HISTORIC UPRISING OF MAPILLAS FROM KERALA

The following historical event is a valuable testimony that Muslims fought for India's freedom.Several such stories stand to witness that Muslims have been patriotic to India
in fighting  for India's freedom.This may not be an exaggeration that a minority community had catalyzed the entire India; those who boast feigning affinity India only unleashed  communal  disharmony which resulted the blood shed of innocents,nothing fault of Muslims.


This is an excerpt from 'THE TIMES OF LEAGUE' February 2011,,an official monthly from Indian Union Muslim League, under the caption,"Many faces of Communalism".

29.03.1985.


The Mopilla uprising was a valiant uprising by the Mopilla Muslims
of the Malabar region of kerala against the tyranny of the British in India.
For a moment, it  shook the very edifi ce of the British rule in India, as
the mighty British army had been jolted by the determined on slaught of
the Mopillas.  The army had to send a S.O.S. to call for the assistance of
the Naval force to repulse the attack.


The Mopilla uprising  in 1921 was  the  culmination of a series of revolts
by the Mopillas as a reaction  against the heavy  handed crackdown
of the khilafat Movement, by the British Authorities, in the Ernad and
Valluvanad Taluks of Malabar.


The Mopillas were swift in their initial attack and took control of police
stations,  British Govt. offi ce, judicial courts and Govt. treasuries.  It  was
alleged that Mopillas attacked some Hindus also whom  they said were
helping the police in suppressing their uprising.


In fact public orders were issued by the Mopilla leaders that no
harm should be done to the Hindus and those Mopillas who resorted to
looting would be given exemplary punishments.  The leaders of uprising
What Price Freedom!


The Heroic Mopilla uprising
proclaimed  the advent of Swaraj.


The most prominent  leaders of the uprising were Variankunnath
Kunjahammed Haji, Sithi koya Thangal, and Ali Musliyar
For six months from Aug 1921, the uprising extended over 2000
square miles  2/5th of the area in  South Malabar region of Malabar
District under the Madras Presidency.  An estimated 10000 people lost
their lives, another 2000 were  deported to Andaman island prison and
around  10,000 went  missing.


Some of the most notable encounter was at Pookkotur in which British
troops sustained heavy casualties and had to withdraw for safety.
One of the most notable events during the suppression was later
known as the “Wagon Tragedy” wherein 70 of 90 Mopilla prisoners
were suffocated to death in a closed railway goods wagon.  The wagon
Tragedy the historian Sumit Sarkar reffered to it as the “ Black hole of
Podanur.


In its magnitude and extent it was an unprecedented popular upheaval
the like of which was not been seen in kerala before or since.  While  the
Mopillas were in the vanguard of the movement and they bore the brunt
of the  struggle,  several non –Mopilla leaders were in active sympathy
with the cause of the Mopilla fi ghters, giving the uprising the character
of a national  upheaval.  In 1971, the Govt. of Kerala  recognized the
active participants  of the event  as freedom fi ghters.