Author Description

This book contests the widely held opinion that the Mappila uprisings of Malabar had their roots in either communal tension or agrarian discontent, because such a belief obscures the multiple affiliations of the rebels. The complexity of these affiliations can be understood only by examining the interrelationship between economic dissent and religious ideology. The author delineates why Hindu peasantry could never organise for revolt although it shared the same oppressive burden as the Mappilas. The analysis relies extensively on primary sources and emphasizes the role of ideology - as interpreted by traditional intellectuals - which developed a negative class consciousness among rural Mappilas by providing a clear profile of their enemies. Since the early years of British rule, this consciousness was nurtured by a popular culture and oral tradition, and through a series of conflicts in the nineteenth century it finally exploded in the 1921 rebellion against lord and state. This is a reissue of the original hardback in the Oxford India Paperbacks format.