Mappila Revolt

The Mappilas were the Muslim tenants inhabiting the Malabar region where most of the landlords were Hindus. The Mappilas had expressed their resentment against the oppression of the landlords during the nineteenth century also. Their grievances centred around lack of security of tenure, high rents, renewal fees and other oppressive exactions.

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 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.

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. 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.