Dastagirsab Dinni, writer, speaking at parallel venue at the 82nd Akhila Bharata Kannada Sahitya Sammelan in Raichur on Sunday.
Terming triple talaq, restrictions on going to masjids, bigamy and other Islamic practices as shackles, Dastagirsab Dinni, a progressive writer, stressed the need for raising voices against Islamic fundamentalistic forces, for women’s liberation.
He was speaking on Muslim sensitivities in literature at a session on multiple dimensions of literature at the 82nd Akhila Bharata Kannada Sahitya Sammelan in Raichur on Sunday. The writer went on to point out prevalent anti-women practices which were indeed not preached by Prophet Mohammed.
“Prophet Mohammed did not oppose women offering prayers at masjids, but our fundamentalists are doing it. Muslim women are increasingly opposing the practice of triple talaq and bigamy practices. Some are even fighting against these anti-women practices in courts. Literature should voice their woes,” he said.
Pointing at the standard approach of fundamentalists towards progressive Muslim writers, Mr. Dinni went on to give a long list of Muslim writers who in one way or the other had to face the wrath of fundamentalism for their radical writing.
“Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen, Sara Abubakar, Safeera, Bhanu Mushtaq and others Muslim writers were under attack from Islamic fundamentalists as they questioned the anti-women and other ill-practices of Islam.
“The attacks indeed gave rise to more resistance rather than curbing the existing opposition,” he said.
He added that Mumtaz Begum, Bolvar Mohammed Kunhi, Fakir Mohammad Katpadi, Ramzan Darga, Jameer Ulha Sharif, Rahamat Tarikere, Abdul Rashid and other Muslim writers have continued to question reactionary practices and resist the attack on freedom of expression.
He called upon young Muslim writers to continue the tradition of questioning fundamentalistic practices in Islam so that the process of emancipation of women could get quickened.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Kumar Buradikatti / Raichur – December 05th, 2016
The swearing-in ceremony began at Raj Bhavan in Bhopal at 3 pm. Governor Anandiben Patel administered the oath to the newly inducted ministers. In the recently held assembly elections, Congress managed to win 114 seats in 231-member state assembly.
In the recently held assembly elections, Congress managed to win 114 seats in 231-member state assembly. (Photo-ANI)
Digvijay Singh’s son Jaivardhan Singh was among the 28 MLAs who were sworn in as the cabinet minister in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday. Governor Anandiben Patel administered the oath to the new ministers at the Raj Bhavan in Bhopal.
Sajjan Singh Verma, Vijayalaxmi Sadho, Hukum Singh Karada, Govind Singh Rajput, Bala Bachchan, Pradeep Jayaswal, Imarti Devi were among those sworn in as ministers. Arif Aqueel was the lone Muslim face in the new council of ministers. Aqueel, MLA from Bhopal North, is the first Muslim minister in the state after 15 years.
The names of the ministers were cleared after Chief Minister Kamal Nath met Congress chief Rahul Gandhi over the weekend.
Congress’ chief whip in Lok Sabha, Jyotiraditya Scindia, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh and ex-state Congress chief, Arun Yadav, also attended the meeting.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> India / by Express Web Desk / New Delhi / December 25th, 2018
About 11 women in Lucknow are establishing their individual identities as chikankari embroidery artisans – all thanks to an organization that not only trained them but also connects them with buyers through an online platform.
Tabassum Khan, 25, and Sheeba Khan, 26, had wanted to apply for a bank loan once. Under the cover of their full-length black burqa, the two made their way to the branch of the nearest bank, criss-crossing through many narrow lanes in Lucknow’s congested Madegunj Khadra neighbourhood.
Encouraged by the recent sale of their embroidered cloth, the two were excited about the possibility of expanding their work and perhaps even striking out on their own. “We wanted money to buy more cloth. We dreamt of having our own wooden frames, more needles and more thread,’ recalls Tabassum. However, after spending a few minutes with the bank official, they promptly dropped the idea of applying for the Rs. 50,000 loan. “He wanted us to come home and told us that his wife was interested in learning embroidery. I felt he did not really mean what he was saying. I could see his actual intentions,” says Sheeba.
Of course, as they made their way back that day, they would have never imagined that they’d eventually be able to realize their dream of becoming artisan-entrepreneurs and selling clothes embellished with exquisite hand-crafted chikankari embroidery.
Today, Tabassum and Sheeba are part of a group of 11 women chikan karigars, who have broken free from the exploitation that is intrinsic to their line of work, to establish their individual identities as artisans.
The women chikankari artisans participate in various design exhibitions in Lucknow and also independently travel to other cities across India to showcase their craft.
How did they manage to accomplish this seemingly unimaginable feat? Ask Tabassum and she immediately attributes this positive change to Jaspal Kalra, a professor of fashion design, who set up Sangraha, an organisation that not only conducts a ten-month training programme in design for chikankari artisans, but also connects them with prospective buyers through an online platform, apart from encouraging them to participate in design exhibitions across the country. Essentially, Kalra is a teacher and facilitator while the women take their own decisions regarding the kind of orders they want to take on. They even have a certain freedom to create their own designs, keeping in mind the clients’ needs. For women like Tabassum and Sheena, who would otherwise never get to experience this kind of autonomy in their personal or professional lives, this partnership has indeed been liberating.
Married at 16, Tabassum was back at her parents’ home barely a year later. Disheartened with the way things had unfolded for her – she never went to school, was pushed into early marriage and then had to go through the heartbreak of a broken relationship, all in her teens – she took up chikankari with the intention of supporting herself. She learnt the craft under the guidance of Shilpguru Ayub Khan, who taught her everything she knows about this centuries old technique of embroidery on fine cloth. For years she worked magic with her nimble fingers without receiving any real recognition for her skills. Eventually, though she was conferred with a state award for craftsmanship in 2005, her struggle to earn a decent living continued.
Indeed, awards or not, that’s the lived reality of chikankarigars. In and around Lucknow, chikan embroidery provides employment to about 2,50,000 artisans, mostly women, apart from close to a million people who are associated with the trade, as raw material suppliers, contractors, manufacturers and retailers.
Despite being a thriving sector, it is largely informal, which means that the artisans earn wages from sub-contractor or traders, on a per piece rate. Consequently, their bargaining power is non-existent and the earnings poor.
The chikan karigars at Sangraha enjoy camaraderie and kinship that enables them to do well.
Both Tabassum and Sheeba have grown up watching the women of their household sit down to embroider after finishing their chores. This was the only way for Muslim women, in particular, to add to their usually unstable family income. Literacy amongst these families is low and poverty is high and they continue to live in conservative neighbourhoods where women are not encouraged to be seen or heard. So, for the want of any other way to make money without having to step out of their home they readily take whatever amount is offered by the contractors.
There was a time when Naima Arshi’s illiterate mother did not know what lay beyond the boundary of her courtyard. “Ironically, poverty liberated me. When I began to earn some money by doing chikan embroidery my husband did not object. How could he? We were so poor. He welcomed the earnings and I used them to educate both my son and daughter. We are still poor but at least Arshi is a university graduate and that gives me great satisfaction,” she says.
Whereas her mother may consider them to be hand-to-mouth even now, Arshi, 28, does not see herself as either poor or deprived.
For women artisans like Tabassum, Arshi and Sheeba, Jaspal Kalra, who set up Sangraha is a teacher and facilitator.
She’s happy to inform that unlike many girls in her community, she has a bank account. Arshi has followed in her mother’s footsteps in so far as she has taken to doing chikankari for a living. However, her work experiences are very different. Like Tabassum and Sheeba she is attached with Sangraha, an association she greatly cherishes. “Sir has taught us the finer nuances of design and shared the different ways in which we can sell our work. He encourages us to deal directly with customers. While other chikankars get around Rs. 140, at Sangraha we earn Rs. 180 for a day’s work,” says Arshi.
Kalra set up Sangraha in 2015 with an idea to preserve the craft and help artisans gain sustainability and independence. With a mission to empower them with education, market-related services and finance, it started off by providing design education to 11 artisans and encouraging them to participate in various exhibitions in Lucknow and elsewhere, in Delhi, Pune and Jaipur.
“I have been embroidering for as long as I can remember but it is only now that I embroider with a passion I did not know I had,” confesses Tabassum.
Not long ago, she and her fellow ‘karigars’ had travelled to Delhi where customers showered them with praises and orders. At the time, Tabassum informs, she sold embroidered cloth worth more than Rs. 20,000. Mumtaz Jahan, 45, another artisan at Sangraha, happily talks about how she came back from Pune having sold goods worth Rs. 7,000. “All of us came back from exhibitions with loads of orders. We have enough work for the moment and an assured income for several months,” smiles Tabassum, who is a ‘guru’ of sorts to the women. Arshi, Mumtaz and Shabnam acknowledge that they have fine-tuned their stitches under her expert guidance. The women also share that Tabassum is never scared to take up a challenge or to experiment. Fearless and talented, she has a ready wish list, “It’s my dream to own a house, travel around the world with my girl-‘artisan’-friends and would love to see international models walk the runway in Paris clad in clothes designed by me!”
All this will be possible when the women continue to expand the scope of their work and Kalra’s direction will be valuable in this regard.
Whereas the majority of women chikan karigars don’t have the autonomy to either design or negotiate for wages, the ones at Sangraha have become the masters of their own designs and destinies.
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“The government has introduced schemes for entrepreneurs but I have yet to explore how these can assist the artisans associated with Sangraha. As I see it now, Make In India is more technology oriented and Stand Up India is targeted at women and SC/ST communities. Essentially, the core problem with many such schemes usually is that they don’t have any provisions for creating market linkages and simply stress on giving loans. And the lack of education and an understanding of the market trends expose the artisan to exploitation at the hands of buyers and customers,” he shares.
Dreaming big and having serious ambitions is never really an option for most women chikan karigars, but this lot has definitely moved on from the days of being exploited to being the masters of their designs and destinies.
Written by Mehru Jaffer for Women’s Feature Service (WFS) and republished here in arrangement with WFS.
source: http://www.thebetterindia.com / The Better India / Home> Art> Women / by Mehru Jaffer / May 02nd, 2016
The emergence of artistic and cultural heritage of a country is a process that extends over centuries. Yet, sometimes, it can just take just a few days for it to vanish irrevocably. Care must be taken to preserve our heritage
Indian civilisation is one of the foremost in the world in terms of cultural wealth and the great works it produced. The indigenous people of India played a major role in the creation of the civilisation. However, people of diverse cultures from outside the peninsula have also doubtlessly contributed to the creation of this tremendous cultural wealth. One among such people are the Turks who led an amiable coexistence alongside the Indian people for decades.
In the first half of the 11th century, a great Turkish Sultanate was founded in northern India and subsequently Turkish influence extended further south. The foundation of this state had a notable impact on the history and culture of India. As a result of this impact, Delhi flourished to the point of competing with Baghdad, Cairo and Istanbul — the leading commercial and cultural centers of the world at that time.
Here onwards, the Turkish-Islamic influence began to shape all cultural areas from architecture and literature to arts and cuisine. Concrete examples of this impact can still be seen today. The centuries-long co-existence of both Indian and Turkish culture led to the exchange of words between the Turkish and Indian languages despite their vast structural differences. Some Turkish words were directly adopted as they were, while some words were transcribed according to their Indian pronunciations.
The most prominent aspect of the Turkish influence in India, however, is reflected in architectural works, with its myriad examples. One such example is the Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque that was constructed by Qutab Ud-Din-Aibak, the founder of the Delhi Sultanate. It was the construction of this mosque that laid the foundation of the Indo-Islamic architecture in India. The famous ‘Qutb Minar’ minaret, which was constructed by Qutab Ud-Din-Aibak in 1500, is a 72.6 meter tall tower built of red sandstones, based on the Mamluk architectural style.
Following the Qutb Minar, many castles, palaces, tombs, granaries, bathhouses, ponds, mosques and even cities were built throughout India during the Mughal period. Akbar Shah’s rule was particularly marked by the mixed use of Persian style and Indian/Buddhist style architectural design, thus giving rise to a new and unique type of architecture. Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi, the Fatehpur Sikri Fortress, which was declared the capital of the Mughal Empire by Akbar Shah, and Akbar’s own tomb in Agra are some of the chief examples of this style. And, of course, let us not forget the exceptionally beautiful Taj Mahal.
Although the Indian state is seemingly responsible for the preservation of all these great works, there are examples reflecting the importance of personal initiatives. Esra Birgen Jah, the former princess of Hyderabad, is one such example. Born as the daughter of a family from the Ottoman Dynasty, and the first wife of Barkat Jah, the Nizam of Hyderabad, Esra Birgen Jah successfully restored the Chowmahalla Palace to its former glory after lengthy efforts.
A great many people from diverse disciplines such as architect, textile specialists, conservationists and historians took part in the restoration efforts. The palace, which was turned into a museum housing historical artifacts, costumes and documents, was presented with a UNESCO award.
Whether their origins date back to Turkish or other cultures, all historical monuments in India should be recognised as ‘cultural heritage,’ and provided with the protection they deserve. For this reason, the great works in India, which have seen the rise and fall of the civilisations of the past, witnessed countless major events and developments in the history of humankind, and stood as a testament to ‘history’ itself, needs to be restored and conversed so that the human history can be preserved and passed down to the next generations.
Today, the Turkish heritage on the Indian peninsula is considered India’s own property. Their preservation should be viewed as a key factor that will help reinforce Turkish-Indian relations and friendship, and Turkey should provide the necessary support to the Indian Government in this regard.
The emergence of the artistic and cultural heritage of a country is a process that extends over the course of centuries yet sometimes, it can take just a few days for this cultural heritage to vanish irrevocably. Be it Indian or Turkish, all nations should take good care of the historical works within their domains and consider them as the common heritage of humankind.
Wherever this common heritage may be located in the world, it should be preserved to the utmost from ethnic and religious conflicts, exploitation, negligence and, of course, the destructive forces of time. This will awaken interest in different cultures among nations and render peace. In this way, the Indian and Turkish people, already linked by a historically strong bond of brotherhood, can usher in a new era that will recapture and consolidate the spirit of fraternity.
(The writer is a Turkish author)
source: http://www.dailypioneer.com / The Pioneer / Home> Columnists> OpEd / by Harun Yahya / April 02nd, 2018
Governor Vajubhai Vala, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, and his deputy G. Parameshwara posing for a photographs after the swearing in of eight new Cabinet Ministers at the Raj Bhavan in Bengaluru on Saturday.
R. Shankar, Ramesh Jarkiholi dropped from the Ministry
The long-awaited expansion of Karnataka Cabinet materialised on Saturday, with eight Congress legislators — seven of them hailing from the north Karnataka — being sworn in by Governor Vajubhai R. Vala.
While this fills the Congress quota in the coalition government’s Cabinet, Janata Dal (Secular) has chosen to keep its options open on its quota of two Ministers.
Ahead of the 2019 general elections, the decision of the Congress to give prominence to north Karnataka has assumed significance as the JD(S) is largely focussing on its electoral base in the southern districts of the State. This is also aimed at addressing the constant complaints of neglect of the people of north Karnataka.
While M.T.B. Nagaraj (Hoskote, Bengaluru Rural) is the lone MLA to become Minister from the southern part of the State this time, the other newly sworn-in ministers are M.B. Patil from Babaleshwar in Vijayapura district; R.B. Timmapur, MLC; Satish Jarkiholi from Yemkanmardi in Belagavi district; C.S. Shivalli from Kundgol in Dharwad district; P.T. Parameshwar Naik from Huvinahadagali in Ballari district; E. Tukaram from Sandur in Ballari district; and Raheem Khan from Bidar North.
All eight were administered the oath of office and secrecy at the Raj Bhavan in the presence of Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara and several Congress and JD(S) leaders. All eight are of Cabinet rank.
Forest Minister R. Shankar and Municipal Administration Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi have been dropped from the Ministry.
Protest
There were rumblings of discontent from some legislators not inducted into the Cabinet even as the oath-taking ceremony was on. Supporters of the Congress MLA, Ramalinga Reddy, protested near the Raj Bhavan to demand his induction into the Cabinet.
With the Ministry’s size fixed at 34, the Congress has filled its full quota (22) and the total strength of the Council of Ministers has increased to 32. Only two seats are vacant and both belong to the JD(S) quota.
Of the eight inducted, four have become Ministers for the first time. Mr. Satish Jarkiholi, Mr. Patil, Mr. Thimmapur, and Mr. Naik had served in the previous Siddaramaiah government.
Caste equation
The Congress struck a balance by providing fair representation to all major castes/communities. There are two Ministers from Kuruba community (Mr. Shivalli and Mr. Nagaraj), two from the Scheduled Castes (Mr. Naik and Mr. Thimmapur), two from the Scheduled Tribes (Mr. Tukaram and Mr. Satish Jarkiholi), one from Lingayat (Mr. Patil), and one Muslim (Mr. Khan).
To contain dissidence, the Congress has given postings to 31 legislators, including eight Ministers, nine parliamentary secretaries, and 19 heads to boards and corporations. The Congress has recommended to the government names of 19 MLAs to appoint as heads of various government boards and corporations.
The party has appointed three MLCs and six MLAs as Parliament Secretaries. Sharanappa Darshanapur, MLA for Shahpur in Yadgir, has been appointed as Deputy Chairman of the Planning Board.
Senior leader and former Minister H.K. Patil has been appointed as Chairman of the campaign committee of KPCC. He has replaced Minister for Water Resources and Medical Education D.K. Shivakumar.
Jewargi MLA Ajay Singh has been appointed as the special representative of the government in Delhi, while V. Muniyappa, MLA, is the Political Secretary to the Chief Minister.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Special Correspondent / Bengaluru – December 23rd, 2018
Before I set out on a journey to Turkey, I decided to visit the Turkish Martyrs Graveyard Memorial in Ballari, built in memory of Turkish Prisoners of War (PoW) of the First World War.
Turkish Memorial
The memorial is actually a spiral column built over a rectangular platform. Indian and Turkish flags flutter on both sides. The cylindrical spiral structure in white is surrounded by fountains, multi-coloured floral plants with Ashoka trees and rose plants on the border. The memorial is located close to the airport.
There are two marble-dressed graves on its left side. A memorial plaque on one of them refers to General Agha Pasha Abdussalam, the prince from the Ottoman ruling family of Turkey, buried there. The second one refers to Turk Askeri.
The epitaph on the memorial (it also has a Turkish translation) reads: “Here lie the Turkish martyrs brought to India in the year 1918 as prisoners of war during World War I from the Suez Canal front where they had fought. God bless them all.”
Turkey is a nation straddling eastern Europe and western Asia. Suez Canal is a sea-level waterway in Egypt connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez. And Ballari is in South India. These contradictions increased my curiosity to unearth the links.
A tale of tragedy and futility of war silently unfolded when I began digging deep into history. I realised that the memorial traces its roots to the brutal first world war.
Tale of tragedy
After about a century since the war ended, the memorial in Ballari stands tall silently reminding the greed of rich belligerents trying to get richer by inflicting large-scale violence, brutality and futility.
Austria and Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914, over the assassination of a leader, triggering the first world war. A web of entangling alliances and the manoeuvrings of diplomats and generals dragged ambivalent nations into an unnecessary war.
The war pitted the Central Powers—led by Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey—against the Allies—led by France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Japan and the United States. The Allies won the war which claimed maximum lives in the history.
The Allies captured soldiers of rival forces, while soldiers of the Allies were taken captive by the Central Powers. About 1.5 lakh soldiers from Turkey were taken captive by the British forces. Turkey had detained 34,000 British soldiers.
The two sides had a common problem, lack of prisons to keep captive soldiers. And they were unwilling to keep rival soldiers in their motherland.
About 8,000 soldiers from Turkey, Germany and Austria, in British captivity, were placed in British colonies, in Egypt, India, Burma (now Myanmar).
Sumerpur in Rajasthan; Ahmednagar, Belagavi and Ballari in Bombay province; Kata Pahar in Bengal and Burma were chosen for the detention of prisoners.
Soldiers from Austria and Germany were interned at Ahmednagar, Christian citizens and women at Belagavi, and Turkey soldiers at Sumerpur, Ballari and Burma.
The British establishment shipped the prisoners from the port city of Basra in Iraq to Karachi and later sent them to Kolkata by train. One team was sent to Burma, while the second one to Sumerpur, Ahmednagar, Belagavi and Ballari.
The entire exercise was ironical and a large number of soldiers died on the way to Karachi from Basra. Hundreds of them were injured while being shipped. All these met with gory and gruesome deaths due to hunger, starvation and a lack of treatment.
Conflicting theories
Historians consider their journey as a procession of deaths. Many of them, who had survived starvation before reaching India, lost their battles against changing weather conditions and food.
Hundreds of them fell prey to infectious diseases as prisoners from different nations were housed collectively. In the Egyptian camps, a contagious eye spread relatively quickly blinding prisoners.
As many as 137 soldiers were kept at Allipuram Jail in Ballari. There are conflicting theories on how they died. One theory says a trigger-happy British officer massacred them en masse. The second theory quotes plague as the cause for the deaths.
Locals claim that there used to be hundreds of graves of Turkish soldiers in the area until the 1980s. A major part of the remains was erased during the expansion of the Bellari Aerodrome.
Commemorating sacrifice
The Turkish Embassy in Delhi negotiated with the Indian government for a memorial to commemorate the sacrifice made by the soldiers for the nation ten thousand miles away from their motherland. As a result, the Turkish Martyrs Graveyard came up in 1980.
Since then, the Indian and the Turkish flags are hoisted twice a year – on August 15 and January 26.
Details of Turkey soldiers in Ballari come from the lone report of Red Cross Society. A high-level committee at the Geneva convention in 1971 decided to send the Society teams for reports on charges of brutalities meted out to soldiers at camps.
A team visited Ballari, Egypt and Myanmar as part of the decision. The team members visited Ballari on March 17, 1971, and submitted a report regarding the medical facility, food, physical and mental health of the prisoners. The most common complaint from the prisoners was that they hardly heard anything from their family members.
Due to isolation, the futility of war and uncertain future, most of them became mentally ill. They had converted a hall meant for prayer to play games. They also used the hall as a coffee house, played Dice Chess Dominoes, consumed Turkish coffee without milk and demanded books in the Turkish language for reading.
In the end, the report expresses confidence that the Turkey soldiers would surely say that the British establishment took proper care of them in India once they reached their hometowns. However, it is not known even today if they returned to their hometown.
The ordeal of soldiers from England and India in Turkey prisons was no different. There are memorials all over the world commemorating sacrifices made by foreign soldiers. Most of these soldiers laid down their lives for the British imperialism.
These memorials never reveal why wars were fought; why soldiers were killed; why they were shipped and interned in different continents; what happened to their families after their deaths. These memorials also mirror inhuman acts of war.
(Translated by Jagadish Angadi)
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Spectrum> Spectrum Top Stories / by Rahamat Tarikere / December 19th, 2019
Dr Naser A Anjum, a DBT-RLF researcher (Scientist-D) in the Department of Botany, Aligarh Muslim University edited “The Brassicaceae – Agri-Horticultural and Environmental Perspectives” in collaboration with Prof Om Parkash Dhankher (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA), Prof Juan F Jimenez (Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica, San Luis Potosí, Mexico), Dr Sarvajeet S Gill (MD University, Rohtak) and Dr Narendra Tuteja (ICGEB, New Delhi). The Frontiers Media, Lausanne, Switzerland has published the book.
The book covers Agri-Horticultural and Environmental role of members of Brassicaceae, an angiosperm family that includes model plants such as Arabidopsis, Alyssum, and Brassica, developing model generic systems like Boechera, Brassica, and Cardamine and several cultivated plant species including radish, rocket, watercress, wasabi, horseradish, vegetable and oil crops.
According to Dr Anjum, the book is available at https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/3959 for free consultation and download.
source: http://www.amu.ac.in / Aligarh Muslim University / Home> AMU News / Public Relations Office, Aligarh Muslim University / December 26th, 2018
The British unleashed ruthless violence over Mappilas to quell the rebellion in south Malabar taluks
A mass grave in Adhikarathodi, Melmuri, where 11 bodies had been buried after the massacre. (Photo courtesy: Sameel)
Ninety-seven years ago on this day, the British army massacred 246 people in a small village in the Malappuram district of Kerala as part of a crackdown against the Mappila rebels.
The Mappila Rebellion was part of the non-violent Khilafat Movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and the Ali Brothers in 1921-22. The Mappila Muslims, who reside in the south Malabar region, had taken the movement seriously and engaged in combat with the well-equipped British army.
Ali Musliyar (Courtesy: Wikimedia)
The Mappila warriors, under the leadership of cleric Ali Musliyar and Variyam Kunnath Kunjahammed Haji (V K Haji), captured the taluks of Eranadu and Valluvanadu from the British and established their own rule.
After a short period, the British suppressed the rebellion savagely by letting loose the Gurkha Regiment, Dorset Regiment etc. According to official data, more than 2,300 people were killed and over 45,000 rebels were imprisoned in different jails across the country (the numbers are five-fold higher in unofficial records).
The rebellion had a huge impact on the region as well as the country. Mahatma Gandhi distanced himself from the rebels stating that the rebellion was just “an outburst of fanatics”. Several works, both critical and in support of the rebellion, have been published, but most of them are silent about the British crackdown on the rebels.
Two bodies were buried in this grave. (Courtesy: Sameel)
Unmarked graves
This bloodbath, which was largely forgotten, came to light after a three-year-long research by a journalist. Illikkal Sameel, who is with a Malayalam media organisation, spent four years documenting the history behind unmarked graves in a village located 3 km from the Malappuram district headquarters. In a detailed report published in Madhyamam Weekly, a Malayalam magazine, Sameel has illustrated the brutality of the British towards the Mappila, mostly innocents, including the old and the sick, to terrorise the rebels who had driven the mighty English force away from the region for months.
Cover page of Madhyamam Weekly.
In an ironic twist, Sameel, who resides in a nearby village, got to know about this forgotten historical episode four years ago from a friend, K Ashraf, who is pursuing his PhD from Johannesburg University, South Africa. Ashraf informed Sameel about the undocumented graves dating back to 1921 present in the area.
Initially, Sameel could find only five graves at Adhikarathodi in Melmuri village but nobody had any details about those buried there. After tracing the descendants of those buried, Sameel obtained information of 40 people from nine graves. All the graves had more than one body buried and among them one had upto 11 bodies.
“Malabar struggle is a well-researched topic from Kerala’s freedom movement and several scholars are still trying to explore more aspects. But I could find no trace of this particular massacre in any of those works,” Sameel said.
“In a casual conversation, a researcher in Malabar history mentioned Dorset Regiment and their involvement in suppressing the rebellion. I dug further to get details of the regiment and their expeditions, that was also futile,” Sameel explains.
From an octogenarian physician Dr Thorappa Muhammed, Sameel got to know that the number of people killed in the massacre was more than he could count. Muhammed told him that the number would go above 200 and challenged him to look at official British documents for more information.
Connecting the dots
“Most of the documents are not publicly available now, so I started flipping through the contemporary chronicles of officials. Among them, I went through a book of the Personal Assistant of Kozhikode Collector Mr Gopalan Nair’s ‘The Moplah Rebellion 1921’, which was published in 1924. In that book, he has just mentioned that the Dorset Regiment met some rebels near Melmuri and it led to the killing of 246 people on October 25, 1921,” said Sameel.
A book by the then police inspector of Malappuram, R H Hitchcock, describes every moment of his life as a British officer in Malappuram.
“The book is no more in print, hence, I got a photocopy of the book from one of my friends and a professor at Malappuram Government College, Dr Jameel Ahmed,” said Sameel.
Another historian, Dr M Gangadharan, has cited British officials G R F Tottenham and C T Atkinson in his work on the Malabar struggle. Sameel found Tottenham’s book to be the most valuable as the author had added all the official communications, notes, commission reports etc., that were available during the rebellion.
“I stitched all these details together with the verbal accounts of various residents and stories of survivors to write this report. It was a painful effort,” said Sameel.
Earlier efforts
In the early 2000s, an article published in ‘Souvenir’ as part of the Pookkottur War anniversary had made some efforts to cover the massacre.
Some young enthusiasts and writers had also made videos regarding this massacre and related artefacts still available in the area. The information for these efforts led Sameel to more graves.
Two feet deep grave. (Courtesy: Sameel)
‘Girls were murdered’
“Dr Thorappa Muhammed had mentioned graves dug by Muslim women as men were unavailable to conduct the funerals,” elaborates Sameel. “I found two such graves in the latest expedition. Unlike the usual six-feet deep Muslim graves, these were only two feet in depth,” he said.
“As per some official documents and the accounts of descendants of the dead, a significant amount of the people killed in the massacre were innocent. Family members told me about men, including aged and sick, being forcefully dragged out of their home and shot. Two girls who were trying to protect their fathers were also shot by the army,” Sameel added.
Punished for links?
Apart from a telegram communication of the officials mentioning the short-engagement between Dorset and rebels in Melmuri after the Mappilas were attacked, there is no other evidence to lead us to the motive behind the massacre.
“A large gang reported last night four miles north-west of Malappuram. Operations are undertaken against them by Dorsets, Artillery and armoured cars. Enemy met in jungle west of Melmuri opposing our troops there and in the houses, refusing to come out when ordered to surrender and offering continued opposition resulting in 246 rebel casualties,” reads the telegram.
Sameel assumes the British unleashed violence in that particular place due to the presence of a big chunk of Ali Musliyar’s students and giving shelter to V K Haji when he was in underground.
He rules out any connections to the alleged Mappila brutality, including forceful conversion of non-Muslims. “In my research, I could not find any credible information about the forceful conversion. Rather, there are mentions of participation of lower caste people in the rebellion,” Sameel claims.
“If such forceful conversions had happened, where are the later generations of those people. But till now nobody came forward claiming as the descendants of ‘those people’,” says Sameel.
“The story of forceful conversion was to demonise Mappila warriors and justify the British brutality. Even the leaders in the freedom movement believed this story and ignored the ruthless suppression of the rebellion,” he added.
In his article, Sameel gives an account of assistance from Thiyya family, lower caste Hindus, to extinguish the fire set on homes of Muslim neighbours by the army.
The course of rebellion changes
The entire course of the rebellion changed after the massacre as more rebels surrendered. Also, the popular support to the rebellion had also diminished. The British created an impression among the people that none, despite being active or inactive in the rebellion, would be spared.
“This was the British strategy to terrorise the rebels as well as sympathisers of rebels to give a strong message: ‘either support British or die’,” Sameel added.
The British officials themselves accepted that all they killed were not rebels, but they cheered the increase in the number of submissions as a result of the army act.
“In the interval before they (Dorset Regiment) came into action, there had been several encounters with the rebels and on October 25th the Dorsets had killed 246 Mapillas in the Melmuri area. Not all of these probably were active rebels, and the encounter seems to have had a considerable moral effect, for shortly afterwards petitions began to be received from ‘amsams’ in the neighbourhood of Malappuram offering submission,” Under Secretary reported to superiors. (Tottenham, 39).
In the correspondence of F B Evans, I US, Special Civil Officer, he wrote that Malappuram Kazi with thousands of men and women pleaded for amnesty after the massacre. In continuation, he regrets about the bloodbath, saying, “I think this may be put down as the effect of the Melmuri show on the 25th when no doubt a certain number of comparatively innocent people were unavoidably killed.”
Complete cover-up
British and upper caste historians deliberately neglected this episode for their benefits, alleges Sameel.
British officials tried to cover up this brutality to suppress the rebellion as part of maintaining themselves from further reactions from Muslims from other parts of India and to avert the global scrutiny of the war crime.
Sameel demands an open apology and reparation from the British government for their brutality on innocent people.
“The massacres the British army unleashed as part of a crackdown on the rebellion in Malabar, including the one in Melmuri, was one of the deadliest violence in India when one looks at its intensity. There were families without men, as all men were killed or taken to prisons. Those families need both an apology as well as compensation. The Indian government should pressurise the UK for this,” Sameel said.
For generations to come
After publication of the article, Sameel received several calls from different corners detailing other similar massacres. He is planning to write a book with more descriptions and related events.
There is also a plan to produce a documentary on this. Malayalam filmmaker and director of hit movie ‘Sudani from Nigeria’, Zakaria Muhammed, has agreed to produce the documentary under the banner of his production house – Cross Border Camera.
Sameel hopes the history books will feature this episode in the coming days. “The episode of the massacre was known among the victims’ families, till the last generation. The present generation is not aware of this. I hope my work will instil curiosity among them,” Sameel added.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Specials / by Ajmal V / DH News Service, Bengaluru / October 25th, 2018
The 13th Kodagu district Kannada literary meet will be organised at government PU College premises in Napoklu on December 22 and 23, said Kannada Sahitya Parishat district president B S Lokesh Sagar.
He told reporters here on Thursday that Madikeri tahsildar Kusuma will hoist the National flag at 8 am on December 22. Napoklu gram panchayat president K M Ismail will hoist the Kannada flag.
Exhibition stalls will be inaugurated by CMC president Kaveramma Somanna at 11 am.
The formal inaugural programme will be held at Jagadatmanada G Maharaj Sabhangana at 11.30 am. Zilla panchayat vice president Lokeshwari Gopal will inaugurate the programme.
The main stage, ‘Mahabaleshwara Bhat Pradhana Vedike’ will be inaugurated by zilla panchayat president B A Harish. Kannada Sahitya Parishat state president Dr Manu Baligar will inaugurate the literary convention.
Bharadwaj K Anand Theertha will preside over the literary convention. MLA K G Bopaiah, MLC Sunil Subramani and MLC Veena Acchaiah will take part. Cultural programmes will be inaugurated by social worker Sanket Poovaiah.
ZP member Latif will inaugurate Janapadotsava at 9.30 am on December 23.
An open forum will be held at 2.30 pm. The valedictory programme will be held at 4 pm, said B S Lokesh Sagar and added that various literary events will be held on both the days.
Kannada Sahitya Parishat district honourary secretary K S Ramesh, taluk president Kudekal Santhosh and office bearer Kodi Chandrashekhar were present in the press meet.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> State> Districts / by Adithya KA / DH News Service / Madikeri – December 20th, 2018
Nellikkunattu Desam (Evanad Taluk – Malabar District) KERALA :
The Malabar rebellion (also known as the “Moplah War”, Mappila Lahala in Malayalam) was an armed uprising in 1921 against British authority and landlords in the Malabar region of Southern India by Mappila Muslims and the culmination of a series of Mappila revolts that recurred throughout the 19th century and early 20th century. The 1921 rebellion began as a reaction against a heavy-handed crackdown on the Khilafat Movement by the British authorities in the Eranad and Valluvanad taluks of Malabar. In the initial stages, a number of minor clashes took place between Khilafat volunteers and the police, but the violence soon spread across the region.
An estimated 10,000 people lost their lives, although official figures put the numbers at 2337 rebels killed, 1652 injured and 45,404 imprisoned. Unofficial estimates put the number imprisoned at almost 50,000 of whom 20,000 were deported, mainly to the penal colony in the Andaman Islands, while around 10,000 went missing.
Contemporary British administrators and modern historians differ markedly in their assessment of the incident, debating whether the revolts were triggered off by religious fanaticism or agrarian grievances. At the time, the Indian National Congress repudiated the movement and it remained isolated from the wider nationalist movement. However, contemporary Indian evaluations now view the rebellion as a national upheaval against British authority and the most important event concerning the political movement in Malabar during the period.
Early life and career in Mecca
Ali Musliyar was born in Nellikkunattu desom, Eranad taluk, Malabar district to Kunhimoitin Molla and Kotakkal Amina. Kotakkal Amina was a member of the famous Maqdoom family of Ponnani, known for their religions scholarship. Musliyar’s grandfather, Musa, was one of several “Malappuram Martyrs”. Ali Musliyar began his education studying the Qur’an, tajwid and the Malayalam language with Kakkadammal Kunnukammu Molla. He was sent to Ponnani Darse for further studies in religion and philosophy, under the tutelage of Sheikh Zainuddin Maqdum I (Akhir), which he successfully completed after 10 years.
He then went to Haram, Makkah (Mecca) for further education. After spending seven years in Mecca, he went on to serve as the Chief Qasi in Kavaratti, Laccadive Islands.
Musliyar in Malabar
In 1894, after learning of the slaying of his brother and several other family members, Musliyar returned to Malabar. He discovered that many of his relations and fellow students were lost during an 1896 riot. In 1907 he was appointed as the Chief Musliyar of the mosque at Tirurangadi, Eranad taluk.
The revolt of 1921–22 began following the police arrest of a number of Tenancy Association – Caliphate Movement – Indian National Congress leaders in August, 1921. Rumours that the British troops had destroyed the Mampuram Mosque led to large scale rioting throughout South Malabar against both wealthy Hindu landlords and the British.
Although the British army troops were quick to take the upper hand in many towns, a number of rebels initiated guerilla operations, forcing the British to deploy additional military units and introduce “aggressive” patrolling. The revolt came to an end in February 1922. Ali Musliyar was among a dozen leaders who were tried and sentenced to death. He was subsequently hanged at the Coimbatore Prison on 17 February 1922.
