The Malabar region (present Keraladistricts of Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur, Wayanad and Kasaragod) of the erstwhile Madras Presidency was witness to the horrific crimes by the Moplah Islamists against the Hindu population by indulging in mass killings, loot, rapes since the August of 1921 as a part of the Malabar Rebellion against the British. The Ernad taluk or the current day Malappuram district, where Muslims were in majority, turned out to be the epicenter of the rebellion. What turned out to be a case of unthoughtful violence by the Moplah Muslims the riots led to the mass killings of over 10,000 Hindus, raping of women, forced religious conversions, destruction or damage of nearly 300 temples, loot and arson of properties worth crores of rupees and burning of houses belonging to the Hindus. This resulted in mass Hindu exodus with nearly 2 lakh Hindu refugees pouring into various relief camps in the nearby districts, thus making it a typical case of Hindu Genocide with brutal attempts made for ethnic cleansing of Hindus for the establishment of Islamic Kingdom amidst the British Empire of India when support was extended for ‘Khilafat Movement’ by the Congress.However,what stands out as ‘barbarism in its worst’ in Malabar Hindu Genocide is the beheading and throwing of half-alive bodies of Hindus into open wells in accordance with the Islamic Sharia Law. The notoriousness of Variam Kunnath Kunjahammad in Tuvvur, near Nilambur in Malappuram, had especially seen such beheadings and dumping into wells! It is in remembrance of this ‘Tuvvur tragedy’ and dumping of half-dead human bodies ‘throbbing for life’ into wells, that today the 25th September 1921 is remembered as Malabar Hindu Genocide Day.Hindu women suffered the worst as they were raped, forced to marry the same Moplah who murdered their relatives, while even the pregnant women were not spared. But post-independence there has been tremendous efforts to whitewash even such a horrific, inhumane and barbaric genocide committed on the Hindus by claiming it as a peasant uprising and freedom movement by the Islamic – Left intellectuals. The Communist government of EMS Namboodiripad had even granted freedom fighter pension to the ‘ethnic cleansers’. But what about the justice to the victims of the genocide committed by the Moplahs of Malabar and suppression of truths pertaining to it? What about the departed souls who were drenched with the blood of fellow Hindus in the wells of Malabar?

Reminiscences of the Malabar Hindu Genocide:

Dr. B.R.Ambedkar: “This was not a Hindu – Muslim riot. This was just a Bartholomew. The number of Hindus who were killed, wounded or converted, is not known. But the number must have been enormous. The blood-curdling atrocities committed by the Moplas in Malabar against the Hindus were indescribable. All over southern India, a wave of horrified feeling had spread among the Hindus of every shade of opinion… The Hindus were visited by a dire fate at the hands of the Moplas. Massacre, forcible conversions, desecration of temples, foul outrages upon women, such as ripping open pregnant women, pillage, arson and destruction – in short, all the accompaniments of brutal and unrestrained barbarism, were perpetrated freely by the Moplas upon the Hindus until such time as troops could be hurries to the task of restoring order through a difficult and extensive tract of the country.

Annie Beasant, President – Theosophical Society: “They established the Khilafat Raj, crowned a king, murdered and plundered abundantly, and killed or drove away all Hindus who would not apostatize. Somewhere about a lakh people were driven from their homes with nothing but the clothes they had on, stripped of everything. A pregnant woman carrying 7 months was cut through the abdomen by a rebel and she was seen lying dead on the way with the dead child projecting out of the womb. Another baby of six months was snatched away from the breast of his own mother and cut into two pieces. Are these rebels’ human beings or monsters? … A respectable Nayar lady at Melatur was stripped naked by the rebels in the presence of her husband and brothers, who were made to stand close by with their hands tied behind. When they shut their eyes in abhorrence they were compelled at the point of sword to open their eyes and witness the rape committed by the brute in their presence. … menwho have lost all, hopeless, crushed, desperate. Can you conceive of a more ghastly and inhuman crime than the murders of babies and pregnant women? … Mr. Gandhi… can he not feel a little sympathy for thousands of women left with only rags, driven from home, for little children born of the flying mothers on roads in refugee camps? The misery is beyond description. Girl wives, pretty and sweet, with eyes half blind with weeping, distraught with terror; women who have seen their husbands hacked to pieces before their eye, in the way “moplahs consider as religious”; old women tottering, whose faces become written with anguish and who cry at a gentle touch..”

ABVP – JNUstands in solidarity with the victims and in support for the justice of an entire generation who perished and survived in the Malabar Hindu Genocide of 1921. History cannot be rewritten but justice can be enshrined inspite of all odds.

VandeMataram!                                Bharat Mata Ki Jai!                                      Jai Hind!

ABVP-JNU

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