Pic- Hindu family after Shuddhi Ceremony by Aryasamaj in Malabar
Pic- Poor Hindus peasants who were forcibly converted to Islam in relief camp.
Pic-Skulls of Hindus who were beheaded in Moplah Riots
Pic- Malabar aur Aryasamaj Cover Page of book published by Aryasamaj
Pic-Cover Page of Moplah Book by Veer Savarkar
Malabar Rebellion started in 1921 in Kerala Malabar region. The Malabar Rebellion began as a reaction against a heavy-handed crackdown on the Khilafat Movement, a campaign in defense of the Ottoman Caliphate. The Muslim rioters targeted Hindus and looted their properties, raped Hindu women, killed hundreds and converted thousands of Hindus to Islam. For rioter it was work for 'Deen' to secure place in Jannat with hoors. Hindus have to left their houses and runaway to forests to save their lives.
Mr. Gandhi has been very punctilious in the matter of condemning any and every act of violence and has forced the Congress, much against its will to condemn it. But Mr. Gandhi has never protested against such murders. Not only have the Muslims not condemned these outrages but even Mr. Gandhi has never called upon the leading Muslims to condemn them. He has kept silent over them. Such an attitude can be explained only on the ground that Mr. Gandhi was anxious to preserve Hindu-Muslim unity and did not mind the murders of a few Hindus, if it could be achieved by sacrificing their lives. This attitude to excuse the Muslims any wrong, lest it should injure the cause of unity, is well illustrated by what Mr. Gandhi had to say in the matter of the Moplah riots.
The blood-curdling atrocities committed by the Moplah in Malabar against the Hindus were indescribable. All over Southern India, a wave of horrified feeling had spread among the Hindus of every shade of opinion, which was intensified when certain Khilafat leaders were so misguided as to pass resolutions of “congratulations to the Moplah on the brave fight they were conducting for the sake of religion.” Any person could have said that this was too heavy a price for Hindu-Muslim unity. But Mr. Gandhi was so much obsessed by the necessity of establishing Hindu-Muslim unity that he was prepared to make light of the doings of the Moplah’s and the Khilafat who were congratulating them. He spoke of the Moplah’s as the “brave God-fearing Moplah’s who were fighting for what they consider as religion and in a manner which they consider as religious.” Speaking of the Muslim silence over the Moplah atrocities Mr. Gandhi told the Hindus:
“The Hindus must have the courage and the faith to feel that they can protect their religion in spite of such fanatical eruptions. A verbal disapproval by the Muslims of Moplah madness is no test of Muslims friendship. The Muslims must naturally feel the shame and humiliation of the Moplah conduct about forcible conversions and looting, and they must work away so silently and effectively that such a thing might become impossible even on the part of the most fanatical among them. My belief is that the Hindus as a body have received the Moplah madness with equanimity and that the cultured Muslim’s are sincerely sorry of the Moplah perversion of the teaching of the Prophet.”
The Resolution passed by the Working Committee of the Congress on 16th January 1922 on the Moplah atrocities shows how careful the Congress was not to hurt the feelings of the Muslims.
“The Working Committee places on record its sense of deep regret over the deeds of violence done by Moplah’s in certain areas of Malabar, these deeds being evidence of the fact that there are still people in India who have not understood the message of the Congress and the Central Khilafat Committee, and calls upon every Congress and Khilafat worker to spread the said message of non-violence even under the gravest provocation throughout the length and breadth of India.
“Whilst, however, condemning violence on the part of the Moplah, the working Committee desires it to be known that the evidence in its possession shows that provocation beyond endurance was given to the Moplah and that the reports published by and on behalf of the Government have given a one-sided and highly exaggerated account of the wrongs done by the Moplah and an understatement of the needless destruction of life resorted to by the Government in the name of peace and order.
“The Working Committee regrets to find that there have been instances of so-called forcible conversion by some fanatics among Moplah, but warms the public against believing in the Government and inspired versions. The Report before the Committee says:
‘The families, which have been forcibly converted into Mohammedanism, lived in the neighborhood of Manjeri. It is clear that conversions were forced upon Hindus by a fanatic gang which was always opposed to the Khilafat and Non-co-operation Movement and there were only three cases so far as our information goes.'
In the Liberator of 26th August 1926 the Swami Shraddhanand Ji says:
“The first warning was sounded when the question of condemning the Moplahs for their atrocities on Hindus came up in the Subjects Committee. The original resolution condemned the Moplahs wholesale for the killing of Hindus and burning of Hindu homes and the forcible conversion to Islam. The Hindu members themselves proposed amendments till it was reduced to condemning only certain individuals who had been guilty of the above crimes. But some of the Muslim leaders could not bear this even. Maulana Fakir and other Maulana, of course, opposed the resolution and there was no wonder. But I was surprised, an out-and-out Nationalist like Maulana Hasrat Mohani opposed the resolution on the ground that the Moplah country no longer remained Dar-ul-Aman but became Dar-ul-Harab and they suspected the Hindus of collusion with the British enemies of the Moplahs. Therefore, the Moplahs were right in presenting the Quran or sword to the Hindus. And if the Hindus became Musalmans to save themselves from death, it was a voluntary change of faith and not forcible conversion—Well, even the harmless resolution condemning some of the Moplahs was not unanimously passed but had to be accepted by a majority of votes only. There were other indications also, showing that the Musalmans considered the Congress to be existing on their sufferance and if there was the least attempt to ignore their idiosyncrasies the superficial unity would be scrapped asunder.”
This inhuman defending of the barbaric Moplah atrocities prompted Annie Besant to comment bitterly as MALABAR AGONY in new India 29 nov.1921 as
"from that date [August 1] onwards thousands of the forbidden war-knives were secretly made and hidden away, and on August 20, the rebellion broke out; Khilafat flags were hoisted on police stations and Government offices. …The misery is beyond description. Girl wives, pretty and sweet, with eyes half blind with weeping, distraught with terror; women who have seen their husbands hacked to pieces before their eye, in the way “Moplah consider religious”, old women tottering, whose faces become written with anguish and who cry at a gentle touch and a kind look, waking out of a stupor of misery only to weep, men who have lost all, hopeless, crushed, desperate.
… I have walked among thousands of them in refugee camps, and sometimes heavy eyes would lift as a cloth was laid gently on the bare shoulder, and a faint watery smile of surprise would make the face even more piteous than the stupor. Eyes full of appeal, of agonized despair, of hopeless entreaty of helpless anguish, thousands of them camp after camp. …"
Two Pulayas, lowest of the submerged classes were captured with others and were given the choice between Islam and Death. These out-castes of Hinduism the untouchables, so loved the Hinduism which had been so unkind a step-mother to them that they chose to die Hindus rather than to live Muslim. May the God of both, Muslim and Hindus send His messengers to these heroic souls, and give them rebirth into the Faith for which they died.
Madhvan Nair, secretary Calicut district congress committee had recorded the following in his report:
"Can you conceive of a more ghastly and inhuman crime than the murder of babies and pregnant women? … A pregnant woman carrying 7 months was cut through the abdomen by a rebel and she was seen lying dead with on the way with the dead child projecting out … Another baby of six months was snatched away from the breast of the mother and cut into two pieces. … Are these rebels’ human beings or monsters?"
Maulana Modini called the looting and killing of Hindus ‘military necessity’ while the high priest of Khilafat movement itself the then Congress High Command applauded Moplah for fighting devotedly for their religious cause in a way ‘they consider religious’.: Men who consider it “religious” to murder, rape, loot, to kill women and little children, cutting down whole families, have to be put under restraint in any civilized society.
One of the favorite myths of the pseudo-secularist is that Moplah atrocity was actually a rebellion against land-owners who ‘happened to be Hindus’. As demonstrated by the large number of swords and knives ornamentaly decorated in their handles show how much money and careful planning had gone into these atrocities against Hindus. Annie Beasant report also shatters the myth that Moplah massacre in which by all moderate counts more than 5000 Hindus perished and many families dishonored and converted through sword and rapine, was not against just the ‘high-caste Hindus’ all Hindus -just because they were Hindus , were killed; infants were slaughtered before their mothers because they were born of Hindu parents.
The news of riots reached Lahore around 3000 kms away from Kerala. The Aryasamaj took this matter seriously and Aryasamaj workers under guidance of Pt. Rishi Ram, Mahashya Khushal Chand (Mahatma Anand Swami) etc. reached Malabar with relief material. Aryasamaj started relief camps and provided food and shelter to the riot victims. Purification or Shuddhi ceremony was started by Aryasamaj and thousands of Hindus who were forcibly converted to Islam were re-entered into original faith of their ancestors. The work of Aryasamaj was appreciated by whole Hindu society throughout the country. Later the Britishers send Army to capture the rioters. In their action many rioters were killed and jailed.
The record of relief work was published by Aryasamaj under name "Malabar aur Aryasamaj" Veer Savarkar penned his famous work named "Moplah". He narrated true events of riots as fiction.
2021 will be 100th Anniversary of Moplah riots. Readers will be surprised to know that the Post Independence communist government of Kerala considered Moplah rioters as freedom fighters and granted them freedom fighter pension.
-Dr. Vivek Arya
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