A hundred years ago, in 1921, well before anyone heard about ISIS or Taliban, a militant mission to establish an Islamic State, right in Malabar, was executed by a group of native Muslims. (Moplahas). Over fifty thousand Muslim men took part in that Islamic State militia, causing countless casualties within the Hindu population of the region.
The violence kick-started in South Malabar on 20 August 1921 and lasted for over four months, resulting in imposing martial law in six out of 10 Taluks in the then Malabar district. Over one lakh Hindus were displaced or fled from their native village. Most of them were left as refugees in relief camps or relatives’ homes. A lot of many lost their lifelong earnings and livelihood forever.
For six months, armed bands of this Islamic militia roamed over six Taluks of the Malabar district and terrorised its Hindu population. They unleashed barbaric atrocities on Hindus. Massacres, gang-rapes, arsons, pillages, loots, destruction and desecration of temples, forcible conversions of Hindus etc., were rampant during that period.
Thousands of Hindus lost their lives for being Hindu, and thousands were forcibly converted to Islam. Hundreds, if not thousands, of women were assaulted in the most barbaric way. The armed Moplahas resorted to unparalleled cruelties against Hindus for refusing to embrace Islam. Flaying people alive after pouring boiled water on them, forcing Hindus to dig pits and burying them alive on the same graves they dug, removing fetuses after ripping off the wombs of pregnant women, dumping Hindus dead or alive after hacking them into wells or other water bodies etc. were some methods used by the perpetrators upon the Hindu victims.
Lifeless bodies of Hindus floating in rivers and ponds like rafts were reported from Malabar. Many known and unknown wells in Malabar in which corpses of Hindus being dumped after beheading them for refusing to embrace Islam were common.
Now, 25 September is observed as a Malabar Hindu Genocide day to commemorate the countless victims of Islamic terror in Malabar. 25 September is the day on which nearly fifty Hindus were beheaded and dumped into a well in the Tuvvur village of Malabar district. What happened in Malabar in 1921 was a morbid crime against humanity. This year happened to be the 100th year of that gruesome genocide.
To prevent the recurrences of such inhuman crimes in the future, this day is red-marked as the Malabar Hindu genocide day in history.
