The Malabar Rebellion of 1921 was a momentous but often contested chapter in India’s freedom struggle, emerging from the Malabar region (present-day Kerala). What began as growing discontent among Muslim tenant farmers (Mappilas) against exploitative land tenancy, high rents, and arbitrary evictions eventually merged with the larger Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movements against British colonialism.

The rising anger was compounded by communal tensions: Hindu landlords (jenmis) were seen as complicit in colonial structures, which stoked religious resentment among tenants. With arrests of Khilafat leaders, violent clashes broke out, including attacks on police stations, landlord property, and sacred spaces. Some rebels set up parallel governance in parts of the region under leaders like Variyankunnath Kunjahammed Haji.

The British response was fierce: martial law, mass arrests, and violent suppression. Lives were lost, communities uprooted, and the rebellion’s legacy lives in debates—was it primarily agrarian? Anti-colonial? Communal? Or all three? This “little-known resistance” captures the messiness of freedom movements, where class, religion, land, and loyalties intersected in complicated ways.