Prajna Pravah, an organisation affiliated with the RSS, has demanded that the 1921 Moplah Massacre be termed as genocide. It has also demanded that a memorial should be made in its memory. J Nandakumar, the all-India convenor of Prajna Pravah said on Wednesday that the government should erect a “genocide memorial” to commemorate the 1921 deaths in Malappuram, Kerala, and proclaim September 25 as “Malabar Hindu Genocide Day.”
Until now, the incident has been remembered as a Muslim peasant insurrection against British rule and Hindu landowners. Sangh members have been advocating for a “correction” in the incident’s description, as it was “targeted killing of Hindus” by Muslim fanatics.
“Annie Besant and C Sankaran Nair, who was the president of the Indian National Congress, called it a genocide. But after 1975, it was illegally deemed as part of the freedom struggle,” Nandakumar said.
He added that the Pinarayi Vijayan government in Kerala has not taken their request into consideration, but they are optimistic that the Central government would.
On September 26, the RSS-backed organisation will hold exhibitions and memorial sessions for the victims in Delhi and every block in Kerala.
Moplah Massacre leaders removed from dictionary of Indian freedom fighters
Last month, on the 23, a three-member panel, constituted to review the fifth volume of the dictionary published by the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) had removed the names of Variamkunnath Kunhamed Haji and Ali Musaliar, the leaders responsible for the Moplah Massacre of Hindus, from the dictionary. Along with them, 387 others who died during the Moplah Massacre was also to be removed.
The panel had recommended the deletion as it came to the conclusion that the massacre was a fundamentalist movement bent on religious conversion and not a part of the freedom struggle.
The wounds of one of the worst communal pogroms recorded in the annals of Indian history remain fresh in the Hindu conscience even after 100 years of the infamous 1921 Moplah massacre. OpIndia has published a detailed report on the Moplah genocide of Hindus and 25th September 1921, the day when 38 Hindus were slaughtered and thrown in a well by a Muslim mob demanding a Caliphate in Malabar. The report can be viewed here.