THE MOPLAH REBELLION OP 1921-22 and ITS GENESIS CONRAD WOOD School of Oriental and African Studies Thesis Submitted to the Unive
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THE MOPLAH REBELLION OP 1921-22 AND ITS GENESIS CONRAD WOOD School of Oriental and African Studies Thesis submitted to the University of London for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 1975 ProQuest Number: 11015837 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11015837 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 2 ABSTRACT This thesis is an attempt to interpret the rebellion staged in 1921-22 by part of the Muslim community of the Malabar District of the Madras Presidency, a community known as the 'Moplahs' or ♦Mappillas'. Since, it is here argued, this challenge to British rule was a consequence of the impact of that power on social relations in rural Malabar starting with the earliest period of British control of the area, the genesis of the rising is traced from the cession of Malabar to the East India Company in 1792. Chapter 1 constitutes an investigation both of social relations in rural Malabar under the impact of British rule and of the limits of Moplah response under conditions in which rebellion was impracticable. Chapter 2 tries to elaborate the sources of tension between the Moplah and British rule and to demonstrate the conditions under which Moplah disaffection might assume the form of insurrection. Chapters 5 and 4 seek to indicate how the Khilafat-non-co-operation campaign undertaken under the auspices of the Indian National Congress in Malabar in 1920-21 came to trigger the Moplah rebellion of 1921-22. Chapter 3 probes the foundation in interest of the association of the Moplah with the Malabar nationalist movement, Chapter 4 how the tensions of this association determined its fundamental character as one of the assimilation of the nationalist movement to Moplah prescription. Chapter 5 in analysing the salient characteristics of the 1921-22 rebellion attempts to show how much they were determined by traditional rural Moplah patterns of mobilisation rather than by those of the nationalist agitation of 1920-21. 3 PREFATORY NOTE This thesis is an attempt to give not a narrative account, hut an interpretation of the Moplah Rehellion of 1921-22 and its genesis. Soon after the suppression of the rehellion an official who played an outstanding part in that work, the Superintendant of Police for South Malahar, R.H. Hitchcock, produced a history of the rising, evidently based on official reports and his own first-hand experience. Hitchcock’s history, though an invaluable source, is little more than a policeman's hlow-hy-hlow account of the events of 1921-22. Other accounts of those events by participants in them have appeared in recent years in the Malayalam language (see bibliography). The most notable is K. Madhavan Nayar's Malabar Kalanam. The Moolah Rebellion. 1921 by C. Gopalan Nair was the work in 1923 of a I. retired Deputy Collector of Calicut with no access to official records and is based on items appearing in the contemporary South Indian press. The only important works of scholarship giving attention to the rebellion appear to be the theses of Stephen F. Dale and Dattatraya N. Dhanagare. The former devotes to the rebellion a chapter of his thesis on the Moplahs between 1498 and 1922. For this chapter his sources are Hitchcock and C. Gopalan hair. Dr. Dhanagare also devotes a chapter of his thesis on various Indian ‘peasant movements' to the Moplah Rebellion. This chapter is based mainly on secondary sources. The present thesis is evidently the only work on the Moplah Rebellion and its genesis drawing on a wide range of primary 4 materials including the mass of official records in the India Office Library and the Madras Record Office, private papers, newspaper sources, memoirs, court proceedings and interviews. TABLE OP CONTENTS Abstract 2 Prefatory Note 5 List of Illustrations 7 List of Tables 8 Abbreviations 9 1 The Moplah Outbreak; Interpretation of the violence of 1836-1919 Definition 12 Analysis 15 Interpretation. Part 1, Official Rationale 50 Interpretation. Part 2, Thesis 47 Interpretation. Part 5> Problems 114 Conclusion 148 2 The Ernad Moplah and British Rule before the Advent of the Indian National Congress into the South Malabar interior Part 1, The First Moplah Rebellion against British Rule in Malabar 151 Part 2, The Period of the Moplah Outbreak, 1856-1919 182 Conclusion 198 5 The Ernad Moplah and the Political Movement in Malabar: Conflict and Coincidence of Interest, 1916-20 Part 1, The Agrarian Issue 200 Part 2, The Moplahs and Turkey 215 Conclusion 227 4 The Ernad Moplah and the Political Movement in Malabar: The Organisation of the Challenge to British Rule and the Jenmi, 1920-21 Part 1, The Khilafat-Non-Co-operation Movement 229 Part 2, The Tenancy Movement 255 6 Part 3> The Approach to Rebellion 267 Conclusion 281 5 The Moplah Rebellion of 1921-22 Preparation 283 Organisation 292 Leadership 314 Sustentation 358 Prosecution 359 Location 387 Conclusion 393 6 Conclusion 395 Appendix 1, Interviews made use of in the thesis 400 Appendix 2, Summary of putative outbreak plots and quasi- 405 outbreaks Bibliography 408 7 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Maps Locational map of Malabar showing taluk boundaries after I860 10 Locational map of the south Malabar interior 11 Map to show the location of the inam lands of the Kondotti Tanga1 78 Map to show why the 'fanatic zone' was the area within 15 miles radius of Pandalur Hill 118 Population distribution map of religious communities in south Malabar, 1921 120 Map to show the area of Calicut taluk involved in the 1921-22 rebellion 390 Map of the Malabar District showing the Kads ('countries') as they were at the end of the Eighteenth Century 407 Graphs Graph to show price movement of paddy (2nd sort) in Malabar 1809-37 99 Graph to show movement of grain prices in Malabar 1845-1921 102 Photographs The Malappuram nercha 1924 246 8 LIST OF TABLES Summary of the 29 Moplah outbreaks of 1836-1919 16 Tables to show the non-Moplah dominance in the personnel of the Malabar police force for certain years between 1865 and 29 1915 Land-ownership in the Malabar agricultural working population 1901 and 1911 48 Size of agricultural labourer population (actual workers) in Malabar, 1901 and 1911 52 Price of 2nd sort paddy in Malabar, R-A-P per garce, April figures 100 Table to show the origin of the 1826-37 section of graph P. 99 100 Average market price of ’grain1 in Malabar, faslis 1255 to 1260 103 Price of grain in Malabar, faslis 1259 to 1268 103 Price of rice (common) in Malabar, 1861-1921 104 Malabar District Board Budget 1901-02 112 Percentage of Muslims in the total population of Ernad taluk 1871-1921 130 Occupations of the members of two Pastes* in Malabar, 1921 131 Number of suits filed on melcharths in South Malabar 206 Particulars of the 70 convicted rebels who died in the •Train Tragedy’ of 10 November 1921 344 Table to show the high proportion of Muslims in the amsoms of Calicut taluk chiefly involved in the 1921-22 rebellion 392 ABBREVIATIONS BePolP Bengal Political Proceedings BM British Museum, London BMP Bomhay Military Proceedings BPSP Bombay Political and Secret Proceedings BRP Bomhay Revenue Proceedings CSAS Centre for South Asian Studies, Cambridge m Befence Witness GS General Staff ILP India Legislative Proceedings IOL India Office Library, London KDCA Kozhikode District Court Archives MBRP Madras Board of Revenue Proceedings MCWP Madras Court of Wards Proceedings MHCA Madras High Court Archives MJP Madras Judicial Proceedings MLP Madras Legislative Proceedings ML(G)P Madras Law (General) Proceedings MNNR Madras Native Newspaper Reports MPP Madras Public Proceedings MRO Madras Record Office MRP Madras Revenue Proceedings NAI National Archives of India, New Delhi NLS National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh PRO Public Record Office, London PW Prosecution Witness RS, LR & A Revenue Settlement, Land Records and Agriculture UTCL United Theological Colleges Library, Bangalore Malabar showing taluk C hirakka boundaries after 1860 Calicut W a Ponnani ) Pal ghat ©Triehur B ritish Cochin Locational map of the south Malabar interior 12 CHAPTER 1 The Moplah Outbreak: Interpretation of the Violence of 1856-1919 Definition "not mere riots or affrays, but murderous outrages, such as have no parallel in any other part of Her Majesty's dominions. ”1 The violence periodically manifested during the 19th century by the Moplahs was a perpetual source of horrified fascination for British officials in the Madras Presidency. The wonder consisted in the configuration of the violence, styled the Moplah 'outbreak' or 'outrage'. Characteristically, the preparations for an outbreak involved the intending participants donning the white clothes of the martyr, divorcing their wives, asking those they felt they had wronged for forgiveness, and receiving the blessing of a Tangal, as the Sayyids or descendants of the Prophet are called in Malabar, for the success of their great undertaking. Once the outbreak had been initiated openly, by the murder of their Hindu victim, the participants would await the arrival of Government forces by ranging the countryside paying off scores against Hindus they felt had ill-used them or other Moplahs, burning and defiling Hindu temples, taking what food they needed, and collecting arms and recruits.