THE TRUE HISTORY OF 1921

Foreword

Jihad and Genocide in Malabar

Ramachandran

This book has been written to put the record straight- there has been a sustained effort among the modern researchers to paint the Mappila rebellion of 1921 in Malabar as a peasant struggle or class war. The route to class war becomes easy if it is labelled as a peasant struggle. There had been better peasant struggles in Tambov and elsewhere, while Lenin was the Communist dictator in Russia. The Mappila rebellion was directed by the Muslim fanatic clerics, waged as a Jihad. This is evident in the official history written by R H Hitchcock, the Superintendent of Police in south Malabar in 1921. His work titled A History of the Malabar Rebellion 1921 has been published by a modern researcher with the misleading title, Peasant Revolt in Malabar: A History of the Malabar Rebellion 1921. Hitchcock has not termed it as a peasant revolt. He wrote it to prove that the rebellion had been religious fanaticism. But peasant revolts have a market in modern research. Hence the modern European interest in the Mappila rebellion.

Abani Mukherjee, a member of the Soviet Communist Party had given a note during the rebellion to Lenin, interpreting it as a class war. Modern European historians like Conrad Wood followed the hint and Indian Marxist historians like K. M. Panicker followed suit. The Muslim fundamentalists and Jihadists became very happy, and theses on the rebellion flourished. The Muslim gangsters and Jihadist clerics of 1921 have become Marxists now. The Marxists in Kerala recognized the Jihad as a freedom struggle, betrayed the Hindus and they rewarded the Jihadists with titles, rewards, and pensions.

Even the old Mappila outbreaks were fanatic in nature. According to British records, the excitement in the Muslim world over two events outside Malabar aided the spirit of unrest among the Mappilas: The state of Sudan in 1884 and that of Turkey in 1896. Sudan and Yemen are neighbouring countries, divided by the Red Sea. Yemen of course was the motherland of the Jihadists Mambram Alavi Thangal and his son Fazal Pookkoya Thangal, religious leaders of the Malabar Mappilas. The Mahdi revolution in Sudan was a Jihad against the British rule, and the communists were interested in that-the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels had been published in 1848, and the Paris Commune had happened in 1871. The Mahdist Revolution was an Islamic revolt against the westernised Egyptian government in Sudan. An apocalyptic branch of Islam, Mahdism incorporated the idea of a golden age in which the Mahdi, translated as “the guided one,” would restore the glory of Islam to the earth.

Turkey in 1896, through the Hamidian massacres, showed the way for the genocide of Christians by Muslims. Between 1894 and 1924, the number of Christians in Asia Minor fell from some 3-4 million to just tens of thousands—from 20% of the area’s population to under 2%. Turkey has long attributed this decline to wars and the general chaos of the period, which claimed many Muslim lives as well. But the descendants of Turkey’s Christians, many of them dispersed around the world since the 1920s, maintain that the Turks murdered about half of their forebears and expelled the rest. Turkey’s Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian (or Syriac) communities disappeared as a result of a staggering campaign of genocide beginning in 1894, perpetrated against them by their Muslim neighbours. By 1924, the Christian communities of Turkey and its adjacent territories had been destroyed. The systematic Armenian genocide happened during 1914-1916 in which 1.2 million Armenians were massacred.

This Armenian genocide became the guiding force for the Mappilas, driven by pan-Islamic forces. Mysterious people like the Lawrence of Arabia landed in Malabar. The Khilafat struggle, promoted by Gandhi came in handy for the extremist Islamic forces and the Congress in Malabar fell into extremist hands. M P Narayana Menon, a close friend of K Madhavan Nair dressed like a Mappila and addressed them in mosques. Former dacoits like Variyankunnath Haji found themselves in exalted positions. A Jihad was declared against the British; there was talk of an Afghan invasion of India and Mappilas were led to believe that the British have been defeated in the World War. A temporary Khilafat kingdom was established by Ali Musaliyar, where Sharia laws alone prevailed. A lot of Hindus, belonging to the proletariat were massacred. Hindu priests were attacked and temples desecrated.

I have tried in this book to go deep into the roots of the Mappila and the advent of Islam in Malabar; it is evident from records that Jihadi texts existed in Malabar from the Portuguese period onwards. This inner stream of Jihad was at work in 1921. It is important to understand this inner meaning to comprehend the true history of the rebellion.

© Ramachandran 

MASSACRE AT NILAMBUR PALACE

Jihad and Genocide in Malabar

Ramachandran

31. One Blind Woman Too Cut Down

The Nilambur Kingdom was a former feudal city-state in present-day Kerala, situated near the Nilgiri range of the Western Ghats. It was ruled by Samantha Kshatriyas who were the vassals of the Zamorins of Calicut, with the capital located 25 kilometres north of Manjeri in Malappuram. Nilambur Kovilakam (palace) and Vettakkorumakan Temple are situated on the banks of the Chaliyar river and Nilambur is known for its unique teak plantations. The Nilambur – Shornur Railway Line was built by the British to carry wood and other products from these forests to the outside world. During the Mysore invasion, the dynastic rule came to an end.

On the night of 20 August 200-300 Mappilas in Pookkottur, with men from Melmuri, started for Nilambur.On their way, they looted the Edavanna Police outpost wounding the Thiya sentry with swords. At Nilambur, they uttered a Kootta Bank at the junction of the Kovilakam road with the main road and with the local Mappila Sub Inspector who joined them, they turned to the Kovilakam. They were opposed by the Hindu watchmen who fired on them; in retaliation, the Mappilas murdered 16 persons including two women, one of whom was blind. They broke into the Kovilakam and did enormous damage.

The group of rioters was not recognized by the residents of the Kovilakam for some time as the rebel convoy looked like a procession. The mob was attacked by Veluthedan Narayanan, a velichappad ( oracle ) of the Kovilakam Vettakkoru Makan temple (whose family still stays near the Kovilakam) and slashed several rebels in a frenzy and in turn was hacked to death. The rioters damaged the front door, but could not enter the Kovilakam.

Another group ran to the river and killed two women who were bathing. One woman pleaded for her small child who was sitting on a nearby rock.

An attempt on the temple was made through the Oottupura (dining hall) but the rebels could not enter the inner chamber as they were ignorant of the layout.

The Kovilakam women waited upstairs with boiling oil for pouring on the rebels and the men were below with guns. The rebel attack was repulsed. Subsequently, the family went to the jungle and suffered great hardship. A child was also born among the refugees during this flight. The refugees finally made their escape using covered boats down the Chaliyar. They arrived at Calicut on the morning of 21 September 1921.

In Nilambur, the Mappila population was largely a floating one, gathered from all over Eranad by the timber trade. There were men from Pookkottur, Tirurangadi and Melmuri and when the mob arrived, they found willing helpers among them, like Manjeri Moidu Haji, Kulappetta Rayan and Nalakath Moosa of Tirurangadi. It was local Mappila Karappan Unni Assan who assumed command for the time being. They felled the trees and damaged the bridge.

Nilambur Palace

The gang was fed by the District Forest Officer Chandy, who returned from the Karimpuzha bridge on 21 August, but on 22, they commenced looting and on 23, they looted and burnt forest buildings at Nilambur and Nedumkayam. Chandy and his family were captured at Nedumkayam. Kuttumunda Pokkar Muslaiyar ordered their murder to prevent them from helping the troops, but the general view was for converting them to Islam. With the help of Mambat Mappilas, they escaped to Mambat on the 26th and left by boat to Calicut on the 30th, when Variyankunnath Kunjahammad Haji was hunting for them.

The massacre from Madras Mail, 17 September 1921:

The Sack 0f Nilambur

Nilambur is the Headquarters of the wealthy and aristocratic family of Thacharakavil Tirumulpad, a ruling chief in the ancient days. At 8 am on Sunday, August 1921, at which hour most of the Kovilakam guards were away, the Moplahs of Pookottur arrived in a very large body, armed with guns, swords and war knives and rushed to the palace gate. The small palace guard offered but feeble resistance. One of the men, a washerman by caste, fired on the Moplahs killing one man. He cut another Moplah down, but he was soon overpowered by the Moplahs who hacked him to pieces. The rest of the guards escaped into an adjoining house but the Moplahs pursued and butchered all the inmates including two women and a child. Seventeen persons were killed and two dangerously wounded in this house. In the meanwhile, members of the Nilambur family took shelter and shut themselves inside the ladies' palace, with the exception of Elaya Tirumulpad who stayed in his own bungalow with his family. The majority of the rebels went into the Senior Tirumulpad's palace and destroyed everything they found there. Property worth Rs. 35,000 was destroyed besides the records for 8 years which were burnt. While the bulk of the rebels were engaged in this direction, a large mob rushed towards the ladies' palace, where men, women, children, servants and attendants numbering about 150 souls had locked themselves in. Half a dozen doors were broken open by the rebels, and at last, they reached the door of the building in which women and children had taken shelter. Meanwhile, a rebel messenger came with some message which caused the gang to leave the ladies' palace and rush off to that portion of the palace which was being destroyed. After completing the work of destruction they went off in the direction of Pookottur, shouting and telling Nilambur people that they would return to Kovilakam after looting the Manjeri treasury. The whole of the family and servants were sent to the other side of the river into the forest. On the following day there was general looting and plunder all over the place and with the exception of the Kovilakam and about a hundred houses which were guarded, all the neighbourhood was looted.

A Mappila, Pannippara Unni Mammad was sentenced to be hanged in the case related to the murder of the blind woman Nani Amma at Nilambur Kovilakam on 21 August.The judgement by Senior Special Judge G H B Jackson on 30 October 1922 ( Case no 176 / 1922 ) described the event thus:

When the Mappila outbreak was imminent the Kovilakam or Palace authorities at Nilambur appointed a guard, the efficiency of whom may be gauged by the fact that its "arms were locked up at night lest they should be stolen while the watch slept".Two of its members Appunni and Sankunni Nair, servants of the Palace, were in the gateway about 8.30 am on 21 August 1921. A hundred Mappilas suddenly arrived, and they ran around the western wing and tried to hide. Two Mappilas, Pannippara unni Mammad and another attacked them with swords and then rejoined the main body which was proceeding to the Palace itself. A blind woman Nani Amma was in her yard west of the path and Unni Mammad cut her down. Appunni described this to Adhikari A Govindan Kutty Nair that afternoon.

Two more guards Krishnan Nair and Narayanan Nair were in the upper storey of the gatehouse. They looked through the window and saw Unni Mammad kill Nani Amma and the Mappilas cutting down whoever they saw. Krishnan Nair said that there was, and Narayanan Nair that there was not a trap door. Appunni saw Nani Amma's dead body with six cuts on it and fifteen other corpses.

On 20 August, at about 10 am, Muhammad Abdur Rahman, secretary of the Kerala Provincial Khilafat Committee with Moidu Moulavi and Moitheen Koya turned up at Pookkouutr. None of them were natives of Eranad or acquainted with it in any way. Rahiman was only 23; he was born in Azhikode, Kodungallur in 1898 in the Kingdom of Cochin. He completed his schooling at Vaniyambadi and Calicut. He attended college at Madras and Aligarh but discontinued his studies at Aligarh University to participate in the Non-cooperation movement and Khilafat movement in Malabar. When it was known in the morning that the Magistrate had taken out a force, Rahiman and others thought that Pookkottur was his objective and hence they reached there. They wired to their Calicut members via Manjeri that there was no trouble in Pookkottur. After sending the wire, Papadakaran Athan Kutti turned up from Tirurangadi with the story of the attack on the mosque, to get help from Pookkottur, and said that Melmuri Mappilas too have been invited. Karat Moideen Kutti Haji left for Melmuri-the Melmuri Mappilas then left for Nilambur to do the brutal murders.

Rahman went to Manjeri to fetch K Madhavan Nair. He came and spoke to the Pookkottur Mappilas; while he was speaking, another message from Tirurangadi came that the mosque had been destroyed and several people killed. At once, Madhavan Nair and his fled back to Calicut. But the Pookkottur Mappilas didn't go to Tirurangadi. Vadakkeveettil Mammad saw that the opportune moment has arrived for him to take revenge on the Kovilakam, and he despatched the Mappilas to Nilambur.

Nilambur Palace

The Judgement transporting M P Narayana Menon to life ( Case no 128 / 1922 ) by E Pakenham Walsh, Special Judge records that Menon met the Pookkottur murder squad on their return. From the judgement:

One does not expect, and it would be out of place in a case of this sort for the defence to prove by specific evidence what it considers to be the causes of the rebellion, but one might expect the protagonist K Madhavan Nair, who is put forward on the defence side, to have formed his conclusions after some investigation. Instead of which he implicitly believes whatever is told him if it is to the discredit of the Government or the police without making the smallest enquiry of eyewitnesses and in many cases not troubling to know the names of the aggrieved persons or even the circumstances attending their grievances. For one incident, and it is a remarkable and instructive one, besides being closely connected with a specific charge in this case, he is good enough not to blame the Government as having given the provocation, and that is the massacre of 17 Hindus at Nilambur on the night of the 20 August, (the day the rebellion broke out) by a gang from Pookkottur. This one fact, occurring when it did is sufficient, to show that what had been so recklessly roused in the Mappilas was their religious fanaticism and both this incident and further incidents of the same sort which characterised the rebellion show that the rebel Mappila drew very little distinction, in fact none, between his hatred of the Government and his hatred of any Hindu who would not embrace the Muslim religion. It is very significant that these Pookkottur people should on the very first day of the rebellion have attacked not Government servants or the police (the policeman they killed at Edavanna cannot be regarded as more than incidental to the general massacre) but their countrymen the Hindus. They appeared to have understood Hindu-Muslim unity as either the elimination of the Hindu by slaying him or his forcible conversion to their own religion. All this is perfectly compatible with the idea of setting up a Khilafat kingdom, but it is not compatible with the rising solely caused by the provocation of the Government.

M P Narayana Menon, on 21 August 1921, near Manjeri, met the rebel Mappilas of Pookkottur who were returning from their murders at Nilambur under the leadership of Abdu Haji and addressed them:" They ( the Nilambur Thampuran ) ought to have been done to death because they are against Congress and Khilafat. We will have an opportunity again for it. Don't be sorry that the boys have been wounded. We must fight in right earnest. If you die you will go to heaven. If you win you get the country. You must reserve ammunition and powder. They should not be wasted as they are essential for attacking the soldiers. Swords and sticks will not be sufficient to attack our countrymen who are against Khilafat".

The Judgement records that this speech of Menon was at about 3 pm, congratulating the Mappilas on their massacre at Nilambur. The witness to this was P Aliyammu,a Mappila cultivator of Karuvampuram about a mile from Manjeri. He said on his way to his farm that afternoon, he met Menon and one Ladakkaran Aidru Haji. They were going along the road leading to Nilambur and Areekode. He joined them half a furlong this side of Areekode road. He asked Menon where he was going and Menon replied:"Some of our Khilafat men belonging to Pookkottur have gone to Nilambur. I heard that they were returning and I am going to see their return."

They reached a junction, Nelliparamb, of three roads where Aliyammu should turn to his farm. Menon asked him: "How is it you Manjeri don't help the Khilafat?"

Aliyammu replied that they had no strength and knowledge to do so. Then Aidru Haji said: "There come our men."

Aliyammu saw a crowd of about 100 Mappilas coming from the north to the south along the road from Nilambur. They were armed with guns, swords, spears and dagger knives. Aliyammu knew two in the crowd, Kollarambath Abdu Haji and Kundotti Paramban Mammutti.When the mob got about 25 feet distance, Menon took off his cap and held it raised over his head and shook hands with Abdu Haji. The Mappilas presented arms to Menon. He asked Abdu Haji: "What is the news of your Nilambur trip?'

Abdu Haji replied: "About 17 men have been killed and much property destroyed, property of the Nilambur Thampurans."

Menon asked: "How many Nilambur Tirumulpads have been killed?"

Haji replied: "None of them have been killed but there was firing at the gatehouse and they might have run away hearing the noise. I did not see them anywhere there."

Then Menon made the speech. Then the gang left the place for the south reciting Takbir. Aliyammu stood there until they were lost to sight.

Rajendra Varma, a professor of English and grandson of the Manavedan Raja of Nailambur palace says that no records exist of the killing of the 16 people at the palace now. ( 1)The Valiya Thamburatti ( queen ) had gone to pray at the Vettakkoru Makan temple of the palace when the Mappilas arrived at the palace. The news of the massacre reached the chief priest (Melsanthi ) and he locked up the queen to safety in the kitchen adjoining the temple and she hid inside a chempu or large vessel. She prayed to God to rescue the country from the brutal forces.

Vettakkorumakan Temple,Nilambur

Vadakkeveetil Muhammad, Varma says had restrained the Mappilas from committing the crime at the palace, and hence a different gang took up the mission. The Sixth Tirumulpad with whom he had an issue, was at the Subrahmanya temple at Karikkad at that time, and he hid himself in the attic of the temple. The mob entered the Kovilakathumuri, the quarters of employees of the palace, not the palace proper. A woman who was nithyavella, ie, a washerwoman was also killed near the river. She was carrying her baby in her hands. The baby was adopted by the Raja and brought up in the palace and married off.

Guruvayur Kesavan

The Nilambur royal family fled and lived in two places: the Panniyankara palace of the Zamorin in Calicut and the Sakthan Thampuran palace at Trichur. Manavikraman Thirumulpad, the then chief of the Nilambur family died there; since it was the custom then to light the funeral pyre in one's own palace ground, a 6x 4 feet ground was bought in the Trichur palace compound for the last rites. The grave is still there and researchers have a tendency to term it as the grave of a Zamorin family member. 

The Nilambur family stayed there for a year and the expense incurred by the Cochin palace was Rs 100,000. The Cochin king, Rama Varma XVI (1914-1932), who is known as Madrasil Theepetta Thampuran, the king who died in Madras, was proficient in the treatment for snake bites, and he was a Guru in this for Manavikraman. Though he was willing to write off the expense, Manavedan, who ascended the throne after the rebellion, decided to pay, by the sale of the elephants. The Nilambur palace had about 75 elephants, and an auction was held at the Thekkinkad grounds at Trichur.

Manavedan's sister, the queen, had taken a vow while at Trichur to offer an elephant to Guruvayurappan if calm prevails by God's interference. After returning to Nilambur, she revealed her desire to the new king and requested him to offer an elephant, which is of no use to them. The Raja, who had studied Matanga Leela, the treatise in Sanskrit dealing with the life and behaviour of elephants, told her that an offering to God should be perfect. He selected a young elephant of 17 years called Everest, with perfect features. The palace had elephants named David, George etc for the ride of Europeans. Everest walked all the way to Guruvayur with mahouts, and it surrendered at the feet of Guruvayurappan, on 4 January 1922 in a ritual offering, nadayiruthal. Thus, it became a temple elephant. Manavedan Raja bought a paddy field from the Kunnathur palace and donated it to the Guruvayur Devaswom, to meet the expenses of Everest.

Guruvayur Kesavan

After a couple of months, the authorities from Guruvayur came to Nilambur, to request the Raja to give Everest a Hindu name. He left the task to the temple authorities. A delegation from Nilambur followed to take part in the renaming ceremony. It was renamed Kesavan-the legendary elephant Guruvayur Kesavan. That the elephant is a living monument of 1921 is not known to the public. Gajarajan Guruvayur Kesavan (1904— 1976) is the most famous and celebrated temple elephant in India. Standing over 3.2 meters tall, known for his devout behaviour, Kesavan died on 2 December 1976, aged 72, which happened to be Guruvayur Ekadasi, considered a very auspicious day. He fasted for the entire day and dropped down facing the direction of the temple with his trunk raised as a mark of prostration.

The Guruvayur Devaswom erected a life-size statue of Kesavan in its precincts as a tribute to the services he rendered to the presiding deity of the temple. Its tusks, along with a majestic portrait of the elephant, can be still seen adorning the entrance to the main temple enclosure. Its life is the subject of the 1977 Malayalam feature film Guruvayur Kesavan, released the year after his death.

In a settlement of palace properties some ten years ago, the Pookkottur palace was given to Udaya Varma, whose descendants sold it to a Muslim. It was pulled down.

Towards the end of the rebellion, the queen of Nilambur on behalf of the hundreds of Malabar Hindu women wrote a letter to Lady Reading, the wife of the then-Indian Viceroy, Lord Reading that unravelled the ghastly genocide by the Mappilas ( 2 ). Here’s the text:

Petition of Malabar Ladies to Lady Reading

To
Her Gracious Excellency
THE COUNTESS OF READING,
Delhi.

The humble memorial of the bereaved and sorrow-stricken women of Malabar
May it please your gracious and compassionate Ladyship?

1. 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 succour.

2. 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 appraised 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 {140}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.

The wells full of rotting skeletons, the ruins which once were our dear homes, the heaps of stones which once were our places of worship—these are still here to attest to the truth. The cries of our murdered children in their death agonies are still ringing in our ears and will continue to haunt our memory till death brings us peace. We remember how driven out of our native hamlets we wandered starving and naked in the jungles and forests; we remember how we choked and stifled our babies' cries lest the sound should betray our hiding places to our relentless pursuers. We still vividly realise the moral and spiritual agony that thousand of us passed through when we were forcibly converted into the faith professed by these bloodthirsty miscreants; we still have before us the sight of the unendurable and life-long misery of those—fortunately, few—of our most unhappy sisters who born and brought up in respectable families have been forcibly converted and then married to convict coolies. For five long months, not a day has passed without its dread tale of horror to unfold.

Lady Reading

3. Your gracious Ladyship's distracted memorialists have endeavoured without exaggeration, without setting down aught in malice to convey at least some idea of the indescribably terrible agonies which they and thousands more of their sisters have been enduring for over five months now through this reign of inhuman frightfulness inaugurated and carried on in the name of the Khilafat. We have briefly referred without going into their harrowing details to our heartrending tale of dishonour, outrage, rapine, and desolation. But if the past has been one of pain and anguish, the future is full of dread and gloom. We have to return to a ruined and desolate land. Our houses have been burnt or destroyed; many of our breadwinners killed; all our property looted; our cattle slaughtered. Repatriation without compensation means for our ruin, beggary, and starvation. Will not the benign Government come to our aid and give us something to help us to begin life anew? We are now asked to settle down as paupers in the midst of the execrable fiends who robbed, insulted and murdered our loved ones—veritable demons such as hell itself could not let loose. Many of us shrink from the idea of going back to what is left of our homes; for though the armed bands and rebels have been dispersed the rebellion cannot be said to be entirely quelled. It is like a venomous serpent whose spine has been partly broken, but whose poison fangs are still intact and whose striking power, if diminished, has not been destroyed. A few thousand of rebels have been killed and a few more thousands have been imprisoned, but as the Government are only too well aware many more thousands of rebels, looters, savagely militant evangelists and other inhuman monsters yet remain at large, a few in concealment, but most, moving about with arrogance openly threatening reprisals on all non-Muslims who dare to return and resume possession of their property. Many refugees who went back have paid for their temerity with their lives. In fact, repatriation, if it is not to be a leap from the frying pan into the fire, must mean for the vast bulk of your Ladyship's impoverished and helpless memorialists and their families a hard inexorable problem of financial help, and adequate protection against renewed hellish outrages from which immunity would be utterly impossible as long as thousands of men and even women and children of this semi-savage and fanatical race in whom the worst instinct of earth hunger, blood-lust and rapine have been awakened to fierce activity are free to prey upon their peaceable and inoffensive neighbours who—let it be most respectfully emphasised—because of their implicit trust in the power and the will of a just and benign Government to protect them, had suffered their own art and capacity for self defence to emasculate and decay.

4. We, Your Ladyship's humble and sorrow-stricken memorialists do not seek vengeance. Our misery will not be rendered less by inflicting similar misery upon this barbarous and savage race; our dead will not return to us if their slayers are slaughtered. We would not be human, however, if we could ever forget the cruel and shameful outrages and indignities perpetrated upon us by a race to whom we have always endeavoured to be friendly and neighbourly; we would be hypocritical if, robbed of all our possessions we did not plead for some measure of compensation to help us out of the pauperism now forced upon us; we would be imbecile if knowing the ungovernable, anti-social propensities and the deadly religious fanaticism of the Moplah race we did not entreat the just and powerful government to protect the lives and honour of your humble sisters who have to live in the rebel-ravaged zone. Our ambition after all is low enough; sufficient compensation to save us and our children from starvation, and enough military protection against massacre and outrage are all that we want. We beseech Your Compassionate Ladyship to exercise all the benevolent influence that You possess with the government to see that our humble prayers are granted. But if the benign Government does not consider it possible to compensate us and to protect us in our native land we would most fervently pray that free grants of land may be assigned to us in some neighbouring region which though less blessed with the lavish gifts of nature may also be less cursed by the cruelty and brutality of man.

We beg to remain,

Your Ladyship's most humble

and obedient servants.

___________________________________________

1. Interview with Rajendra Varma, by the author on 2 March 2021

2. Alice Edith Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, (née Cohen; c. 1866 –  1930), also known as Dame Alice Reading, was the first wife of Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, and a prominent philanthropist in colonial India.

She was born in London, the third daughter of Albert Cohen, a merchant in the City of London, and his wife, Elizabeth. She married Rufus Isaacs, then a newly qualified barrister, on 8 December 1887. He had considered being a stockbroker but his wife encouraged him to pursue a career in law. He was ultimately Solicitor-General, Attorney-General and Lord Chief Justice.

Her title successively changed from Mrs Isaacs to Lady Isaacs on her husband's knighthood in 1910, Baroness Reading on his ennoblement in 1914, Viscountess Reading in 1916, the Countess of Reading in 1917, and finally the Marchioness of Reading in 1926.

In 1921, Lord Reading was appointed Viceroy of India. He was reluctant to accept, as his wife's health was delicate, but she persuaded him. She accompanied him to India and, despite continuing poor health, served prominently as Viceregal Consort. She also threw herself into charitable work, particularly with Indian women and children. She established the Women of India Fund in 1921 and National Baby Week in 1923, as well as supporting many existing charities. In 1926 she campaigned to construct a standard hospital in Peshawar, in place of Agerton Hospital. The new hospital was subsequently named Lady Reading Hospital. Later, upon the retirement of her husband in 1926, they returned to England.

She was awarded the Kaiser-i-Hind Medal in gold in 1924. She died of cancer in 1930, aged 64.

© Ramachandran 

ഗാന്ധി കാണാത്ത മാപ്പിള ലഹള ഇറങ്ങി

 ഗാന്ധി കാണാത്ത മാപ്പിള ലഹള

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TIPU SULTAN DEFEATED AT ALUVA

Jihad and Genocide in Malabar

Ramachandran

14. Astrologers Played with his Mind

The defeat at Nedumkotta in Travancore made the superstitious Tipu Sultan consult more astrologers and diviners, since a danger to his life soon, had been predicted. He was defeated by the Travancore forces when he broke the Nedumkotta lines and reached the mouth of the Periyar River at Aluva (Alwaye).

The Marxist and Islamic historians have tried to paint Tipu as a secular Sultan by dropping the names of certain Hindu officials of Tipu. It was difficult for him to get learned Muslims for such jobs; Tipu also began appeasing Hindus, after his debacle at Nedumkotta. Thus the Mysore temples and the Sringeri Mutt got grants and lands. Brahmin astrologers had told him that he would be a Badusha if he won the battle with the British. His high officials like Poornaiah and Madanna got those seats not because of secularism, but out of Tipu's superstition.

Lewis Rice who wrote History of Mysore after going through various official records satiated thus:

" In the vast empire of Tipu Sultan, on the eve of his death, there were only two Hindu temples having daily pujas within the Srirangapatanam fortress. It is only for the satisfaction of Brahmin astrologers who used to study his horoscope that Tipu Sultan had spared those two temples. The entire wealth of every Hindu temple was confiscated before 1790 itself mainly to make up for the revenue loss due to total prohibition in the country."

If Karthika Thirunal Ramavarma, popularly known as Dharmaraja (1724-1798) of Travancore was not there, the Hindus of Malabar would have faced a total genocide; Malabar would have been an Islamic country. Dharmaraja gave asylum and protected the Hindus who had fled Malabar during the invasion of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan.

Since Tipu's defeat has been subdued in the pseudo-secular historical sphere, it has to be retold. When Tipu's invasion was looming large on the horizon, Dharmaraja removed the Paravur, and Alangad princes and bought their principalities. He bought Kodungallur and Pallipuram forts from the Zamorin. He sent the powerful Dewan Ayyappan Marthandan Pillai and the armed forces Commander Eustachius De Lannoy to Cochin and built the 48-kilometre-long Nedumkotta, from Kodungallur to Anamala, to block Tipu from entering Travancore. Tipu was defeated at Alwaye, without any help from the nearby Kochi king.

Srirangapatanam Fort

Kochi had become a vassal of Tipu, by paying an annual tribute. Dharmaraja got a lover from the Zamorin family, which had fled Malabar: the Sanskrit scholar Manorama Thampuratty, who had been a guru to even Nambudiri males.

Dharmaraja had ascended the throne after the death of his uncle Marthanda Varma, in 1758. He had a Malabar connection and was the son of the princess of Kolathunadu, who was adopted to Attingal in 1718. While he became the king, the threat of the Ettuveettil nobles and Kayamkulam king was at its peak. When Dharmaraja was just four years old, his father, Kilimanur Keralavarma had been killed in an attempt by the Kayamkulam king. Dharmaraja had to flee from Haripad to Budhanur Brahmin ruler, Vanjipuzha Adhikari.

Travancore's story as a powerful Hindu kingdom began with Marthanda Varma, who inherited the kingdom of Venad (Thrippappur) and extended it to Travancore during his reign (1729–58). After defeating a union of feudal lords and establishing internal peace, he expanded the kingdom of Venad through a series of military campaigns from Kanyakumari in the south to the borders of Kochi in the north during his 29-year reign. This led to the Travancore-Dutch War (1739-1753) between the Dutch East India Company which had become an ally of some of these kingdoms and Travancore.

In 1741 Travancore won the Battle of Colachel against the Dutch East India Company, which resulted in a complete eclipse of Dutch power in the region. In this battle, the admiral of the Dutch, Eustachius De Lannoy, was captured and the Dutch dismissed him to Travancore. De Lannoy was named Captain of Travancore Raja's bodyguard and later Senior Admiral ("Valiya Captain") and he modernized the Travancore Army by introducing firearms and artillery. Travancore became the most dominant state in Kerala by defeating the mighty Zamorin in the Battle of Purakkad in 1755. Ramayyan Dalawa, the Prime Minister (1737–1756) of Marthanda Varma, played an important role in the consolidation and expansion.

At the battle of Ambalapuzha, Marthanda Varma defeated the union of the kings deposed and the king of Cochin.

Consolidation

After Marthanda Varma consolidated his position, neighbouring countries tried for a treaty. From 1755 onwards, a part of Kochi was with Marthanda Varma. Though Varma signed a treaty with Kochi in 1756, he refrained from helping Kochi, which was under Dutch Suzerainty. The barons of Kochi were under Zamorin's henchmen. The Dutch ditched Kochi when the Zamorin promised to cede Chettuva, which he had seized from the Dutch earlier.

The Kochi king met Dharmaraja and begged him to have an alliance, with Hindus. A treaty was signed between them, in 1761, at the Sthanu Murthy Temple at Sucheendram, in the presence of Hindu religious leaders. Then, Dharmaraja gave orders to Ayyappan Marthandan Pillai and de Lanoy to rescue Kochi from the clutches of Zamorin.

When Pillai's army reached Paravur, the Paravur ruler fled first to Kodungallur and then to Mapranam, near Irinjalakuda.The Kochi army consisted of Nairs from Kavalappara and Perattuvithi. The Zamorin force was routed at Mapranam and they retreated to Trichur. From there, they went back to Kunnamkulam, and Chelakkara camps.

De Lannoy confronted the Zamorin forces at Kodungallur. It fled to Trichur via Chettuva and Enamakkal Lannoy joined with Pillai's force and they together reached Chelakkara. They defeated the Zamorin force, which then crossed the northern border and fled. When the Travancore force reached Kunnamkulam, the Zamorin army there, retreated to Ponnani.The Zamorin yielded to the pressure for a treaty when De Lannoy decided to march to Calicut. The Zamorin went all the way to Padmanabhapuram to sign the treaty; it was decided that Zamorin pay Rs 1.5 Lakh as war expenses. Paravur and Alangad rulers were retired and the principalities were amalgamated into Travancore.

Then began the building of Nedumkotta or the Big Fort.

The idea to build the fort was one Marthanda Varma nurtured. Varma had deliberately left Kochi without conquering, it as a buffer zone, between Travancore and Malabar, according to Dutch documents.

The Dutch began to spy for Travancore when they were defeated at the Colachal battle. They didn't allow a safe passage for Hyder Ali to Travancore when it was asked for. Hyder demanded war expenses from Kochi and Travancore, alleging that giving asylum to his enemies was an act of war. He died without fulfilling his wish to conquer both Kochi and Travancore.

Hyder had sent epistles to Cochin and Travancore through the Dutch Commissioners and demanded acknowledgement of his suzerainty. The Dutch were successful in concluding an accord with Hyder not to molest Cochin on the condition of paying two lakhs of rupees and eight elephants. The Raja of Cochin accepted the suzerainty of Hyder. But Travancore Raja objected on the ground that he was already a tributary to Arcot Nawab Muhammad Ali and he could not afford to subsidize two suzerains at a time. At the same time, Travancore feared an attack from Hyder. This was reported by the Raja of Travancore to the Governor of Bombay, Charles Crommelin. He gave expression to the fear "Hyder Ali may attack my kingdom also and my reliance is entirely on the ancient friendship with the Company, to them I will transfer 3000 candies of pepper […] on condition that the English Company will supply me with money and warlike stores and that the Company will defend my kingdom at my expense". (1)

Since Travancore resisted his conditions, Hyder wanted to invade that territory. However, the monsoon that had set in by that time on the Malabar Coast averted his plan to attack Travancore.

March to Malabar

Revolts began in 1788 in Tipu's vassal states. Tipu marched to Malabar and Coorg to confront it. Hindus were forcibly taken en masse to Srirangapatnam and converted to Islam. Hindus including the Zamorin family and Christians fled Malabar.Tipu asked Kochi to claim Paravur and Alangad.Kochi king delayed by saying he would try to persuade the Travancore king to become a vassal of Tipu. Tipu sent his messengers to Travancore, with a Khareeda. Travancore King received them in the presence of the East India Company. Tipu saw the presence of the British as an insult; he led his army in 1789 to Kochi, alleging, that the building of the Nedumkotta in his vassal state was illegal. He could not cross into Travancore.

The strength of the Travancore Nair Army was greatly reduced after several earlier battles with Hyder Ali's forces. The death of the Dutch-born commander De Lannoy in 1777 further diminished the morale of the soldiers. The death of Makayiram Thirunal and Aswati Thirunal in 1786 forced the Travancore royal family to adopt two princesses from Kolathunad. As the threat of an invasion by Tipu Sultan loomed large, Dharma Raja tried to rebuild his army by appointing Raman Pillai as the Dalawa (Dewan) and Kesava Pillai as the Sarvadhikaryakkar.

Tipu had planned the invasion of Travancore for many years, and he was especially concerned with the Nedumkotta fortifications, which had prevented his father Hyder Ali from annexing the kingdom.

But the situation changed very much in favour of Rama Varma Dharmaraja when he was included by the British ‘as a friend and ally’ of the Company in the Treaty of Mangalore, after the Second Anglo-Mysore War. As a shrewd politician, Tipu quickly adjusted himself to the altered situation. Instead of an aggressive policy of ‘demanding vassalage’ from Travancore, as Hyder Ali did, Tipu’s policy was to appease the Travancore Raja and win him over by settling peacefully the outstanding disputes with him. Quoting Tipu’s letter to Rama Varma, Islamic historian C K Kareem comments: "The request here was for alliance and not for vassalage, clearly unfolds the shift of Mysorean policy".On the other hand, Rama Varma who was confident of ‘English support’ not only ignored the friendly overtures of Tipu but also continued his hostile activities breaking there by the provisions of the Treaty of Mangalore, to which he was also one of the signatories.

Dispute over Nedumkotta

A dispute arose between Tipu and Travancore Raja with respect to the strengthening of defensive lines by Travancore at Travancore – Cochin boundary by the Nedumkotta. Rama Varma extended the Travancore Lines through the territory of Raja of Cochin up to the Fort of Cranganore, thus cutting the small Kingdom of Cochin into two unequal divisions. Tipu demanded the demolition of these lines as they sheltered the hostile elements from Mysore and moreover, Cochin was his vassal state. The Raja refused to demolish them and it became a serious point of dispute. Tipu asserted his right to remove them as these lines stood in the territory of his tributary, the Raja of Cochin; and the Travancore Raja felt justified in not removing them as they had existed long before Cochin had passed under Tipu’s suzerainty. Tipu was already furious by the asylum provided by Travancore Raja to the fugitive chieftains of Malabar and his secret aids in encouraging the rebellious elements in Malabar. Apart from the question of lines, the purchasing of the two Dutch forts, Cranganore and Ayikotta, by the Raja added fuel to the fire. Ayikotta was a military post on the northern extremity of the narrow island of Vypin on the Malabar Coast and Cranganore about two miles from Ayikotta. Travancore Raja's purchase of these two places became the ultimate cause of the Third Anglo-Mysore War.

Towards the end of 1789, Tipu Sultan marched his troops from Coimbatore. Tipu's army consisted of 20,000 infantry, 10,000 spearmen and match-lockmen, 5,000 cavalry and 20 field guns.

Travancore purchased the strategic forts of Cranganore and Ayacottah from the Dutch to improve the country's defences. The deal was finalized by Dewan Kesava Pillai and three Jewish merchants under the instruction of Dharma Raja and Dutch East India Company Governor John Gerard van Anglebeck. Travancore also held a treaty with the British East India Company, under whose terms two battalions of the Company army were stationed at the Travancore-Cochin frontier. Both Tipu Sultan and Governor John Holland of Madras objected to these purchases because the forts, though they had long been in Dutch possession, were in the Kingdom of Cochin, which was a tributary state of Mysore.

Both Cranganore and Ayikottah were strategic places coveted by both the Raja and Tipu. It was Tipu who initiated the negotiation with the Dutch for the sale of these places and when they were about to close the deal, the Travancore Raja intervened. The British Madras Government also did not encourage the Raja to purchase them, as it would lead to unnecessary complications. Despite the warning, the Raja proceeded to acquire these places without consulting the Company any further in the matter. On 31 July 1789, the sale was effected, but the English were unaware of these transactions until August 17 when George Powney, the Resident at Travancore, wrote to Holland, the Governor of Madras. The forts were sold for three lakh Surat silver rupees. The Jewish merchants David Rahaboy, Euphram Cohen and Anta Setty acted as sureties of the debt. The Dutch preferred the Travancore Raja to Tipu for the sale, because the Dutch relations with Tipu were not happy. The Jewish merchants in the area, who were highly influential, felt that their trade would be in danger if Tipu were to acquire these places.

The Raja, the Dutch and the Jewish merchants all found themselves in dread of Tipu. The Raja of Cochin indirectly supported this deal, though he pretended to be on Tipu’s side. C K Kareem guesses: "The Cochin Raja wanted to be free from the vassalage at the earliest opportunity as any other ruler would desire. Therefore, his relation was always shady and full of intrigue."

But in the Cochin State Manual, C Achutha Menon sets down the reason for Cochin Raja's antagonism towards Tipu: "With all this, his subjection to a Mohammedan usurper of Mysore was felt as an irksome burden by Cochin".

In his correspondence with the governor–general and Governor of Madras, the Travancore Raja openly admitted that he had his negotiations with the English and had purchased these forts from the Dutch with the knowledge of the Company. George Powney, the Resident of Travancore, was censured by Lord Cornwallis for his unjustifiable conduct in conniving with the Raja in these transactions. (2).

Nedumkotta Battle

Although Tipu was enraged by the sale, he waited for five months, hoping that the English might solve the dispute amicably. The Madras Government was anxious not to offer Tipu any excuse for war, but Cornwallis gradually changed his policy. When nothing happened for five months, Tipu marched towards the Travancore lines hoping that at least his presence would make the Raja change his mind. Travancore Raja remained firm and the first clash of arms took place on 29 December 1789. Tipu invited Powney, but the change of Governor at Madras had altered the entire situation. Tipu attacked the Travancore lines. The war was on, and according to oral history, the Cochin Raja fled to Cherthala and stayed at the Anjili palace, inside the Velorvattam temple compound.

Kesava Pillai (Raja Kesavadas) was appointed as the Commander-in-Chief of the Travancore Army. To boost the strength of the armed forces, several thousand young militiamen were called up from all over the kingdom. The forts of Cranganore and Ayikotta were repaired and garrisoned. Tipu sent a letter to the King of Travancore demanding the withdrawal of the Travancore forces garrisoned in Cranganore Fort, the transfer to him of Malabar lords who have been sheltered by the king, and the demolition of Travancore ramparts built within the territory of Cochin. The king refused Tipu's demands.

Sriranganathaswamy Temple

Twenty-four years after his father Hyder Ali had attacked Kochi, Tipu began a march to conquer Kochi and Travancore. The Mysore army entered the Cochin kingdom from Coimbatore in November 1789 and reached Trichur in December. On 28 December 1789, Tipu attacked Nedumkotta (northern lines) from the north, causing the Battle of Nedumkotta. The Mysore army under Tipu was repulsed. Tipu's army consisted of 20,000 infantry, 10,000 spearmen and match-lockmen, 5,000 cavalry and 20 field guns.

A number of Mysorean soldiers encroached into Travancore jungles, ostensibly to apprehend fugitives, and came under fire when discovered by Travancore patrols. (3). On 28 December 1789, Mysorean troops attacked the eastern part of the Travancore lines and captured the ramparts as the Travancoreans retreated, but were eventually stopped when the Travancore force of 800 Nair soldiers made a stand with six-pounder guns (4). Travancore reinforcements arrived during the four-hour battle, and they inflicted heavy casualties on the Mysoreans, who lost 1000-1500 soldiers and fled in panic (5). Several Mysorean troops were captured as prisoners of war, including soldiers of European and Maratha origin (6). Travancore forces recovered the sword, the palanquin, the dagger, the ring and many other personal effects of Tipu Sultan from the ditches of the Nedumkotta and presented them to the ruler of Travancore. Some of them were sent to the Nawab of Carnatic at his request.

After Nedumkotta Battle

According to Mohibul Hasan, approximately two months after this incident, on 1 March 1790, 1,000 Travancore troops advanced onto Mysore territory, where they were stopped and pushed back with considerable losses by Mysorean troops. On 9 April 1790, a similar attempt was made once again by 3,000 Travancore troops on Mysore territory, however, they were once again stopped by Mysorean troops and repulsed.

In the march towards Travancore after the Nedumkotta Battle, it is said that Tipu's 400 horsemen drowned in Periyar. His commander Kamaruddin Khan requested Tipu to climb down from the palanquin. Khan fell down, held Tipu's legs, and begged for a retreat. The loyal soldiers held Tipu on their shoulders and swam to safety. The palanquin, bed and sword became the victory trophies to Travancore. It is said that Tipu limped to his last after a fall in a ditch at the mouth of the Periyar.

On 12 April 1790, Tipu decided to attack the Travancore lines and within approximately three days was able to breach three-quarters of a mile of the lines: On 15 April 1790 he took approximately 6,000 soldiers and advanced on the Travancore position. The Travancore troops were taken by surprise and fled. On 18 April 1790, Tipu arrived within one mile of Cranganore and erected batteries. On 8 May 1790, Tipu successfully occupied Cranganore. Soon other forts such as Ayikotta and Parur surrendered without fighting. Tipu destroyed the Travancore lines and reached all the way to Varapuzha (Verapoly).

He destroyed the wall at Konoor Kotta or Kottamuri and advanced further. He filled trenches for a few kilometres to enable his army to move forward. He destroyed many temples but he didn’t touch the mosques. He finally reached the Periyar river banks at Aluva and camped there. The Travancore forces regrouped, but the onset of monsoons prevented Tipu from moving south.

According to Logan, Tipu's army crossed the Periyar River from Kodungallur to Varapuzha, where it was confronted by the Travancore army under Raja Kesavadas. Tipu lost 4,000 men and his commander Ali Baig was hacked to death. Tipu's army retreated to Chettuva, and he got reinforcements from Mysore and Coimbatore. The Mysore army again crossed the river. At this crucial hour, a French emissary met Tipu and informed him that an English naval contingent under Head Lingley was on its way from Mumbai, to support the Travancore Army. Tipu assessed that the Navy would confront him from the north at Kondungallur. The Travancore guns were waiting in the South. It was the Arabian Sea in the West, and the Periyar River in the East, and The Periyar was flooded in the untimely rain showers. Tipu escaped to the Northern bank and he was informed that an army under General Medows was on its way from Trichy, to capture Srirangapatna. He left the Ttravancore theatre of war.

The folklore says a small group led by Ayyappan Marthandan Pillai and Kali Kutty went upstream and managed to break the walls of a natural dam at Bhoothathankettu causing heavy flash floods downstream of Periyar River. All the ammunition and gunpowder of Tipu's army got wet and became inactive. He was thus forced to return. Information that the British army was planning an attack on Srirangapatnam hastened Tipu's retreat. Kalikutty became a character called Kunchaikutty Pillai, in C V Raman Pillai's novel, Ramaraja Bahadur. Kalikutty got the honorific Pillai after this adventure. The character is roughly based on Vaikam Padmanabha Pillai.

The defeated Tipu, writes P K Balakrishnan, while retreating, saw a nutmeg plant at Chalakkudy, which he took to Srirangapatanam. He had planted Fir trees in the capital. (7).

The Kochi royal family fled to Vaikam when Tipu reached Alwaye.

Travancore Dewan T Madhava Rao later assessed that it was the Nedumkotta that blocked Tipu's entry. Tipu could unleash destruction, arson and looting only at Angamaly, Alwaye, Varapuzha and Alangad.

Mysore actions against Travancore brought it into further conflict with the British Empire and led to the Third Anglo-Mysore War. Tipu told the Madras Governor Edward Holland that he got defeated at Nedumkotta because his army concentrated on finding the people of Malabar who had sought asylum in Travancore and Kochi. Thus, Tipu himself admitted that he lost a Jihad.

Ruins of Nedumkotta

Tipu was in the habit of writing several letters a day and those letters prove that he was a fanatic.

Tipu wrote to Abdul Khadir on 22 March 1788:

“Over 12,000 Hindus were honoured with Islam. There were many Namboodri Brahmins among them. This achievement should be widely publicised among the Hindus. Then the local Hindus should be brought before you and converted to Islam. No Namboodri Brahmin should be spared.”

Tipu wrote to his army Commander at Calicut Hussain Ali Khan, on 14 December 1788:

“I am sending two of my followers with Mir Hussain Ali. With their assistance, you should capture and kill all Hindus. Those below 20 may be kept in prison and 5,000 from the rest should be killed from the tree-tops. These are my orders.”

This instruction could not be adhered to by the Mappilas fully, because the British intervened to stop the genocide.

He wrote to Budroos Usman Khan on 13 February 1790:

"Your two letters, with the enclosed memorandums of the Naimar (or Nair) captives, have been received. You did right in ordering a hundred and thirty-five of them to be circumcised, and in putting eleven of the youngest of these into the Usud Ilhye band (or class) and the remaining ninety-four into the Ahmedy Troop, consigning the whole, at the same time, to the charge of the Kilaaddar of Nugr…" (8).

Tipu wrote to the Afghan King Saman Sha:

"we should come together in carrying on a holy war against the infidels, and for freeing the region of Hindustan from the contamination of the enemies of our religion (Hindus)".

Tipu wrote to Sayyid Abdul Dhula on 18 January 1790:

"With the grace of Prophet Mohammed and Allah, almost all Hindus in Calicut are converted to Islam. Only on the borders of Cochin State a few are still not converted. I am determined to convert them very soon. I consider this as Jehad to achieve that object" (9)

Tipu wrote to Bekal Governor Budroos Usman Khan, on 19 January 1790:

"Don't you know I have achieved a great victory recently in Malabar and over four lakh Hindus were converted to Islam? I am determined to march against that cursed 'Raman Nair' very soon (reference is to Rama Varma Raja of Travancore State who was popularly known as Dharma Raja). Since I am overjoyed at the prospect of converting him and his subjects to Islam, I have happily abandoned the idea of going back to Srirangapatanam now" (10).

The Raman Nair mentioned here is Dharmaraja.

After the third Anglo-Mysore war, Major Alex Dirom found Tipu's seal:

"I am the Messenger of the true faith."

"I bring Unto you the Edicts of Truth."

"From CONQUEST and the Protection of the Royal Hyder comes my tide of SULTAN and the world under the Sun and Moon is subject to my Signet."

Portuguese traveller Fr Paulino Bartholomew wrote in his travelogue, Voyage to East Indies (1772 ) :

First, a corps of 30,000 barbarians who butchered everybody on the way… followed by the field-gun unit under the French Commander, M. Lally… Tipu was riding on an elephant behind which another army of 30,000 soldiers followed. Most of the men and women were hanged in Calicut, first mothers were hanged with their children tied to necks of mothers. That barbarian Tipu Sultan tied the naked Christians and Hindus to the legs of elephants and made the elephants move around till the bodies of the helpless victims were torn to pieces. Temples and churches were ordered to be burned down, desecrated and destroyed. Christian and Hindu women were forced to marry Mohammadans and similarly, their men were forced to marry Mohammadan women. Those Christians who refused to be honoured with Islam were ordered to be killed by hanging immediately. These atrocities were told to me by the victims of Tipu Sultan who escaped from the clutches of his army and reached Varappuzha, which is the centre of Carmichael Christian Mission. I myself helped many victims to cross the Varappuzha River by boat.

The report of Major Fullarton, who fought Tipu at Mangalore states:

(During the siege 1783) Tipu”s soldiers daily exposed the heads of many innocent Brahmins within sight of the fort for Zamorin and his Hindu followers to see. It is asserted that the Zamorin rather than witness such enormities and to avoid further killing of innocent Brahmins, chose to abandon the Palghat Fort... It was not only against the Brahmins who were thus put in a state of terror of forcible circumcision and conversion; but against all sections of Hindus. In August 1788, a Raja of the Kshatriya family of Parappanad and also Trichera Thiruppad, a chieftain of Nilamboor, and many other Hindu nobles who had been carried away earlier to Coimbatore by Tipu Sultan, were forcibly circumcised and forced to cat beef.

Lewis B. Boury quoted in P.C.N. Raja: (11)

To show his ardent devotion and steadfast faith in the Muhammaddan religion, Tipu Sultan found Kozhikode to be the most suitable place. It was because the Hindus of Malabar 'refused to reject the matriarchal system, polyandry and half nakedness of women' that the 'great reformer' Tipu Sultan tried to honour the entire population with Islam.

Tipu's proclamation against Nairs in 1788:

"From the period of the conquest until this day, during twenty-four years, you have been a turbulent and refractory people, and in the wars waged during your rainy season, you have caused a number of our warriors to taste the drought of martyrdom. Be it so. What is past is past. Hereafter you must proceed in an opposite manner, dwell quietly and pay your dues like good subjects and since it is the practice with you for one woman to associate with ten men, and you leave your mothers and sisters unconstrained in their obscene practices, and are thence all born in adultery, and are more shameless in your connections than the beasts of the fields: I hereby require you to forsake these sinful practices and be like the rest of mankind; and if you are disobedient to these commands, I have made repeated vows to honour the whole of you with Islam and to march all the chief persons to the seat of Government."

P A Syed Muhammad, the historian wrote that Tipu's invasion was similar to that of Genghis Khan and Timur ( Muslim Charithram).

The prominent royal families, who have migrated from Malabar and settled in Travancore are 16:

Neerazhi Kovilakam(Changanacherry), Lakshmipuram Palace (Changanacherry ), Ennakkad Gramathil Kovilakam (from where Communist leader George Chadayammuri found his life partner), Paliyakkara(Tiruvalla), Nedumparampu, Chempara Madom, Ananthapuram Kottaram (Haripad), Ezhumattur Palace, Aranmula Kottaram, Varanad Kovilakam, Mavelikara, Murikoyikkal Palace, Mariapilly(Kottayam), Koratti Swarupam, Kaipuzha Kovilakam, Kottapuram.

Prominent Historian Ilamkulam Kunjan Pillai has recorded that with the forcible conversion of Hindus by Tipu, there was a steep hike in the Muslim population in Malabar. According to Vadakkumkoor Rajaraja Varma, Tipu enjoyed in destroying temples and adorning the idols with the heads and entrails of cows. He spared the two temples inside the Srirangapatanam fort because he believed in astrological predictions.

The list of temples attacked by Tipu:

Thaliparanm, Thrichambram, Thali,

Sree Valliyanat Kavu,Thiruvannur,Varaykkal,Puthur,Govindapuram,

Thalikunnu,Thirunnavaya,Thiruvangat,Vadakara,Ponmeri,

Chalakudi,Mannumpuram,Kalpathi,Hemambika,Kachamkurissi,Palakkad Jainatemple,Keraladeeswaram,Thrikandiyur,Thriprangat,

Kodikunnu,Thrithala,Panniyur,Sukapuram,Edappatt Perumparamp,

Maranelira temples of Azhvancheri,Vengeri,Thrikulam,Ramanattukara,

Azhinjilla,Indianur,Mannur,Venkidangu,Parambathli,Panmayanad.

Maniyur Masjid was a temple; Ponnani Thrikkav temple became Tipu's arsenal. The Jaina temple at present Sulthan Bathery became Tipu's gun godown, and hence it acquired the place name, Sultan's Battery. Its original name was Ganapathivattam.

In 1789 Tipu sent Gulam Ali, Gaji Khan and Darvedil Khan with troops into Coorg by way of Siddhesvara. where they took up strong positions and seized grain, men, women and children while burning houses that they pillaged. They set fire to the Padinalkanadu temple. Later the 'Malayalam' (Malabar region) people joined the Coorgs. Tipu sent Gulam Ali into Malabar but en route, Gulam was attacked by the Coorgs. Gulam managed to reach Malabar where he burnt down the Payyavur temple and attacked that region.

That same year (1789), when Tipu was marching against the Nairs at Calicut who had become rebellious, he heard of another rebellion in Coorg. He sent a force towards Coorg under Burhan ud Din and Sayed Hamid. Tipu himself crossed the Tamarasseri(Tamrachadi) Ghat and entered the Malabar region. There he ordered some of the inhabitants to be converted (made Asadulai), placed Officer Ghafar in command there and had a wooden fort or stockade built.

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1. Quoted in C K Kareem/Kerala Under Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan

2. N. A. D., Fgn. Pol. Sec. Proc., Dec. 15, 1789; p. 2882, Cornwallis to Powney

3. Mia Carter, Barbara Harlow (31 December 2003) /Archives of Empire: Volume I. From The East India Company to the Suez Canal p. 174

4. Mohibbul Hasan (2005) History of Tipu Sultan 

5. John Clark Marshman (1863) / The History of India, p. 450 

6.Veeraraghavapuram, Nagam Aiya (1906) /  Travancore State Manual

7. P K Balakrishnan / Tipu Sultan

8.W. Kirkpatrick /Select Letters of Tipoo Sultan /  London 1811

9. K.M. Panicker /Bhasha Poshini, August, 1923

10. K M Panicker    

11. Raja PCN /Religious Intolerance of Tipu Sultan 

© Ramachandran