Chapter 7 the bloodshed

Renjith looked at a bundle of papers that was titled as the

Preliminary report in to the malabar rebellion 1920-38

Authored by the Commissioner (Law and order) Lower Malabar Range 

Southern region Malabar district

Madras Presidency

The Honorable Madras High Court, which has adjudicated in this matter, and has passed judgements on each of the cases against the various Moplah rioters who were captured. The nature of crimes committed, need scrutiny from people, and so has been committed to this article for the world to see and reflect. The nature of crimes was so macabre, that even the author of this report is confounded that even fanaticism cannot answer such brutality.

The Special Judge who tried the case against the Moplahs remarked, "...to my mind these murderous attacks indicate something more than mere fanaticism or lust for looting. There is no evidence that the murders were committed because the murdered persons refused to embrace Islam, or resisted the rebels, or refused to show property. The rebels seem to have meant to kill every male in the place whom they could catch hold of, and the only survivors were those who either got away or were left as dead...

• "A respectable Nayar lady at Metatur was stripped naked by the rebels in the presence of her husband and brothers, who were made to stand close by with their hands tied behind. When they shut their eyes in abhorrence, they were compelled at the point of the sword to open their eyes and witness the rape committed by these brutes in their presence."^[22]
• "Kerala Patrika, Wednesday, March /, 1922. The story of the death of Krishnan Nair will melt even the stoutest heart. He had rendered much help in arresting the rebels. This rankled in the mind of the Moplah and he was killed. First the skin was peeled off from his body, below the waist. He had to suffer this pain for some time. Then his two legs were cut off from the body. He had to suffer pain from this for some time. Ultimately his neck also was cut off.
• Instances are mentioned in which Hindus had actually been forced to dig their own graves before being butchered. It is also reported that diabolical reprisals are being perpetrated against all persons known or suspected of supplying pro- visions to the military and police, one report stating that the Chembrasseri Tangal had ordered a Hindu to be flayed alive for supplying troops with milk.
• An Orgy of Murder. Avokker Musaliar,a rebel leader, established himself with a large following in Muthumana Illom, in Puthur Amsom, Calicut Taluk in October and November 1921.Whoever refused Islam were incontinently and irrevocably ordered to be put to the sword. There is a sacred grove attached to the Illom and in it are a Serpent Shrine and a well. Condemned Hindus were marched to the shrine, beheaded and thrown into the well.^[22]
• On the night of 14 November 1921, a large body of armed Moplah entered the house of Puzhikal Narayanan Nair, a wealthy landlord of Nannambra Amsom. They looted the house, carried off one of the girls and a boy captive, murdering the rest, except Narayanan, who escaped. Narayanan Nair trusted his Moplah watchmen, whom he engaged to watch his house and they turned traitors.The girl was rescued from the hands of the rebels after a detention of six weeks and after suffering indescribable indignities.^[22]
• A pregnant woman carrying 7 months was cut through the abdomen by a rebel and she was seen lying dead on the way with the dead child projecting out of the womb. Another, a baby of six months was snatched away from the breast of its own mother and cut into two pieces.^[

 Attachment A (1) Statements of witness

• Pdmanbhan, Adhikari, Puthur, Calicut mentions — " The Moplahs systematically looted all the houses, some houses being also burnt and destroyed. All the temples in the neighborhood, about a dozen in number, have been destroyed and the idols completely broken." ^[22]
• Narrated by refugee: In my Amsom several men and women and children have been murdered by Moplahs. Dead bodies of children and grown up men and women were floating in the river. ^[22]
• Narrated by refugee: The Keravallur Bhagavathi temple — Karimkali Kavu, Ettaparambil Vishnu Kshetram, Aiyappan Kavu, and these temples have been partly destroyed and the idols have been dug up and removed. ^[22]( In total, excess of 100 temples were destroyed or desecrated.)
• Narrated by refugee: There are six temples in the Amsom, all of them have been destroyed and desecrated and cows slaughtered in the premises and the idols were garlanded with the entrails and the skulls hung in various places in the temples. Six Hindus have been murdered and about 15 houses burnt by the rebels. About sixty persons were forcibly converted.^[

Appendix I:

(a) Brutally dishonoring women, 

(b) Flaying people alive, 

(c) Wholesale slaughter of men, women and children, 

(d) Forcibly converting people in thousands, and murdering those who refused to be converted in utter cold blood.

(e) Throwing half-dead people into wells, and leaving the victims for hours, to struggle till finally released from their sufferings by death. 

(f) Burning a great many and looting practically all Hindu and Christian houses, in the disturbed area, in which even Moplah women and children took part, and robbing women, of even the garments on their bodies, in short reducing the whole non-Moslem population to abject destitution. 

(g) Cruelly insulting the religious sentiments of the Hindus, by desecrating and destroying numerous temples, in the disturbed area, killing cows within the temple precincts, putting their entrails on the holy images and hanging the skulls on the walls and roofs

Historical precedent leading up to the aforementioned  “rebellion”

Since the death of Tipu in 1792, the Malabar region had witnessed attacks by Moplahs on Hindus, and also attacks specifically on Hindus who tried to reconvert back to Hinduism, after Tipu's death. The report by C. Gopalan Nair, clearly shows a pattern of murders by the Moplahs the earliest being recorded in 1836, consistently year after year, leading to the 1921 riots. The Moplah resistance was not aimed at the British from 1836 to 1920. It was aimed at consolidation of the Muslim religion in Malabar district, to make sure Muslims did not re-convert, and also to instill fear of Muslims in that area, to push Hindus out of the area. The following events were taken word by word from the ref ^[22]

• November 26, 1836. Pandalur, Brnad. Kallingal Kunholan stabbed one Chakku Pannikar of the Kanisan caste
• April 15, 1837. Kalpatta, Ernad. Ali Kutti of Chengara Amsom inflicted severe wounds on one Narayana Moosad and took post in his own shop
• April 5, 1839. Pallipuram, Walluvanad. Thorayam Pulakal Athan and another, of Pallipuram Amsom, Walluvanad Taluk killed one Kellil Raman and then set fire to and burnt a Hindu Temple
• April 6, 1839. Mambattodi Kuttiathan severally wounded one Paru Taragan and a Taluk peon
• April 19, 1840. Irimbulli, Ernad. Parathodiyil Ali Kutti severely wounded one Odayath Kunhunni Nayar and another, and set fire to Kidangil temple
• April 5, 1841, Pallipuram, Walluvanad. Tumba Mannil Kunyunnian and eight others killed one Perumballi Nambudiri and another at Pallipuram, burnt the house of the latter victim
• November 13th, 1841. Kaidotti Padil Moidin Kutti and seven others killed one Tottasseri Tachu Pannikar and a peon
• November 77, 1841. Pallipuram, Walluvanad, On the 17th of the same month some Moplahs estimated at 2,000 set at defiance a Police party on guard over the spot where the above criminals have been buried
• December 27, 1841, Ernad Melemanna Kunyattan, with 7 others killed one Talappil Chakku Nair
• October 19, 1843. Tirurangadi. Kunnancheri Ali Attan and 5 others killed one Kaprat Krishna Pannikar, the Adhigari of Tirurangadi
• December 19, 1843. A peon was found with his hand and he head all but cut off ( suspected to be committed by Moplahs)
• August 25, 1849. Ernad and Walluvanad. Torangal Unniyan killed one Paditodi Theyunni and with Attan Gurukkal and others killed three persons and took post in the temple at Manjeri defiled the temple and partly burnt it.
• October 2, 1850. Puliyakadu, Ernad. The sons of Periambath Attan, the Moplah Adhigari, bad concerted, with others to kill one Mungamdambalatt Narayana Moosad and to devote themselves to death
• January 5, 1851. Payyanad, Ernad. Choondyamoochikal Attan attacked and wounded severely a clerk, named Raman Menon 
• January 4, 1852. Mattanur, Kottayam. Choriyot Mayan and fourteen others supported by a mob of two- hundred Moplahs butchered all the inmates; 18 in number, of Kalattil Kesavan Tangal's house and extirpated the family
• August 9, 1852. Kurumbranad. Three Moplahs took up a position in the house of a village accountant (Puttur) and had . resolved to die as Sabjda (martyr). They wounded a Brahmin and were killed by the Police
• September 16, 1853, Angadipwam, Walluvunad. Kuaaumal Moidin and Cherukavil Moidin murdered Chengalary Vasudevan Nambudiri and not getting any recruits, made their appearance on the top of a hill near Angadipuram.
• September 12, 1855. Calicut. Three Moplahs Valasseri. Emalu, Puliyakunat Tenu, Chemban Moidin Kutti and Vellattadayyatta Parambil Moidin escaped from their working party of Jail convicts', at Calicut and proceeded to Walluvanad. On 12th they murdered Collector Mr. Conolly at his Bungalow.
• 8 September 1873, Parol, Walluvanad Kunhappa Musaliar visited the Velichapad or Oracle of Tuthekil temple, struck him. several blows with a sword and left him for dead. 
• Sept. 9, 1880, Melattur, Walluvanad. M. Ali deliberately cut the throat of a Cheruma lad who had become a convert to Islam and had reverted.
• June, 18, '84. Kannancheri Raman who had previously embraced and subsequently renounced Islam was attacked in a most savage manner by two Moplahs. He however made his escape.
• Dee. 28, 1884. This proposal rankled in the minds of the Moplahs and one Kolakadan Kuttyassan and 1 1 others proceeded to the house of Raman's brother Choyikutti who was greeted by a volley of firearms carried by the Moplahs. Choyikutty and his son were wounded and the Moplahs set fire to his house. They left Malappuram and on the way mortally wounded a Brahmin and proceeded to Trikalur Temple. The troops and the police surrounded the temple and opened fire. They effected an entrance by blowing in the doer, placing dynamite cartridges against it. 
• 1 May 1885. A gang of Mappilas, consisting of T. V. Veran Kutti and eleven others broke open the house of aCheruman (slave caste) called Kutti Kariyanand murdered him, his wife, and four of their children, and set fire to the house and a neighbouring temple. The^pctirn had become a convert to Islam many years ago and had reverted to his original religion fourteen years ago. 
• 11 August 1885. A Mappilla named Unni Mammad entered the house of Krishna Pisharodi under the pretence of buying paddy. At that ti me the Pisharodi was bathing. Mammad Unni rushed past the attendants and with one blow of a hatchet, inflicted a mortal wound on Pisharodi's head. 
• In 1894, a gang of Moplahs in Pandicad started on the war-path. They wandered about; defiling and burning temples where-ever they could, besides attacking and killing such Nairs and Brahmins as fell in their way. 
• On 25-2-1896 a gang of twenty Moplahs went out on the war-path from Chembrasseri Amsom and for five days in ever increasing numbers terrorised the countryside ; Hindus were murdered or their ' Kudumis ' cut off, and they were summarily converted to Islam. Temples were desecrated and burnt, Houses were looted in the search for food, money and arms. Finally on March 1 hard pressed by the pursuit of the troops, the fanatics entered the Manjeri Karanammulpad's temple.
• In February 1919, a gang of fanatics headed by a dismissed Moplah Head-Constable, began to give trouble. Following their usual methods they broke into and denied the temples, killed almost every Brahmin and Nair who fell in their way and finally died in resistance to the Police Force sent out against them.

Attachment A (2)

Petition to Lady Reading by Her siren Highness the Rani of Nilambur

"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACIOUS AND COMPASSIONATE LADYSHIP?

We, the Hindu women of Malabar of varying ranks and stations in life who have recently been overwhelmed by the tremendous catastrophe known as the Moplah Rebellion, take the liberty to supplicate your Ladyship for sympathy and succor.

Your Ladyship is doubtless aware that though our unhappy district has witnessed many Moplah outbreaks in the course of the last one hundred years, the present rebellion is unexampled in its magnitude as well as unprecedented in its ferocity.

But it is possible that your Ladyship is not fully apprised  of all the horrors and atrocities perpetrated by the fiendish rebels; of the many wells and tanks filled up with the mutilated, but often only half dead bodies of our nearest and dearest ones who refused to abandon the faith of our fathers; of pregnant women cut to pieces and left on the roadsides and in the jungles, with the unborn babe protruding from the mangled corpse; of our innocent and helpless children torn from our arms and done to death before our eyes and of our husbands and fathers tortured, flayed and burnt alive; of our hapless sisters forcibly carried away from the midst of kith and kin and subjected to every shame and outrage which the vile and brutal imagination of these inhuman hell-hounds could conceive of; of thousands of our homesteads reduced to cinder-mounds out of sheer savagery and a wanton spirit of destruction; of our places of worship desecrated and destroyed and of the images of the deity shamefully insulted by putting the entrails of slaughtered cows where flower garlands used to lie or else smashed to pieces; of the wholesale looting of hard-earned wealth of generations reducing many who were formerly rich and prosperous to publicly beg for a piece or two in the streets of Calicut, to buy salt or chilly or betel-leaf - rice being mercifully provided by the various relief agencies.

These are not fables

During the early phase of the rebellion, the targets were primarily the jenmis and His Imperil Majesty’s Government. Crimes committed by some of the rebels were accepted by leaders.Very quickly it turned out aimed at Hindus irrespective of their caste. After the proclamation of Martial law and the arrival of the British army, when some members of the Hindu community were enlisted by the army to provide information on the rebels

Once they had eliminated the minimal presence of the government, the Moplahs turned their full attention to attacking Hindus while Ernad and Walluvanad were declared Khilafat kingdoms

 Special Mention in report  A (1)

Views expressed by the Right honorable   Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair, CIE Advocate general of Madras

"The horrid tragedy continued for months. Thousands of Mahomedans killed, and wounded by troops, thousands of Hindus butchered, women subjected to shameful indignities, thousands forcibly converted, persons flayed alive, entire families burnt alive, women it is said hundreds throwing themselves into wells to avoid dishonor, violence and terrorism threatening death standing in the way of reversion to their own religion. This is what Malabar in particular owes to the Khilafat agitation, to Gandhi and his Hindu friends."^[ 

RESPECTIVE POPULATIONS OF MALABAR

Name of Taluka	Moplah population (1921)	Hindu population (1921)
Wayanad	14252	67845
Walluvanad	133919	259979
Ponnani	229016	281155
Palghat	47946	315432
Kurumbranad	96463	259799
Kottayam	55146	175048
Eranad	237402	163328
Cochin	4999	7318
Chirakkal	87337	25498
Calicut	88393	196435

According to official records, the British government lost 43 troops with 126 wounded while 2337 rebels were killed, another 1652 injured and 45,404 imprisoned. Unofficial estimates put the number at 10,000 Mappilas killed and 50,000 imprisoned, of who 20,000 were deported (mainly to the penal colony in the Andaman Islands) while around 10,000 went missing

Official estimates of forced religious conversions were put at 180, but unofficial estimates suggest a figure of between 1000 and 1500. Arya Samaj sources reported a number of 1766, adding that the total might exceed 2500

Action taken by   government forces

During the early phase of the rebellion, the targets were primarily the jenmis and the Government. Crimes committed by some of the rebels were accepted by leaders.Very quickly it turned out aimed at Hindus irrespective of their caste. After the proclamation of Martial law and the arrival of the British army, when some members of the Hindu community were enlisted by the army to provide information on the rebels. [2][6] Once they had eliminated the minimal presence of the government, the Moplahs turned their full attention to attacking Hindus while Ernad and Walluvanad were declared Khilafat kingdoms.

By the end of 1921, the situation was brought under control. The district administration with the raising of a special quasi-military (or Armed Police) battalion, the Malabar Special Police (MSP), initially consisting of non-Muslims and trained by the Indian Army. The MSP then attacked the rioters and eventually subdued them.

Criminals Booked

The following were the various leaders of the movement who were sentenced to death following the Moplah riots

• Ali Musaliar (leader of the movement)
• Kunhi Kadir, Khilafat Secretary, Tanur
• Variankunnath Kunhammad Haji
• Kunhj Koya, Thangal, president of the Khilafat Committee, Malappuram
• Koya Tangal of Kumaramputhur, Governor of a Khilafat Principality
• Chembrasseri Imbichi Koya Thangal (notorious for his killing of 38 men by slashing the necks and throwing them into a well)
• Palakamthodi Avvocker Musaliar
• Konnara Mohammed Koya Thangal

 Special Attachment A

Ms. Annie besent’s observations and scathing criticism of Barrister Gandhi’s stand on the issue

“It would be well if Mr. Gandhi be taken into Malabar to see with his own eyes the ghastly horror which have been created by his preaching and of his “loved brothers” Mohammed and Shukla Ali. Mr. Gandhi asked the Moderates to compel the Government to suspend hostilities, i.e. to let loose the wolves to destroy what lives are left.  The Murderers, the looters, the ravishers have put into practice the teachings of paralyzing the Government by making war on the Government in their own way.

            How does Mr. Gandhi like the Mopla spirit, as shown by one of the prisoners in the hospital, who was dying from the results of asphyxiation?  He asked the surgeon, if he was going to die and the surgeon answered that he feared he would not recover. “Well, I am glad that I killed 14 infidels” said the ‘Brave, God-fearing Mopla’, whom Mr. Gandhi so much admires who “are fighting for what they consider” as religion, and in a manner they consider as 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.

            Mr. Gandhi was shocked when some Parsi ladies had their saris torn on, and very properly, yet the God fearing hooligans had been taught that it was sinful to wear foreign cloth, and doubtless felt they were doing a religious act; can he not feel a little sympathy for thousands of women left with only rage, driven from home, for little children born of the dying mothers on roads in refugee camps?  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 backed to pieces before their eyes, in the way “Moplahs consider as 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 the 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, “Shameful inhumanity proceeding in Malabar “says Mr. Gandhi Shameful inhumanity indeed. Wrought by the Moplahs, and where are the victims, saved from extermination by British and India swords. For be it remembered the Moplahs began the whole home business; the Government intervened to save their victims and these thousands have been saved.  Mr. Gandhi would have hostility suspended – so that the Moplahs may sweep down on the refugee camps, and finish their work”.

 Let me finish within beautiful story told to me. Two Playas the lowest of the submerged classes were captured with others and given the choice between Islam and Death.  These, the outcast 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."

Special annexure to the report

Preliminary report in to the malabar rebellion 1920-38

Authored by the Committee of Distinguished Citizens  

Malabar district

Madras Presidency

Truth is infinitely of more paramount importance than Hindu Muslim unity or Swaraj and therefore we tell the Maulana Sahib and his co-religionists and India's revered leader Mahatma Gandhi – if he too is unaware of the events here – that atrocities committed by the Moplahs on the Hindus are unfortunately too true and that there is nothing in the deeds of Moplah rebels which a true non-violent, non-co-operator can congratulate them for ... Their wanton and unprovoked attack on the Hindus, the all but wholesale looting of their houses in Ernad, Valluvanad, Poanmani and Calicut Tali; the forcible conversion of Hindus in a few places in the beginning of the rebellion and the wholesale conversion of those who stick to their homes in the later stages, the brutal murder of inoffensive Hindus, men, women and children in cold blood without the slightest reason except that they are Kafirs or belong to the same race as the policemen, who insulted their Tangals or entered their mosques, the desecration and burning of Hindu temples, the outrage on Hindu women and their forcible conversion and marriage by Moplahs; do these and similar atrocities proved beyond the shadow of a doubt by the statements recorded by us from the actual sufferers who have survived, deserve any congratulations? On the other hand, should they not call forth the strongest condemnation from all right minded men and more especially from a representative body of Mohamedans like the Khilafat conference pledged to non-violence under all provocation? Did the Moplahs, who committed such atrocities, sacrifice their lives in the cause of their religion?”

Officer’s special note to his Lordships

Dear Sirs,

It is this servant’s humblest prayer that the afore mentioned people be executed and the victim’s duly compensated and justice delivered to the departed 

S/d

KT Rogers

Commissioner (Law and order) Lower Malabar Range 

Southern region Malabar district

Madras Presidency

1A/AUG/1923/LM/MD/FSTG

Classification: Secret Level 3

Copy to:

Director General Malabar Special Police

Police Head Quarters Madras

Inspector General Madras Police 

Sectary to the Government of Madras

GOC Madras area Indian Army

 Carbon Copy: Central sectriate New Delhi

  GHQ India Command  /Central Intelligence Department

Viceroy’s office     

Renjith had still not found the two things he was looking for

One was the fact that what happened to his grandmother and the second was what has happened

And who else got caught up in this carnage???