Who are Mappilas?

• The Mappilas were the Muslim  tenants inhibiting the Malabar region where most of the landlords were Hindus.
• The Mappilas had expressed their resentment against the oppression of the landlords during the 19th Century itself.
• Their grievances centred around lack of security of tenure, high rents, renewal fees and other oppressive exactions.

Mappila Revolt or Malabar Rebellion 1921

• Mappilas or Moplahs rose in revolt against their landlords in 1921.
• The Mappila tenants were particularly encouraged by the demand of the local Congress body for a government legislation regulating tenant-landlord relations.
• Soon, the Mappila movement was merged with the ongoing Khilafat agitation.
• The leaders of the Khilafat-Non-Cooperation Movement like Gandhi, Shaukat Ali and Maulana Azad addressed Mappila meetings.
• After the arrest of national leaders, the leadership passed into the hands of local Mappila leaders.

Course of the rebellion

• Things took a turn for the worse in August 1921 when the arrest of a respected priest leader, Ali Musaliar, sparked off large-scale riots. 
• Initially, the symbols of British authority- courts, police stations, treasuries and offices- and unpopular landlords (jenmies who were mostly Hindus) were the targets.
• But once the British declared martial law and repression began in earnest, the character of the rebellion underwent a definite change.
• Many Hindus were seen by the Mappilas to be helping the authorities.
• What began as an anti-government and anti-landlord affair acquired communal overtones.
• Previously, the outbreak of violence resulted in divergence of the Khilafat-Non-Cooperation Movement and the Mappila rebellion.
• The communalisation of the rebellion completed the isolation of the Mappilas from the Khilafat-Non-Cooperation Movement.
• By December 1921, all resistance had come to a stop.

Why in News?

• With the rebellion turning 100 next year, four movies in Malayalam have been announced with the rebellion ass theme.
• Three of them will narrate the story of freedom fighter Variyamkunnath Kunhahamed Haji, who was shot dead by the British police at Kottakkunnu

About Variyamkunnath Kunhahamed Haji

• Chakkiparamban Variyankunnathu Kunhahamed Haji (1877- 20 January 1922) was an activist of Indian independence movement who led the Malabar Rebellion against the British.
• He ran a parallel government, in open defiance of British rulers, for more than six months in most parts of the then Eranadu and Valluvanadu taluks.
• Subsequently he was executed by British.
• Ali Musaliar was his mentor.