Mopla Jihad Day: Forgotten Genocide or Whitewashed Uprising?

“How long will we keep calling jihadi massacres 'peasant revolts'?”

“Why are the victims forgotten, and the perpetrators glorified?”

“Why does secular India shy away from remembering the Mopla Jihad Day?”

Each year, as India remembers various chapters of its freedom struggle — the Salt March, Quit India Movement, Kakori Conspiracy, Jallianwala Bagh massacre — there is one chapter soaked in blood, betrayal, and ideological distortion that remains largely ignored: The Mopla Rebellion of 1921. For some, it is remembered as an uprising against colonial landlords. For others, especially within Kerala’s Malabar region and among Hindu nationalist circles, it is mourned as Mopla Jihad Day — a day that signifies one of the earliest and bloodiest Islamist uprisings in modern India.

Why is this day not marked nationally? Why is there no day of mourning for the 10,000+ Hindus killed, raped, or forcefully converted in Malabar during that rebellion? Why does the secular Indian discourse — which often aggressively scrutinises even minor events — remain eerily silent on this horrific episode?

A Massacre, not a Mutiny

Let us begin with facts. The Mopla Rebellion started on 20th August 1921 in the Malabar region of Kerala. While it is often romanticised as a peasant uprising against British landlords, the truth is far more chilling. The Moplahs, or Mapillas, were a section of the Muslim community in Malabar. Initially agitated by British policies and economic exploitation, the rebellion took a sharp Islamist turn due to the Khilafat Movement and pan-Islamic sentiments gaining ground across India. The Khilafat agitation, ironically supported by Mahatma Gandhi as a means to unite Hindus and Muslims, ended up emboldening a violent jihad against Hindus in Malabar. Mopla Jihad Day isn’t about a fight against the British. It is about the systematic ethnic cleansing of Hindus under the cry of "Allah-o-Akbar". Temples were desecrated. Cows were slaughtered in temple premises. Hindu women were raped and paraded naked. Children were forcibly converted. Sacred threads were ripped from the bodies of Brahmins. And yet, this incident is either buried in footnotes or presented as a class war.

Questions That Must Be Asked

Can a violent rebellion that targeted Hindus alone be called a peasant movement?

If it were merely anti-British, why were temples desecrated and Hindus slaughtered en masse?

Why did the leaders of the rebellion shout Islamic slogans and issue fatwas instead of political manifestos?

Why does the Indian Left, even today, attempt to sanitise this jihad as a 'people’s revolt'?

What prevents Indian academia from officially recognising Mopla Jihad as a case of religious genocide?

These are uncomfortable questions, but they demand answers.

The Left’s Whitewashing Campaign

In independent India, a section of left-liberal historians has ensured that events like the Mopla Jihad are either underreported or misrepresented. Figures like Bipin Chandra and Romila Thapar have painted this massacre in terms of class struggle, carefully avoiding the religious motivations behind it.

However, archival records, British administrative reports, and testimonies from survivors paint a drastically different picture. Annie Besant, the Theosophist leader, was vocal about the horrors:

> “They murdered and plundered and raped and desecrated temples… and all in the name of religion.”

Even Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, in his book Pakistan or the Partition of India, criticised the Indian National Congress for turning a blind eye to the atrocities of the Mopla Jihad. He wrote:

> “The Congress is not only not prepared to condemn the Mopla riots, but is even eager to defend them.”

Why did Gandhiji, otherwise a prophet of peace, dismiss the rebellion’s victims as collateral damage? Is the silence around Mopla Jihad an example of the Congress compromising Hindu lives for short-term Muslim appeasement?

The Numbers Speak

Over 10,000 Hindus are estimated to have been killed.

More than 100,000 were displaced, many forced to flee their ancestral homes.

Thousands were forcibly converted.

Entire Hindu villages were wiped off the map.

The government’s own Mopla Rebellion Inquiry Report (1922) details gruesome instances:

Pregnant women are being cut open.

Priests were tied to trees and butchered.

Children dismembered.

Sacred idols smashed and urinated upon.

Why then does this not qualify as religious genocide?

From Genocide to Glorification?

In a bizarre twist, several Mopla leaders, including the jihadist Variyamkunnath Kunjahammad Haji, have been glorified by Kerala’s Left and Congress parties as freedom fighters. In 2021, the Kerala government even attempted to include Mopla rebels in the list of martyrs.

Is this not an insult to the memory of those Hindus who were butchered? Is this what secularism has come to — honouring those who waged jihad against innocent civilians?

Should we not be horrified when the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) once issued a note recommending Mopla leaders be seen as “anti-colonial warriors”? How long will political convenience override truth?

Mopla Jihad & Modern Parallels

The ideological underpinnings of the Mopla Jihad — radical Islam, Khilafat loyalty, anti-Hindu hatred — haven’t disappeared. Their echoes can be heard in modern-day radicalism in Kerala and elsewhere. The ISIS module busted in Kerala, the radicalisation of youth through online propaganda, the anti-CAA riots with open calls for jihad — all these have historical roots. And Mopla Jihad was among the earliest expressions of that dangerous ideology.

Isn’t the systematic erasure of Mopla Jihad helping radicalism flourish unchecked?

How can a nation defend itself against future jihads if it refuses to acknowledge past ones?

Time to Reclaim the Narrative

The Right wing in India — often accused of historical revisionism — has a duty not to rewrite history, but to correct the selective amnesia of the Left. Honoring the victims of the Mopla Jihad is not just about justice; it is about national memory.

Just as we mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, should we not observe Mopla Jihad Day to remember those Hindus who were butchered in 1921?

Should we not build memorials in Malabar, host public commemorations, and educate school children about the real nature of this tragedy?

Shouldn't a truth commission be set up to finally document and present the uncensored account of the Mopla genocide?

Conclusion: A Day of Truth, Not Denial

India must face its past with courage. Whitewashing Mopla Jihad does not build communal harmony — it erodes trust. It sends a message that Hindu suffering can be ignored, that Islamist violence can be legitimized in the name of anti-colonialism. Mopla Jihad Day is not just a memory of massacre; it is a reminder that truth, however uncomfortable, must never be buried for political convenience. The victims of 1921 are watching. History is watching. And so are the future generations who deserve to know the truth — unfiltered, uncensored, and unafraid. During the Mopla Jihad of 1921, an estimated 10,000–12,000 Hindus — including a significant number of Dalits — were brutally killed, thousands were forcibly converted, and over 100,000 were displaced in one of the earliest Islamist genocides in India’s modern history. 

Let us ask one final question:

If we can mourn the deaths in Jallianwala Bagh, why can’t we mourn the Hindus of Malabar?