1921: THE TWISTS AND TRAVAILS OF THE HINDU

An Example of Unethical Journalism

S Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, according to historian S Muthiah, was the one who modernized The Hindu. The modernization happened, post 1921. Iyengar, Editor and Proprietor of the daily, had political ambitions. He supported Gandhi and the Khilafat movement. Sir C Sankaran Nair, in his book, Gandhi and Anarchy, has criticized Iyengar, for aligning with Gandhi in 1921.

So, the current reportage of The Hindu, on the 1921 Mappila revolt, should be viewed cautiously.

The Hindu, on June 26, 2020, reported that a family in Erattupetta, in the district of Kottayam in Kerala, now claims they are the descendants of Chakkiparamban Moideenkutty Haji, father of Variyamkunnath Kunjahammad Haji, the Mappila gangster. K M Jafar who belongs to this family, was quoted by The Hindu, saying that Moideenkutty had escaped to Erattupetta, after being acquitted in the Mannarkkad revolt case. He lived there in disguise as an Islamic preacher for eight years, before being captured by the British police. He married Ummuhani Umma from Muttathuparambil Mather family and had a son named Muhiyuddinkutty Haji. This family didn't know of his earlier wife and the son Variyankunnath Kunjahammad Haji.

The problem with this claim is that Moideenkutty Haji was never acquitted, but was deported and was in Andaman jails.He was absconding after an attack against the Hindus in Manjeri, in 1896.The Mappila Outrageous Act was in force. In European countries, such claims have to be proved by DNA tests, as in the case of Leonardo da Vinci. Jafar has also authored a book now. Variyankunnan had married thrice.

The letter The Hindu published

The Hindu reprinted on  June 26, 2020, a letter purported to be written by Variyankunnath Haji to the paper, on October 7,1921. The head line of the new story was,"Reports of Hindu-Muslim strife in Malabar baseless". The Hindu claimed that the letter was found in their letter box. The letter was written from Variyankunnan's Pandalur hide out, the Daily claimed.

There was no way to cross check for the paper then, as to the real author of the letter. The Hindu claimed that the letter in Arabic-Malayalam was translated and printed. In the letter, Haji made a fantastic claim: " Report that Hindus are forcibly converted by my men are entirely untrue. Such conversions were done by the Government party and Reserve police men in mufti mingling themselves with the rebels (masquerading as rebels)".

This had been the claim of extremist Muslims like Hasrat Mohani, who was President of the Muslim League. Mohani later became a Communist.

There is no question of an European mingling with the locals, because the colour will betray him. If the contention is that Hindu local men or reserve police were masquerading as Muslims, it is absurd. Hindus in disguise, converting Hindus to Islam-it is an absurd fantasy,which suits The Hindu's fetish for pseudo secularism.

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The Hindu in 1921 had reported the Muslim gangsters resorting to mass conversion, which is historically true. Abani Mukherji, founder of the Communist Party, who gave a note to Lenin on the Moplah Rebellion, had collected reports of The Hindu, probably from, Singaravelu Chettiar, his friend.

Here is a quote from The Times, September 6,1921:

“The spark which kindled the flame was the resistance by a large and hostile crowd of Moplahs, armed with swords and knives, to a lawful attempt by the police to affect certain arrests in connection with a case of house-breaking. The police were powerless to effect the capture of the criminals, and the significance of the incident is that it was regarded as a defeat of the police, and therefore of the Government.”

Variyankunnath Kunjahammad Haji has signed the so called letter, as Pandalur Commander. He had anointed himself as "Amir of Muslims, King of Hindus and Colonel of the Forces." By the time he is said to have written the letter, Haji had gone underground, fleeing from the British forces, as a war criminal, from one jungle to another. According to British records, he was in Pandikkad on 13 October, 1921, and had destroyed the Nellikkuth bridge that day. The letter suggests that, he was in Pandalur, a week earlier. He was caught on January 6, 1922 from Chokkad, between Nilambur and Kalikavu.

The Hindu, so far has not published a photo print of the original letter of Haji in Arabi Malayalam. The Hindu's then Editor, S Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, was a supporter of Variyankunnan, and Iyengar had presided over the Malabar Congress meet on April 28, 1920, which had heckled the moderate Annie Besant, to silence. Both K Madhavan Nair and M P Narayana Menon had brought several mappilas from Eranad, to the meet, to gain majority, and to silence, Besant. Manjeri Rama Iyer and his group, stood with Besant. Rama Iyer has written that, Iyengar had brought a pamphlet on Khilafat, and distributed it among the delegates.

The pseudo secularist gang also has quoted the communist, Sardar Chandroth, to prove that a criminal like Haji was secular. Sardar Chandroth Kunjiraman Nair, who was a loyal follower of the Marxist, A K Gopalan, has no locus standi, in the whole affair, being a native of Kannur. The same Marxist gang, including the Speaker of the Kerala Assembly, have tried to paint a secular picture of the blood thirsty criminal, comparing him with Bhagat Singh. Bhagat Singh had revolted after the Jaliawalabag massacre, by the British. His revolt was not against his own brethren.

S Kasturi Ranga Iyengar

The same gang has claimed that, the state that Haji had announced, was called Malayala Rajyam (Malayalam country). His Caliphate was named Daula, according to the official history of the rebellion, written by R H Hitchcock, who was the S P of the Police, in Malabar, in 1921. Haji's Caliphate was ruled according to the Sharia- it was never a secular state.

At the same time S Kasturi Ranga Iyengar was thinking of buying The Hindu from its founders, a Muslim businessman from Nagpur, Yakub Hasan Sait had moved to Madras. A product of Aligarh University, Hasan moved first to Bangalore and then to Madras in 1901 and gradually settled in the city. For a particular period of time, he worked as an international business agent under Nawab C. Abdul Hakim. Soon after his arrival in Madras, Hasan entered public life and was elected member of the Madras Corporation. He was one of founders of the All India Muslim League. He visited England as a delegate of the League. He was also the only Muslim politician from the Madras Presidency involved in the drafting of the Lucknow Pact. In 1916, he was elected to the Madras Legislative Council by the South Indian Chamber of Commerce. He joined the Indian National Congress and participated in the Khilafat agitations. In 1921, he was imprisoned in Malabar, for six months. On his return from jail in 1923, he resigned from the Congress and founded the Madras Province Muslim League.

Kasturiranga Iyengar, The Hindu's legal adviser, a politically ambitious lawyer, had bought it, from its original founders, in 1905. On April 1, 1905, he, along with two partners, bought the paper for  Rs.75,000, and by July 1905, had independent charge of it.

According to S Muthiah, historian, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, between 1921 and 1923, installed "the first rotary printing press in south India and modern linotype composing machines, setting the trend the paper follows to this day of being first with modern newspaper technology in India". When he died in December 1923, the paper had stabilised with a circulation of 17,000 copies and considerable advertising revenue.

The Hindu was founded on September 20, 1878, by six young nationalists led by radical social reformer and school teacher G. Subramania Aiyer of Tiruvaiyyar near Thanjavur. The others were: his school teacher friend M. Veeraraghavachariar of Chengalpattu and law students T.T. Rangachariar, P.V. Rangachariar, D. Kesava Rao Pant and N. Subba Rau Pantulu. The "Triplicane Six", as they were called, were angry that the Anglo-Indian press - newspapers owned and edited by the British - had panned the appointment of T. Muthuswami Aiyer, as a Judge of the Madras High Court, the first Indian to be so appointed. They borrowed one rupee and 12 annas and started The Hindu as a weekly - published every Wednesday - to counter the campaign against Muthuswami Aiyer's appointment.

In the first editorial titled "Ourselves", published on September 20, 1878, the founders flagged two guiding principles: fairness and justice.

During its initial years, the paper was printed at Srinidhi Press, Mint Street, Black Town, Madras. Soon the students, who became lawyers, parted ways with Subramania Aiyer and Veeraraghavachariar, the Managing Editor. Later, the two former school teachers had differences over the issue of social reform.

The Hindu was Subramania Aiyer's vehicle for social reform crusades.Veeraraghavachary, in charge of the business side, found the repercussions squeezing the paper's finances. There was an inevitable parting of ways and the partnership was dissolved in October 1898. Within days of the break, Subramania Aiyer took over full-time the editorship of the Swadesamitran, while Veeraraghavachariar took over the entire business of the struggling newspaper. In the early 1900s, The Hindu's circulation dropped to 800 copies and Veeraraghavachariar decided to sell it to Iyengar.

So, from history, we gather that Iyengar could buy a rotary press, post 1921.

© Ramachandran 

GANDHI'S SPEECH AT CALCUT,1920

He Was Accompanied by Shaukat Ali

Gandhi and Shaukat Ali arrived at Calicut from Trichy on 18th August 1920 and at 6-30 pm; addressed a gathering of about 20,000 people on the Vellayil beach, Calicut.They were garlanded by Khan Bahadur Muthukoya Thangal,and their host was the Gujarati wholesale dealer of Crocin,Shyamji Sundardas ( Kallaji Baju).V R Krishna Iyer's father,V V Rama Iyer presided over the public meeting.High Court advocate K P raman Menon welcomed the gathering and handed over a purse of Rs 2500 to Shukat Ali for the Khilafat fund.Shaukat Ali was disppointed,since he expected more,says The Source Material for a History of the Indian Freedom Movement in India,Vol 3,Part I,pages 318-19.Ali was also not satisfied with Rs 500 he got at Kannur railway station on the return journey from Mangalore on the 20th.K Madhavan Nair translated Gandhi's speech at Calicut.

Mahatma Gandhi's Speech:

The Spirit of Non Co-Operation

I do expect that we shall succeed if we understand the spirit of non-co-operation. The Lieutenant Governor of Burma himself has told us that Britain retains the hold on India not by force of arms but by the co-operation of the people of India. He has given us the remedy for any wrong Government may do to the people, knowingly or unknowingly, and so long as we co-operate with that Government we become the sharers of the wrong. But a wise subject never· tolerates the hardship that a Government impose against their declared will. I venture to submit to this great meeting that the Government of India and the Imperial Government have done a double wrong to India and if we are a self respecting nation conscious of its rights, conscious of its responsibilities and conscious of its duties, it is not proper that we should stand the humiliations that both these Governments have imposed upon us. The Imperial Government have knowingly flouted religious !oentiments dearly cherished by the 70 millions of Mussalmans.

The Khilafat Question

I claim to have studied the Khilafat question in a special manner. I claim to have understood the Musalman feelings and I am here to declare that in the Khilafat question,the British Government have wounded the sentiments of Mussalmans,as they have not done before. The Gospel of non co-operation is preached to them and if they had not accepted it, there would have been bloodshed in India by this time. I am free to confess the spilling of blood would not help their cause. But a man, who is in a state of rage, whose heart is lacerated does not count on the results of his actions. So much for Khilafat wrong. 

I propose to take you for a moment to the Punjab, the northern end of India and what have both Governments done for the Punjab? I am free to confess again that the crowds in Amristar went mad for a time. They were goaded to madness by a wicked administration but no madness on the part of the people can justify the spilling of innocent blood and what have they paid for it? I venture to submit that no civilised Government l would have made the people to pay the penalty that had been inflicted on the Punjab. Innocent men were passed through mock trials and imprisoned for life. Amnesty granted to them was of no consequence. Innocent and unarmed men who knew nothing of what was to happen were butchered in cold blood without the slightest notice. The modesty of women in Jallian Wala who had not done the slightest wrong to any man was seriously outraged. I want you to understand what I mean by outrage. Their veils were insolently removed by an officer with his stick. Men who had not done any wrong were made to crawl on the ground with their bellies and all these wrongs remain unavenged up to this time. If it was the duty of the Government of India to punish men for incendiarism and murder of innocent persons it was doubly their duty to punish their officers who were guilty of serious wrong. But in the face of these official wrongs committed with the greatest deliberation,we have the humiliating spectacle of the House of Lords supporting these wrongs. It is this double wrong, done to India, that we want to get redressed and it is our bounden duty to get it redressed. We have prayed, we have petitioned and we have passed resolutions. 

Mr. Mohammed Ali, supported by his friends, is now waiting for justice in Europe. He has pleaded the cause of Islam, the cause of the Mussalmans of India, in a most manful manner. But his pleadings have fallen upon deaf ears. We have his word for it that whilst France and Italy have shown great sympathy for the cause of Islam it is the British Ministers who have not shown sympathy. It shows which way the British Ministers and present holders of Office in India wished to deal with the people. There is no good will, there is no desire to placate public opinion. The people of India must have a remedy for redressing this double wrong.

The method of the West is violence. Whenever people of the West have felt wrong justly or unjustly, they rebel and spill blood. As I have said in my letter to the Viceroy, half of India does not believe in the remedy of violence. The other half is too weak to offer it. But the whole of India is deeply grieved and it is for that reason that I venture to suggest to the people the remedy of non co-operation. I consider it to be perfectly harmless, absolutely constitutional and yet perfectly efficacious. It is a remedy, if properly adopted will end in victory. Victory is a certainty in it. And it is the age-old remedy of self-sacrifice. Are the Mussalmans of India who feel the great wrong done to them prepared for self-sacrifice? If we desire to compel the Government to the will of the people, as we must, the only remedy open to us is non-co-operation. If the Mussalmans of India offer non-co operation to Government in order to secure justice on the Khilafat, it is the duty of every Hindu to co-operate with their Mos!em brethren. I consider the eternal friendship between Hindus and Mussalmans as infinitely more important than the British connection. I therefore venture to suggest that if they like to live with unity with Mussalmans, it is now that they have got the best opportunity and that such an opportunity would not come for a century. I venture to suggest that if the Government of India and the Imperial Government come to know that there is a great determination behind this great nation in order to secure redress for the Khilafat and Punjab wrongs, the Government would then do justice to us.

The Mussalmans of India will have to commence the first stage of non-co-operation in real earnest.If you may not help Government, you may not receive favours from the Government. I consider that the titles of Honour are titles of disgrace. We must therefore surrender all titles and resign all honorary offices. It will constitute an emphatic disapproval of the leaders of the people against the actions of the Government. Lawyers must suspend practice, boys should not receive instructions from schools aided by Government or controlled by Government. The emptying of schools would constitute the disapproval of the middle classes of the people of India. 

Similarly have I ventured to suggest a complete boycott of the Reformed Councils. That will be an emphatic declaration on the part of the representatives of people and the electorate that they do not like to elect their representatives.We must equally decline to offer ourselves as recruits for the Police and the Military. It is impossible for us to go to Mesopotamia and offer Police or Military assistance. The last item in the first stage of non-cooperation is Swadeshism. Swadeshi is intended, not so much as to bring pressure on Government but to show the extent of self-sacrifice on the part of every man, woman and child. When one fourth of India has its self respect at stake, when the whole of India has its justice at stake, we must forego silk from Japan, Calico from Manchester and French lace from France. We must resolve to be satisfied with cloth woven by the humble weavers of India in their cottage homes. A hundred years ago when our tastes were not in foreign products we were satisfied with cloth produced by men and women of India. If I could revolutionise the taste of India and make it return to its ancient state, the whole world would reeognise the cult of renunciation: that is the first stage in non-co·operation. I hope it is as easy for you as it is easy for me to see that India is capable of undertaking the first stage of non·co-operation.

I therefore do not intend to take you through the other three stages of non-eo-operation. I would like you to rivet your attention properly into the first stage. You will have noticed that two things are nececssary in order to go to the first stage-an absolutely perfect spirit of non-violence is indispensable for successes and only a little measure of self-sacrifice. I pray to God that He will give the people of India sufficient courage and wisdom to recognise the virtue of non-co-operation. And I hope that in a few days we shall see some result from your activities in Calicut in connection with non-co-operation.

Mr. Shaukat Ali's address was confined to a special appeal to the Mussalmans with regard to the Khilafat question.

Mr. K. P. Raman Menon on behalf of the people of Calicut presented a purse of Rs. 2,500 to Mahatma Gandhi towards the Khilafat funds which gift was accepted with thanks.

(West Coast Reformer/ 20 August 1920).

Gandhi addressed a public meeting on 15 September 1921 evening on the Triplicane Beach, Madras. The Triplicane Speech:

The Moplah Rebellion

It was open to the Government. as powerful as they were, to invite the Ali Brothers and the speaker to enter the disturbed area in Malabar and to bring about calm and peace there. Mr. Gandhi was sure that if this had been done much of the innocent blood would have been spared and also the desolation of many a Hindu household. But he must be forgiven if he again charged the Government with a desire to incite the population to violence. There was no room in this system of Government for brave and strong men, and the only place the Government had for them was the prisons. He regretted the happenings in Malabar. The Moplahs who were undisciplined had gone mad. They had thus committed a sin against the Khilafat and their own eountry.

 The whole of India today was under an obligation to remain non-violent even under the gravest provocation. There was no reaso to doubt that these Moplahs were not touched by the spirit of Non-co-operation. Non-co-operators were deliberately prevented from going to the affected parts. Assuming that all the strain came through Government Circles and that forced conversions were true,the Hindus should not put a strain on the Hindu-Moslem Unity and break it. The speaker was however not prepared to make such an assumption. He was convinced that a man who was forcibly converted needed no "Prayaschitham." Mr. Yakub Hassan had already told them that those who were converted were inadmissible into the fold of Islam and had not forfeited their rights to remain in the Hindu fold. The Government were placing every obstacle in the way of the Congress and Khilafat workers to bring relief to desolate homes and were taking no pains to carry relief themselves. Whether the Government gave them permission or not it was their clear duty to collect funds for the relief of sufferers and see that these got what they required.

They did not yet know fully what measures the Government were going to take to repress the strength and rising of the people in this land. He had nb reasons to disbelieve the testimony given to him yesterday that many young men were insulted because they wore Khaddar caps and dress. The keepers of the peace in India had torn Khaddar vests from young men and burned them. The authorities in Malabar had invented new measures of humiliation if they had not gone one better than those in the Punjab.

(Madras Mail, 16 September,1921.)

Gandhi made five trips to Kerala – in 1920 to garner support for the Khilafat movement, in 1925 March 9-19 for the Vaikom Satyagraha, in 1927 October 9-15,25 for protesting against untouchability, then in 1934 January 10-22 for raising funds for the downtrodden when a little girl Kaumudi donated all her ornaments to him and in 1937 january 12-21 for celebrating the temple entry proclamation.

Gandhi found Kerala’s intellectuals and ordinary folk receptive and yearning for a free and fair society. A large number of people in the state were greatly influenced by his political and moral philosophy. A Christian youth named Titus Thevarthundiyil accompanied Gandhi during the historic Dandi March in 1930. It is a cinematic coincidence that when Titus followed the footsteps of Gandhi in Dandi, another freedom fighter from Kerala, K Kelappan Nair, popularly called Kelappan, led the Kerala Dandi march from Calicut to Payyannur in Malabar following the decision of KPCC to break the salt laws.





Gandhi made five trips to Kerala – in 1920 to garner support for the Khilafat movement, in 1925 for the Vaikom Satyagraha, in 1927 for protesting against untouchability, then in 1934 for raising funds for the downtrodden when a little girl Kaumudi donated all her ornaments to him and in 1937 for celebrating the temple entry proclamation.


Gandhi found Kerala’s intellectuals and ordinary folk receptive and yearning for a free and fair society. A large number of people in the state were greatly influenced by his political and moral philosophy. A Christian youth named Titus Thevarthundiyil accompanied Gandhi during the historic Dandi March in 1930. It is a cinematic coincidence that when Titus followed the footsteps of Gandhi in Dandi, another freedom fighter from Kerala, K Kelappanled the Kerala Dandi march from Calicut to Payyannur in Malabar following the decision of KPCC to break the salt laws.






People decorated the roads with Tricolour flags and festoons and offered food and refreshment to the satyagrahis. Caparisoned elephants greeted them as a mark of respect.

On the day of its arrival in Payyannur on April 21, ladies led by Gracy Aaron showered the satyagrahis with flowers and rice. Kelappan, in a two-hour speech, enthused the people with the ideals of non-violence and Satyagraha. After his address, there was burning of foreign clothes at the place. Kelappan, in all solemnity, scraped out some salt and thereby became the first salt satyagrahi in Kerala.

The Badagara session of KPCC in May 1931 resolved to launch anti- untouchability campaign as one of the programmes of the Congress. They chose Guruvayoor as the centre of the agitation and demanded the temple therein be opened for all castes. In this case too, the Satyagraha was started under the leadership of Kelappan.
On the day of its arrival in Payyannur on April 21, ladies led by Gracy Aaron showered the satyagrahis with flowers and rice. Kelappan, in a two-hour speech, enthused the people with the ideals of non-violence and Satyagraha. After his address, there was burning of foreign clothes at the place. Kelappan, in all solemnity, scraped out some salt and thereby became the first salt satyagrahi in Kerala.TheBadagara session of KPCC in May 1931 resolved to launch anti- untouchability campaign as one of the programmes of the Congress. They chose Guruvayoor as the centre of the agitation and demanded the temple therein be opened for all castes. In this case too, the Satyagraha was started under the leadership of Kelappan.

CRITIQUE OF GANDHI ON MAPPILA REBELLION

The Mappila Rebellion, 1921: Critiques Rise From The Flames

The idea of ahimsa as a policy that could be adopted and discarded left the door open for local Muslim interpretation. The Mappila Rebellion illustrated how far grassroots Muslims were from accepting it as a controlling principle. The rebellion, however, also revealed Gandhi’s selective utilitarianism in relation to Muslims, a critique that continues to be alive. In 1918 Gandhi had written to Mohamed Ali: “My interest in your release is quite selfish. We have a common goal and I want to utilize your services to the uttermost in order to reach that goal. In the proper solution of the Mohammedan question lies the realization of Swaraj.” In the case of the Mappilas there is a sense that Gandhi first aroused them and then abandoned them. On November 25, 2000, when I interviewed a revered leader of the Mappila intellectual renaissance and a former university vice chancellor he stated that there were three things that bothered Kerala Muslims about Gandhi: his stubbornness, his religious revivalism, and his virtual abandonment of the Mappilas.

The Mappilas of Kerala, now constituting approximately 7.6 million and approximately 21.5 percent of the state, had experienced the negative impact of foreign rule long before the British arrived. Vasco da Gama, landing in Calicut, Malabar, in 1498, had led the Portuguese incursion, introducing the age of European dominance. The Portuguese distorted a centuries-long period of harmony among Hindus, Christians, and Muslims, a process that I have described elsewhere. The end result was a disaffected and volatile Mappila community, whose members were the victims of a repressive landownership system, were suffering from impoverishment, and were given to frequent violent uprisings against what they deemed to be oppression. The noncooperation movement in its Khilafat aspect dropped like a spark into this tinderbox. A key event was a conference of the Kerala Congress in Manjeri, Malabar, April 28, 1920.

The conference brought the Khilafat movement to the attention of the Mappilas. In an action that some have regarded as the seed of the rebellion activists passed a resolution supporting that movement, a decision opposed by Annie Besant and other moderates. In the short run it resulted in many startling expressions of Muslim–Hindu amity, but in the longer run the Khilafat agitation aroused the religious and emotional fervor of the Mappilas to a high degree. On August 18, 1920, Mahatma Gandhi and Shaukat Ali addressed a large public meeting at Calicut. Exhortations to join action against the British and rosy promises of quick results were in the air. While Gandhi urged Hindus to support Muslim demands for justice within the context of appropriate means, Shaukat Ali was not so restrained, and those who were there recalled the stirring impact of his words.

Shaukat Ali (1873–1938), the first secretary of the Khilafat Committee, who operated in the shadow of his younger brother Mohamed Ali, deserves greater notice than he ordinarily receives for his leadership role. He was a bluff and hearty man rather than a reflective type, and was able to rouse people easily. Moved by his pro-Turkish sentiments and by governmental tardiness in granting Aligarh, his alma mater, university status, he left government service and went into opposition. Gandhi traveled extensively with him after his release from prison in 1919, and became very fond of him. He said of his companion: “There are many good and stalwart Muslims I know. But no Muslim knows me through and through as Shaukat Ali does.” Shaukat Ali, on the other hand, was quite outspoken on his disagreement with Gandhi in regard to ahimsa. Before coming to Calicut, in a speech at Shajahanpur on May 5, 1920, Shaukat Ali stated, “I tell you that to kill and to be killed in the way of God are both satyagraha. To lay down our lives in the way of God for righteousness and to destroy the life of the tyrant who stands in the way of righteousness, are both very great service to God. But we have promised to co-operate with Mr.Gandhi who is with us. . . . If this fails, the Mussalmans will decide what to do.”

We must assume that Gandhi realized that the basic Muslim view of violence differed from his own. Did he think that the experience of working together would modify the Muslim opinion and bring it into closer harmony with his own? Or, as is more likely, did he simply accept the limited possibilities, taking the practical approach? He seemed to recognize his own utilitarianism. Peter Hardy quotes him as saying, “I have been telling Maulana Shaukat Ali all along that I was helping to save his cow [i.e., the caliphate] because I hoped to save my cow thereby.”

There is no need to go into the details of the Mappila Rebellion and the suffering that it entailed for both Hindus and Muslims. The events came like a pail of cold water on the flame of Muslim–Hindu harmony. The Mappilas not only turned violently against their British overlords, but also against the landowning Hindu establishment in a six-month uprising beginning August 20, 1921. Hindu leaders shocked by the Mappila militance drew back from what had been initially regarded as a joint effort. The Mappila sense of betrayal was a major factor in the anti-Hindu nature of the rebellion in its latter stages. As some Hindus even aided British forces, Mappilas responded with killings, arson, robberies, and forced conversion. While the rebellion did not begin as a communal outbreak it ended as one. After six months the Mappilas were severely repressed, and suffered most with 2,266 slain, 252 executed, 502 sentenced to life imprisonment, thousands jailed in different parts of India, and many exiled to the Andaman Islands. The fact that the Mappilas later rose like a phoenix from the ashes to become a changed community that has become positively and dynamically involved in societal development is a marvel of Indian Muslim history. At the close of the rebellion though, they were stunned and silent. There were others, however, who were not silent.

Some of them were Muslims. The cultured and educated northern leaders of Indian Muslims felt trapped by the situation, damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t. Hakim Ajmal Khan took the middle ground, as the majority of Muslims did, in his 1921 presidential address to the Congress Assembly in Ahmedabad. He said, “I cannot close without referring to the tragic events that are daily taking place in Malabar and the prolonged agonies of our unfortunate Moplah brethren.” He blamed the government for provoking the disturbances and denounced the British “pacification,” but he also condemned the forcible conversion of Hindus. “There will be no Muslim worthy of the name who will not condemn the entire un-Islamic act in the strongest possible terms.” But the opinion that Gandhi had to deal with directly was that of Hasrat Mohani (1878–1951), the pen name of Syed Fazlul Hasan. An Aligarh graduate, Urdu poet, fiery worker for the Freedom movement, advocate of a forceful approach, and critic of ahimsa, he found no fault in the essential Mappila approach. As to their attack on the Hindus he argued that it occurred because of Hindu support for the British.

Gandhi made frequent references to the Mappilas in his letters and speeches between 1921 and 1924. His reaction ranged from criticizing some Mappilas to blaming the British to pointing to Hindu failure to a bare recognition of possible responsibility on the part of the Non-cooperation movement. In a Madras speech in the middle of the rebellion he had said, “I would like you to swear before God that we shall not resort to violence for the freedom of our country or for settling quarrels between Hindus and Mussulmans . . . that in spite of the madness shown by some of our Moplah brethren we Hindus and Mussulmans shall remain united forever.” He repeated the phrase “Moplah madness” frequently, and he advised Hasrat Mohani not to defend their actions. But he also blamed the British saying, “They have punished the entire Moplah community for the madness of a few individuals and have incited Hindus by exaggerating the facts.” As for the Hindu responsibility he declared, “The Moplahs have sinned against God and have suffered grievously for it. Let the Hindus also remember that they have not allowed the opportunity for revenge to pass by.” He gave the following advice to Hindus: “We must do away with the communal spirit. The majority must therefore make a beginning and thus inspire the minorities with confidence. . . . Adjustment is possible only when the more powerful take the initiative without waiting for response from the weaker.”

In regard to the crucial question of whether there was responsibility on his own part, or on the part of the Non-cooperation movement or whether his theory was at fault, Gandhi was not very forthcoming. He acknowledged the critiques saying, “Many letters have been received by me, some from wellknown friends telling me that I was responsible even for the alleged Moplah atrocities in fact, for all the riots which Hindus have or are said to have suffered since the Khilafat agitation.” Yet he felt that the significance of the Mappilas should not be overstated because they constitute a special case. Their response cannot undermine the validity or cause of nonviolence. He declared, “The Moplahs themselves had not been touched by the noncooperation spirit. They are not like other Indians nor even like other Mussalmans. I am prepared to admit that the movement had an indirect effect upon them. The Moplah revolt was so different in kind that it did not affect the other parts of India.” A Muslim historian, I. H. Qureshi, gives a less sanguine perspective: “The Moplah rebellion confirmed Hindu fears and provided the first nail in the coffin of Hindu amity.”

-Roland E Miller /  Indian Critiques of Mahatma Gandhi