Context: Recently, Malabar Rebellion leaders Variamkunnath Kunhamed Haji, Ali Musaliar and 387 other ‘Moplah martyrs’ of the pre-independence agitation, are set to be removed from the ‘Dictionary of Martyrs of India’s Freedom Struggle’, jointly published by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India and Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR).

• The decision came after review by a panel which reportedly stated that the Malabar Rebellion was not an independence struggle but focused on ‘religious conversion’.

Issue

• In the ‘Dictionary of Martyrs’, published by the Union Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the Indian Council of Historical Research, Variankunnath Kunhamad Haji and Ali Musliyar, the chief architects of the Moplah Massacre, were deemed to be martyrs. The book was published in 2019.
• However, a report by the ICHR-constituted committee has sought the removal of names of 387 ‘Moplah rioters’ (Including leaders Ali Musliyar and Variamkunnath Ahmad Haji) from the list of martyrs.

Reason behind this appeal

• The report describes Haji as the “notorious Moplah Riot leader” and a “hardcore criminal,” who “killed innumerable innocent Hindu men, women, and children during the 1921 Moplah Riot, and deposited their bodies in a well, locally known as Thoovoor Kinar”.
• It also noted that almost all the Moplah outrages were communal. They were against Hindu society and done out of sheer intolerance. None of the slogans raised by the rioters were in favour of nationalism and anti-British.
• Also, many ‘Moplah martyrs’ facing trial died from disease or natural causes, and could not be treated as martyrs.
• Thus, their names should be deleted.