The Moplah Rebellion that shook the British Empire for 50 years in Malabar, culminated in 1921 with hundreds of thousands jailed, hanged and many hundreds transported to life. Malabar Rebellion is known as one of the most significant resistance movements against foreign yolk after the great Rebellion of 1857.
The Malabar Rebellion of 1921-22 was mainly a revolt of the Moplah population, a majority of who were agricultural labourers, daily wage earners, petty teashop-vendors and those connected with the mosques. A handful of Hindus were also involved. It was a struggle by the deprived class against the landlords and their colonial masters.
It is a fact realised by many that the Malabar Rebellion of 1921-22 was the worst armed rebellion the British Indian Government faced after the Revolt of 1857. The brave participants who laid down their lives or were wounded and maimed or transported to Andamans fought against the might of the British Empire with valour and tenacity at great cost to themselves with the sole purpose of freeing India from foreign oppression, including the oppression of the Indian landlords and rulers, who were British stooges.
The cost they had to pay was total uprooting from their own motherland. Because of the Congress apathy, the revolt lost its significance and it did not get any support from its leaders, including Gandhiji. Instead, the revolt was given many derogatory terms as Moplah outbreak, Moplah madness, etc.
According to the report dated March 14, 1922, Major General Stuart wrote, “The rebellion has lasted six months during which period the Moplahs controlled large areas of Malabar…the rebellion has cost 10,000 lives.” The report also indicated the experience of the British army regarding the first major guerrilla warfare they faced in India, the longest and the fiercest battle the British faced since the Revolt of 1857.
According to reports, around 50,000 were arrested. More than 14,000 were court-martialed and were either sentenced to death or transported for life. Later, many prison and transportation sentences were commuted to fines in order to relieve pressure on prisons.
A “Moplah Scheme” was broached, according to Roland Miller, as a final solution calling for large scale deportation and resettlement of Moplahs in Andamans. The deportation began in February 1922 and continued till 1926. According to the census of 1931, there were 1885 Moplahs, of whom 1171 were male and 714 female. According to varying reports, around 2500 persons were deported here.
The Scheme did face much resistance from various quarters. It was alleged that it was a scheme to wipe out the Moplahs. The places in Andamans, where they were settled were notorious for malaria and other vector borne diseases, which gave the impression that, they won’t be able to survive the hard life. Protests against the scheme took violent turn in Malabar and a committee paid a visit to Andamans on a fact-finding mission and submitted its report corroborating the allegations.
As the British administration in Malabar was not satisfied with the report, another special official from Madras, E H Abraham was deputed to do a study on the status of Moplahs in Andamans. He reached Port Blair on December 15, 1922 and submitted a detailed report on January 26, 1923, in which he has intrinsically drawn a sketch of people and life in Andamans during 1922.
Describing the natural beauty of the Islands, the report says, “When one enters Port Blair Harbour, one’s eyes rest upon scenes of great natural beauty. Hills covered all over with coconut palms or overgrown with green foliage give the Islands a very pleasing appearance. The resemblance between the Andamans and certain parts of Malabar is striking. The climate of Andamans is somewhat similar to that of Malabar, but the rainfall is heavier.”
E H Abraham says in the report that he had interviewed all the Moplah and Hindu convicts on the Andamans, undergoing various terms of transportation. He explained to them the advantages of taking out self supporting tickets and importing their families. One hundred twenty-three men expressed their willingness to take out tickets and the married men among them gave the addresses of their wives in Malabar. He further states the reason why Moplahs are unwilling to take out self supporting tickets and settle down in Andamans. Some Moplahs were recently released from the Andamans and sent back to India presumably as the results of appeals to the High Court. This had happened some days before he landed here. This caused much excitement and those who had to remain in the Andamans thought that their release would also come in the near future.
Another factor which he describes was that certain Moplahs got letters from Malabar in which they were told that the Government was releasing rebellion convicts on a large scale from the Madras jails.
These two causes created an impression in the minds of the Moplahs that they would be sent back to their homes in two or three months.
E H Abraham, who visited North Andaman observed that the place contained very rich virgin forests. The timber was very valuable, the most abundant and useful variety being called Pedauk wood. The forest department was run on a commercial basis with a large saw mill at Chatham. There were roughly 600 labourers employed in the various forest camps. Of these about 300 were convicts and the remaining were free-men. The free labourers consist chiefly of men belonging to Ranchi. They were recruited by a Roman Catholic priest from Ranchi. He got a commission of Rs 8/0 per head. The convict coolies were divided into labouring convicts and ticket of leave men or self-supporters.
Mr Abraham met the Chief Forest Officer Mr J W Bradley, IFS and asked him if he would be willing to employ Moplah labour in the forest development scheme in the North and Middle Andamans. He explained to him that the Moplahs whom the Madras Government desired to employ on the Andaman forests were deportees and not criminals in the ordinary sense of the word and that they were still lodged in the Indian jails.
Abraham told him that Mr Knapp (in whose name a village Knappuram in Wimberly Gunj still exists with two names Kanyapuram and Nayapuram) wished to employ Moplah deportees in the Andaman forests. The political reasons why the Moplah deportees should be sent to the Andamans and not allowed to get back to Malabar were also explained to him. Mr Bradley, the Chief Forest Officer, replied that he regretted very much that he could not employ Moplah labour on the Andaman forests. He had given his serious attention and consideration, but he had decided against it. He felt that Moplahs had come to the Andamans with the bad reputation of being rebels.
In his opinion, Moplahs were unfit for forest work. He further explained that he had decided to import a large number of Karens with their wives from Burma. Being free men, they would refuse to work with convicts. As an officer who had served in Burma, he favoured them and was used to their ways. He also felt that he cannot build houses for the Moplahs and their families.
From a financial point of view, the importation of Moplah deportees and the families of at least a few of them will be a loss to the Government. But all the same he admitted that there was plenty of scope for the employment of labour in the forest development scheme in the Andamans.
But Abraham thought otherwise. As a person, who knew something about the Moplahs and their habits, he thought that Moplahs could be employed with advantage in the forest department in the Andamans. Coming as they did, from a district which had abundant rainfall, they would be able to stand the climate of the Andamans better than any others. They were physically superior to the Ranchi coolies who were rather poor specimen of humanity.
And E H Abraham requested the Chief Commissioner to urge the Government of India and Authorities in Andamans to realise the necessity of employing Moplah labour in forests. He also kept the suggestion of employing at least 50 men on experimental basis. He asked them to be treated as ticket of leave men and allowed to import their families, if they were willing to do so.
The Chief Commissioner told Abraham that he would extend the concessions which the Self Supporting men now enjoy to the Moplahs, who took out SS tickets. The Andaman government secured free passages for the wives of the Moplah convicts from Madras to Port Blair. They would give every such woman a sum of Rs 50/- either at Madras or Port Blair. The SS cultivator would get suitable land from the government. He would get Takkavi advances (a kind of loan) in the shape of cattle or money. He would be given materials to build his house. He and his wife and family would be given free rations till the fresh crop is harvested.
Over and above these concessions, the Chief Commissioner said he was prepared to put all the Moplah SS men in one place, if a sufficient number of men were willing to take out tickets. He was also prepared to build a mosque for them and appoint ‘Mollas’ from among the Moplahs. He would appoint well-behaved Moplahs as Patwari and Chowdri (Village Officials).
Some Moplahs were desirous of taking out tickets in order to carry on petty trade. The Moplahs are very clever at petty trade and if each of them was given Rs 50/- as a free gift, they would be able to carry on their work. These men were petty traders in Malabar.
The language difficulty was keenly felt by the Moplahs and the Andaman authorities. As the Moplahs numbered over a thousand, Abraham also proposed to employ Malayalam knowing subordinate officers in the Andamans.
Subsequently, in villages namely Knappuram, Mannarghat, Manjeri, Wandoor, Myo Myo and Tirur, Moplah SS men were settled with the facilities to cultivate land. They were allowed to build mosques and also start Madrasa education.
Although, a large number of Moplahs returned to mainland soon before the Japanese invasion, and after independence a good number of them preferred to stay back. Moplahs have remained within a close-knit community and still follow the cultural and religious traditions. The language they speak still echoes the linguistic features of 1920s as their language remained frozen in time without improvement.