“Martyr” Status of Perpetrators of Moplah Hindu Genocide Revoked

The Moplah Hindu Genocide has remained one of the bloodiest chapters of Indian Hindu history which has been erased from history books, or, worse, been mislabeled as a “rebellion” rather than a massacre targeting Hindus.

This fudging of semantics to whitewash a gory massacre of Hindus is most obvious in the fact that the Ali brothers and dozens of other perpetrators of the genocide were given the status of “martyr” by the Indian government for the last 100 years. The misrepresentation of the Moplah genocide as a “rebellion” has remained a gross injustice to the thousands of victims of this persecution of Hindus which carried on for several months on end.

387 Moplah “Martyrs” to be Removed from “Dictionary of Martyrs” by ICHR

The “Dictionary of Martyrs–India’s Freedom Struggle from 1847-1947” comprises a list of all who have been accorded the status of “martyr” officially for contributing to India’s struggle for independence.

As per the review of a 3-member panel of Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR), India, the names of 387 Moplahs will be removed from this dictionary, as they did not contribute to India’s freedom struggle–their slogans were not to resist the British government but rather establishment of the Caliphate in India.

The dictionary currently consists of the names of Moplahs who murdered innocent Hindus, raped women and forcibly converted Hindus to Islam, destroying more than 100 Hindu temples in the Malabar region. It is worth noting that to suppress the “rebellion”, the British empire arrested around 50,000 Moplahs who were sent to Andaman prison.

Ali Brothers No Longer “Martyrs”

Two of the masterminds of the Moplah genocide–Variamkunnath Haji and Ali Musaliar–have been removed from the Dictionary of Martyrs, after 100 yrs of earning respect for a heinous crime. They were guilty of rapes of women, beheading of Hindus, and establishment of a Shariah court in Malabar.

This is a welcome step at redemption of our history and to right many wrongs, but is still very far from the goal–which is to recognize the Moplah “rebellion” as a genocide of Hindus by the Moplahs. Sufficient records prove this. Thousands of families were destroyed as a result of this carnage, and the least the governments and international organizations can do is to recognize them as victims as we reach the centenary of the violence.