Malabar : region on the west coast of India from Goa to the southern tip of the peninsula at Kanyākumari, now part of Kerala. The Moplahs of Malabar are a band of fanatic Muslims who have descended from the Arabs who settled here 8th or 9th century A.D & married mostly Indian wives. They had over the years acquired an unenviable notoriety for crimes perpetuated under the impulse of religious frenzy. They were responsible for 35 minor outbreaks during the Brit rule, the most terrible being the one that took place in August 1921. During the early months of 1921, excitement spread speedily from mosque to mosque, village to village. The violent speeches of the Ali brothers, the early approach of Swaraj as foretold in the non-cooperating press, the July resolutions of the Khilafat Conference all added fuel to the fire. All through July & August Khilafat meetings were held in which the Karachi resolution was fervently endorsed. Knives, swords etc. were secretly manufactured & preparations were made to the proclamation of the coming of the kingdom of Islam. On Aug 20, the District Magistrate of Calicut with the help of troops attempted to arrest certain leaders who were in the possession of arms at Tirurangadi, a severe encounter took place, which was the a signal for an immediate rebellion throughout the whole locality. Govt. property was destroyed. Europeans who did not succeed in escaping were murdered. As soon as the administration was paralyzed, the Moplahs declared that Swaraj had been established. A certain Ali Musliar was proclaimed Raja, Khilafat flags were flown, Ernad & Walluvanad were declared Khilafat kingdoms. The main brunt of the Moplah ferocity was borne, not by the Govt. but by the Hindus who constituted the majority of the population. Massacres, forcible conversions, desecration of temples, foul outrages upon woman were perpetuated freely till troops could arrive to restore order. (1) A statement by Kerala Provincial Congress Committee & Secretary of the Ernad Khilafat Committee & K.V. Gopal Menon says: “Their wanton & unprovoked attack on the Hindus, the all but wholesale looting of their houses in Ernad etc., the forcible conversion of Hindus in the beginning of the rebellion & the wholesale conversion of those who stuck to their homes in later stages, the brutal murder of inoffensive Hindus without the slightest reason except that they are Kāfirs or belonged to the same religion as the policemen, who entered their Tangals or entered their mosques, burning Hindu temples, the outrage on Hindu women & their forcible conversion & marriage by the Moplahs”. (2) A report dated Calicut 7/9/1921 in Times of India & another dated 6/12/1921 published in New India give details of the most horrible outrages on women which cannot be reproduced for sake of decency. (3) Sir Sankaran Nair refers to cases of men who were skinned alive or made to dig their graves before being slaughtered. [For details on the atrocities see p.362 of History & Culture of the Indian People, Bhāratīya Vidyā Bhavan, Vol.10] (4) According to the Report of the Enquiry Committee the Enquiry Committee of the Servants of India, the number of Hindus murdered was 1500, the number forcibly converted 20,000 & property looted Rs 3 crores. (5) In a heart-rending petition to Lady Reading, wife of the Viceroy, the Hindu woman of Malabar stated “Your ladyship is doubtless aware that even though our unhappy district has witnessed many Moplah outbreaks in the last one hundred years, the present rebellion is unexampled in magnitude as well as unprecedented in ferocity, pregnant woman cut to pieces & left on the roadsides & in the jungles. We remember how driven out of our native hamlets we wandered, starving & naked, the jungles & forests”. (6) To those who appealed to the Moplahs in the name of Gandhi they said, “Gandhi is a Kāfir, how can he be our leader?” (7) Said Mrs Annie Besant, “Malabar has taught what Islamic rule means & we do not want to see another specimen of Khilafat Raj in India.” By the end of 1921 the situation was under control. The govt. lost 43 troops with 126 wounded while the Moplahs lost 3,000 people. However, the Muslim leaders put the figure at 10,000 & refer to desecration of mosques, atrocities while suppressing the revolt. [“The Gentle Moplah Rebellion – An Offshoot of the Khilafat Movement – Internet; for INC session Dec.1922; for INC’s reaction to this carnage see Ahmedabad.]
... ordered to aid the Resident. Velu Thampi pretended great alarm at these preparations and begged permission to resign his office and retire to Malabar in the English territories. The same was agreed upon and on 28 December 1808 Velu Thampi was to be escorted to Malabar. The intention of Velu Thampi, however, was to divert the Resident's forces away from Cochin in which he succeeded. That night a body of... of Nairs and Kurichiyas, Pazhassi decided to wage a guerilla war from the mountains of Wynad. The fighting started in June 1800, and the British strategy was to isolate Pazhassi from his southern Malabar supporters. They succeeded and Pazhassi was left roaming in the forests with his wife and a few supporters. His supporters like Chuzhali Nambiar, Peruvayal Nambiar and Kannavathu Shankaran... Confrontation with the British The potent cause of the revolt was the unpopular and unjust revenue policy followed by the occupying foreign British East India Company in Malabar. The Raja stopped all collections of revenue and further threatened to cut down all the black pepper vines if the Company's officers persisted in revenue collection. In April 1796, an unsuccessful ...
... Mother's nor Sri Aurobindo's but it was full of compassion and was very sweet and charming. During the massage time, I am lying on the Dhara Patthi (long wooden tray used during the time of massage in Malabar). I feel as if the whole Patthi is lifted up. Simultaneously I experience uneasiness and fear. The Patthi tilts and becomes unstable. When it rises to a certain height, suddenly four lamps appear burning ...
... known of his life but the, little that comes down to us conjures, up a most interesting and striking image. Shankara belonged to the simple, learned and hardworking Nambudri sect of Brahmins of Malabar and is supposed to have been born at Kaladi, on the West Coast of India. At a very early age, he went to a Vedic school, which was presided over by Govinda, who was himself a pupil of Gaudapada, the ...
... that "almost every item in his [Gandhi's] programme has been tried and found useless to attain Home Rule". Even the plank of Hindu-Muslim unity suffered serious cracks after the Moplah rebellion in Malabar, and communal strife began to erupt, now here now there, with dangerous frequency. And the word "non-violence" itself acquired a bad taste after the tragic exhibition of mob violence at Chauri Chaura ...
... in plain white sadara and dhoti and outside invariably in white drill suits. He never slept on a soft cotton bed —as most of us do —but on a bed of coir [coconut fiber], on which was spread a Malabar grass mat which served as a bedsheet. "Once I asked him why he used such a coarse and hard bed to which he replied with his characteristic smile: 'Don't you know, my boy, that I am a Brahmachari ...
... is the meeting ground of three seas. It is washed by the Bay of Bengal from the east, and by the Arabian Sea from the west; mingling with them is the Indian Ocean. Bordering the Arabian Sea are the Malabar and Konkan coasts. The western coast extends from the Cape almost in a straight line towards the north up to the Gulf of Khambat, where Mahi, Narmada and Tapti rivers end their overland journey. Along ...
... "discovered" in 1500, by Portugal's Pedro Alvarez Cabral. The Portuguese were the first off the block. In 1486 P. da Covilha was charged to find out the way to India. He managed to reach the Malabar coast, touched Cannanore, Calicut and Goa. On his way back he got lost in Africa. But before that he was able to send home some pieces of information about the Page 127 east coast ...
... grace in which He allows people to get His direct touch. * Page 158 March 9, 1945 (Signed by both Sri Aurobindo and Mother.) Your visit to Malabar for raising funds and a brief stay there has our entire approval. Our love and blessings. (Letter dictated to Nirodbaran) May 13, 1945 I think the best will be for him ...
... study. Far from writing Tamil poetry Sri Aurobindo never wrote a single sentence even of Tamil prose and never spoke a single phrase in the Tamil language. He listened for a few days to a Nair from Malabar who read and explained to him articles in a Tamil newspaper; this was a short time before he left Bengal. At Pondicherry he took up the study of Tamil, but he did not go very far and his studies were ...
... and archipelagos rise above the waves. Don't you think that your small, repeated efforts could also achieve great things? The famous sage Shankara whose name brought glory to the land of Malabar, and who lived about 1200 years ago, had resolved from childhood to become a Sannyasi. For a long time his mother, although she appreciated the nobility of his wish, did not allow him to devote ...
... of the Ayur Vedic medicinal methods, would come in. After covering me liberally with gingelly oil, a sort of mustard oil strengthened with herbs and having a strange odour of its own, peculiar to Malabar, he made me lie face downwards. The masseur would then, with his right foot massage my spine from the base up and then round in semi-circular movements on both my right and left sides. This would ...
... coach before pacing forward again. The Asian gold medal winner is on her regular three and a half kilometre run which begins at her home and ends at the Payyob beach near the midpoint of the Malabar Coast in Kerala. "I love being on the beach," she says, "it's my favourite training spot. The vastness gives me a sense of freedom which I don't experience anywhere else. After training on sand, running ...
... in plain white chaddar and dhoti, and outside invariably in white drill suits. He never slept on a soft cotton bed, as most of us do, but on a bed of coir- coconut fibres - on which was spread a Malabar grass mat which served as a bed sheet. "Once I asked him why he used such a coarse and hard bed, to which he replied with his characteristic smile: 'Don't you know, my boy, that I am a Brahmachari ...
... exquisite or apt or impressive choice of words, by the rich significance of phrases and lines and paragraphs." 3 We have as it were passed from the Gir forest in Kathiawar to the 'Hanging Gardens' on Malabar Hill. There is a diminution but also a refinement, there is less vitality, but more complexity. The two great Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, however, defy easy ...
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