Thread by @oolabmys

The Moplah Revolt of 1921.

What is revealed is how rapidly the  All India  #Congress retreated whenever the masses were in motion, and how in this case a strategic political retreat necessitated a communalist rather than class view of an important peasant (1/25)

struggle.
The #Moplahs were #Muslim peasants in Malabar (now part of the state of #Kerala ) on India's west coast. In 1922 it had a population of 400,000, of which 163,328 were Hindus and 236,672 were Muslims. The Moplahs were amongst the most heavily exploited (2/25)

peas­ants in the entire subcontinent. Most of them worked as wage-labourers either on the land of others or on the rubber plantations. The #landlords in the region were virtually all upper-caste #Brahmin Hindus. In the century preceding 1921, there had been a total of (3/25)

fifty peasant uprisings. Of these, twenty-two had occurred within the space of seventeen years (1836-53).
They were typically rural in character: the peasants had attacked and killed landlords, or burnt their houses, or done both. The cause of these revolts had been the (4/25)

notoriously unjust tenancy laws, which gave landlords the power of life or death over peasants. All the jacqueries had been ended brutally by state intervention. Hundreds of #peasants had been killed.
The 1921 revolt was no different in content from previous movements. (5/25)

A tenants' #movement had been organized and large peasant assemblies had called for rent strikes and a boycott of the landlords. Peasant unions had sprung up throughout #Malabar . Attempts by the colonial bureaucracy to repress the meetings via the police had a (6/25)

counter-productive effect. On
8 August 1921 the authorities issued warrants for the arrest of the peasant leaders. A subsequent armed raid on a mosque where it was presumed the leaders were hiding acted as a spark for the revolt. Thirty thousand peasants armed with (7/25)

primitive #weapons (such as hammers and scythes) descended on the area. The police opened fire and nine peasants were killed. In retaliation, the peasants killed a British #civil servant who was supervising the operation, as well as the senior police and #army officers (8/25)

accompanying him. The rest of the government forces retreated. The peasant rebels destroyed bridges, removed railway lines·, dismantled #telegraph wires and occupied #railway stations. For ten days they reigned supreme. The British press portrayed the rising as a (9/25)

communal war of Muslim against Hindu. Yet, in the first phase, only landlords or their agents and government spies were executed. No Hindu was molested or killed because of his religion . There were some isolated incidents of looting of Hindu houses, but these were (10/25)

punished severely. Even this looting began only after Hindus began to give informa-.
tion to the police. In many places the poor Hindu peasants joined the revolt. Kunna Amed Haji, a peasant chief, sent a #communication to the Madras daily The Hindu, rebutting charges of (11/25)

communalism and accusing government agents of attacking Hindu temples to try to sow division between the communities. The landlords sided with the #government en masse, as did · some rich Moplah's . The newspaper of the Malabar Brahmins, Origin · Yogakshemam, explained (12/25)

the problem bluntly: 'Only the rich and the land­lords are suffering in the hands of the rebels, not the poor peasants.' On 21 August 1921 the British authorities imposed martial law, but a #guerrilla war lasted till the end of November. The rebellion was crushed by the (13/25)

army, with the use of #Gurkhas and the #Chinkan Chin regiment from Burma. Over 2,000 peasants were killed in the revolt and hundreds were hanged. A nephew of the Bengali poet-philosopher Rabindranath #Tagore described the effects of martial law in a #pamphlet , which (14/25)

was banned at the time:
" The atrocities perpetrated by the soldiers on the unarmed and defence­ less men and women left behind in the Moplah #villages were appalling.
Women were insulted and outraged. Houses were looted and bur n t. Men were mercilessly belaboured . . (15/25)

. In one particular case an old woman was assaulted and shot. Concentration camps were established where the Moplah women were held as hostages."
It must be said in fairness that the charges of wanton brutality were mainly 'against the Chinkan Chin forces brought from (16/25)

Burma, but not against the British regments . To strike terror in the hearts of the peasant masses, peasant rebels were hanged on wayside trees and left dangling there in order to create an 'impression' on the populace. #Brutal terror was let loose on the peasantry by (17/25)

the #army and #police. There can be little doubt that the suppression of the Moplah uprising was a far more serious event even than the #Jallianwallah Bagh massacre.
Officialdom portrayed it as a sad case of communal frenzy. The #Muslim communalists, fully aware that (18/25)

this was not a religious affair, remained silent or condemned the peasants. #Gandhi prostrated himself before the Malabar landlords. In an article entitled 'The Meaning of the Moplah Uprising', which was written at a time when peasants were being massacred, he (19/25)

com­mented: 'The Moplah revolt is a test for Hindus and Muslims. Can Hindu friendship survive the strain put upon it? Can Muslims in the deepest recess of their hearts approve the conduct of the Moplahs? The Hindus must have the courage and the faith to feel that they (20/25)

can protect their religion in spite of such fanatical eruptions.' The leaders of the Congress in Malabar tried to stop the rebellion. A former leader of the tenants' move­ ment, Narayan Menon, abandoned the peasants in the name of 'non­ violence'. The #British (21/25)

authorities, always pleased when their opponents became pacifists, issued Menon with a 'passport' which enabled him to travel through police and army lines to try to win the peasants to 'pacifism'.
But he failed. The British withdrew their support and punished him for (22/25)

his failure: he was sentenced to twelve years in prison. Not a single leader of the #Congress backed the rebels. There was no nation-wide campaign in defence ·
Origins of the Moplah peasants. The reason why the peasants fought for so long was that, in the liberated (23/25)

zones, their leaders abolished the payment of land revenue and rents for one year. The landlords had fled, but the peasants continued to till the land and harvest the crops, the surplus being used to provide rations for the peasant army.

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