notables are even now addressed by the honorific kakka which was first used by Gujarati traders in their deals with Mappila merchant princes. The Mappila merchant community also got on well with the English East India Company and usually financed them in their ventures. A few even entered into marital relations with company officials. Chovakkaran Moosa, a merchant magnate, married off his daughter Mussooruat Sauer Nhaunus (sic) to William Tippet, later magistrate of Patna (p.37). The book includes tables listing prominent Mappila merchants and landlords.

 

The arrival of the Portuguese upset the Mappilas’ monopoly of overseas trade. As the clashes escalated, the Portuguese attacked pilgrim ships carrying devotees for Hajj. This grew into calls for jihad and extreme hostility to the Europeans was stoked on by religious teachers known as thangals and musaliars. There was no element of nationalism in any of these fights. During those battles, the ideas of jihad and shahadat (martyrdom) established the dividing line between Muslims and other-religionists. During Tipu Sultan’s invasion of Malabar, the strife reached breaking point. Arackal Ali Raja invited Tipu to invade Malabar and local Mappilas sided with them. Harishankar specifically targets the myth of Tipu’s struggles as forming a part of Indian anti-colonial resistance. This was nothing of the sort. Tipu was an ally of the French which was trying to establish their own colonial possessions in India at that time. Moreover, Tipu encouraged Zaman Shah, the Amir of Afghanistan, to attack Delhi and replace the weak Mughal Emperor Shah Alam, who was a puppet of the Maratha confederacy. The plan was to make a joint attack with Tipu coming from the south. How such a person who instigated outsiders to attack India can be called a national hero? Tipu’s cruelty to captured Hindus and Christians was hellish. Men and women who refused to convert to Islam were hanged. Small children were hanged from the neck of their mothers’ lifeless bodies, themselves dangling on another piece of rope. Mappilas of Ernad and Valluvanad became a law unto themselves during the Mysorean invasion. Conversion ceremonies ended with forcibly feeding beef to the victims. Thousands of wealthy Hindus fled to Travancore. After the British defeated Tipu, they returned. But their Muslim tenants had appropriated their land in the meantime and refused to accept overlordship of Hindu landlords. Adding to the explosive mix, Tipu had taken over land from temples while destroying them and had allocated it tax-free to mosques. The British resumed the land to its previous owners.

 

Claims of peasant unrest as the cause of the Malabar riots is laid to rest by logical arguments in this book. The British had made investigations to assert the cause of the periodic riots occurring in Malabar from 1836. T L Strange, who was the Special Commissioner for Malabar, pointed out fanaticism as the root cause in a report submitted in 1852. The general character of the dealings of Hindu landlords with their Muslim tenants had been mild and equitable. The report rules out any discrimination between Hindu and Muslim tenants. Whatever be the causes of grievances, it fell equally on both. Moreover, the Mappila tenants remained quiescent when their landlord happened to be a Muslim. There was no outrage anywhere against a Muslim landlord from his tenants. The jenmi (landlord) system devised under colonial rule had extended to Tamil and Canara regions in addition to Malabar, but nowhere else did the violence and uprising occur. The social makeup of the rioters proves the fallacy of peasant revolt theorists. It included all class of Muslim society such as wage workers, poor tenants, mullahs of low economic standing and criminals.

 

Harishankar recasts the illogical leftist narrative in the light of historical truth. The Mappila community always had strong links to west Asia on account of their trade relations. The defeat and resultant elimination from Kerala’s maritime commerce at the hands of the Portuguese radicalized the community. Religious preachers added fuel to the fire. When Tipu conquered Malabar, Mappila prominence was restored, but it was short-lived. Rich merchants and timber barons planned and financed violent outbreaks as a consequence. This argument is well followed up in the main text. What makes this work noteworthy is the large number of tables listing out various facts. For example, it lists out 53 violent encounters that occurred in the period 1836 – 1919. It was only the 54^th in the series – in 1921 – that was against the British, all others were directed against Hindus. The list of temples destroyed by Tipu in Malabar runs into eleven full pages of the book with names categorized district- and panchayath-wise. Another little known fact that is fully developed in the text is the brutal violence perpetrated against lower castes. This busts the myth of Mappilas targeting only the upper caste rich landlords. People who were forcibly converted to Islam sometimes retracted to their original faith. Such people were summarily executed as per punishment prescribed by Islamic law for apostates at the next available opportunity. The book contains a list of incidents which were specifically aimed on lower caste people.

 

This book is an essential reference to students of Mappila riots in Malabar. There are plenty of tables, maps, notes and reference sources for them. The wide chronological span and analysis of west Asian links provide a comprehensive idea of the root causes of the unrest of 1921. Very few books handle Ottoman interference in Indian politics from the time of Tipu Sultan. It plainly confirms that Mappilas did not profess any allegiance to Indian nationalism, but were attracted by the religious status of the Ottoman sultan. Their prime motive was to establish an Islamic State in Malabar. The fight against the British was only a way to reach that objective. The author repeatedly quotes the writer’s name when a reference is made to him such as ‘according to Appadurai and A M Shah’ or ‘as recorded by C A Innes’. This becomes tedious after a while. This would be better indicated by super-scripted numbers and corresponding authors’ names and sources in footnotes or end-notes.

 

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star