The NewYork Times, November, 22, 1921.
64 out of 100 Moplah prisoners suffocated in a closed car on train in India.
London, Nov.21. – 64 of 100Moplah prisoners died from suffocation while being transferred in a closed railroad wagon from Tirur to Bellary in the Madras Presidency of India, according to a dispatch to the Daily Mail from Madras.
The government has ordered an enquiry and the Mohammadans have telegraphed representations to the government and to Earl Cromer who is head of personnel staff of the Prince of Wales now in India.
Chicago Tribune co. Calicut, India, Nov.21, The Moplah warriors who are carrying on the warfare against the British in India, according to officials number 13000 armed men and 100000 of a fighting age. The affected areas cover nearly 3000 square miles. The Hindu refugees numbers about 20000 and the government has organized charities to feed them in five camps in Calicut. Gandhi’s Congress claims to be feeding 8000 in private homes.
The Hindus in the rebel district have suffered in the hands of the Moplahs. The other day a Hindu who was wounded in the neck walked 10 miles to Calicut having been forced to hold his head up all the way. Another who just came out of the jungle said fifty of his fellow townsmen have been beheaded. The Moplahs are forcibly converting many to Mohammadanism.
The previous Moplah revolts have been small and unorganized.The present is the most serious that has occurred in many years, the rebels wrecking railways, buildings, tearing telegraph and committing other depredation. The trains are full of Moplahs. There being 4000 convicted and 3000 awaiting trial. In one of the recent battles, 2000 Moplahs attacked 200 Gurkhas but because of the superior equipment of the latter the Gurkhas were able to repel the rebels with a loss of only four men while the Moplahs lost 250. An aged Moplah led the charge against Gurkhas carrying a stick. Their women too are fearless, often dashing out under heavy Lewis machine gun fire to rescue the bodies of their relatives.
Newyork Times published September 14, 1921.
More Moplah Disorders
Mobs attack constable and fire building – 200 arrests made.
Calicut, British India, Sept.13. A mob of 1000 armed men from Mannarghat went to the Police station in Palghat yesterday and attempted to kill a Sub Inspector and seven constables. After firing shots into the air, the Sub Inspector and constables escaped to Ottapalam. The mob later looted the Registrar’s office and set fire to the records. Plunder appears to have been the main object of the mob.
On Saturday, last a mob entered buildings in Nilambur and set fire to them with kerosene
Madras, Sept.13 – An official statement issued under of Sunday says that opertions against the Moplahs in the Malabar district are making good progress. A British column which visited Ponnani to the south of Calicut made 200 arrests, the statement adds.
(The New York Times published Sept.2, 1921)
AMBUSH BRITISH IN INDIA.
Moplahs attacked troupes in motor cars -Madras again quiet.
Calicut, British India, September,
British troupes, who were proceeding in motorcars last Saturday in the direction of Malppuram, were attacked by 400 Moplahs near Mongam. Asst. Police chief Lancaster and two soldiers were killed and several wounded. The Moplahs suffered serious causalities.
The New york Times- Published September 4, 1921.
Moplahs- A menace for several years
Malabar: Fanatics said to have been emboldened by shifting of British troops. E. W. Dawson who was in Bombay for twelve years and knows the Malabar coast well, said yesterday that the Moplahs who are making trouble in that part of India were descendants of the Arabs who controlled the trade in the east during the 14th,15, and 16th centuries
These people are fanatical, said Mr. Dawson. Their battle crazy ancestors who were Moslems intermarried with the native women . The Europeans went to India to get the nutmegs, cloves, cinnamon, etc. which are so cheap today in Newyork but were very expensive in the middle ages. The spices were loaded on sailing boats at Bombay or Calicut and taken to a port in the Redsea, near the present town of Suez and carried across the desert to Alexandria. Thence they were shipped to Venice and Geneva for distribution throughout Europe. Vasco da Gama the Portuguese navigator went on his voyage of his discovery around the Cape of Good Hope to find some route to reach India without using the expensive overland means of transit.
The Arab merchants on the Malabar coast were so powerful in the early part of sixteenth century that the Portuguese government sent a naval expedition to fight their fleet and a battle took place in the strait of Hormus (Armuz). The Viceroy Albuquerque was in command of the Portuguese and the Arabs were defeated. The Moplahs have been giving troubles at intervals for several years and should have been checked before. The late Lord Kitchener in his scheme of concentrating the forces in India for rapid mobilization moved all the troupes practically to the north of Delhi which the India military authorities contended was a mistake and their opinion has since proved to be correct. Madras which is an important city on the Coromandal coast on the Bay of Bengal was left unprotected and the same thing applies to Calicut which is close to the Portuguese island of Goa, the only thing left of the vast possessions that the Portugal held in sixteenth century.
The Newyork times, Published, August 28, 1921.
Military occupy riot area in India.
Malabar district put under martial law after lootings and burnings by mobs. Quiet reported restored. Government plans to take action against prominent agitators held responsible for troubles.
Madras, India, August 27.(Associate Press.) The Malabar district of British India has been proclaimed a military area. This action was taken because of the serious aspect which the rioting Moplahs or Mohammadan inhabitants of Arab origin have assumed in the district.
During the last week there had been several cases of lootings and burnings. On Monday last, Magistrate Batty with an armed force proceeded to Pattambi where a mob of Moplahs marching on the railway was encountered. The mob came rushing on and machine guns were fired and it is believedthat the casualties would have been heavy although the number is not known.
In the evening, news arrived that a band of Moplahs were marching towards Cottappuram to attack the treasury and Magistrate Batty, with thirty men of the Dorset regiment and two machine guns proceeded to the town and patrolled the streets.
The police station at Cherpalchery has been burned, the treasury at Perntalmanna looted and the court there burned.
Concentration of necessary troops in the disturbed area has now been completed, however an official communiqué issued today announces that those sections which have been occupied by the military are quiet. The total number of military casualties since the outbreak is given as one officer killed and two of the ranks missing. The steamer Nawab is expected to arrive at Calicut from Bombay Sunday with supplies.
Calcutta, August 27. Rioters looted the treasury at Eranad Friday. Nearly six lakhs of rupees (Rs. 6,00,000) or normally about $19000 are said to have been contained in the Treasury.
The Moplahs or native Muslims released prisoners from jail and forced two of them and a warden to accept Mohammadan religion. They also carried off arms and ammunition from the police station.
A motor bus returning from Calicut from the disturbed area was attacked by Moplahs who killed the driver and an attendant and set the vehicle to fire.
London, August 27. Conditions in the disturbed district south of Calicut British India are shown to be of considerable gravity in an official statement issued at the Indian office here. The statement based on a telegram from Madras which was filed in that city early on Friday states that a mob of 2000 made an attack upon the Police station in the town of Tirur, and later clashed with platoon of Leicester regiment which dispersed the rioters with machine guns. Lieutenants Rowley and Johnston became separated from their troupes and were killed. Their bodies terribly mutilated were subsequently recovered. The cruiser Canopus arrived at Calicut yesterday and the situation in that city is said to be quiet. Further south and east, however there have been a number of serious fights. A detachment of soldiers from Malappuram, 35 miles south east of Calicut has been cut off from their base but is said to be safe. Reports from a number of towns of Malabar coast, state that looting continues and that the public offices in many places have been looted by mobs.
Owing to the serious character of the riots and the possibility of a general spread of the disorders, the Daily telegraph today says that it understands the Government of India, with the concurrence of Edward Spencer Montagum, Secretary of State for India has decided to take action against the prominenet personages held responsible for the greater part of the recent troubles in India.
It is felt, says the newspaper that the limit of patience has been reached by the Indian government. It is understood, it adds, that these authorities are fully prepared for fresh efforts to quell the disorder should be preventive action now being taken not met with success.
Just who the prominent personages alluded to the foregoing, is not clear. It seems possible that the leaders of native India nationalistic movement of whom Mahatma Gandhi is the chief, may be meant. The movement headed by Gandhi is however conducted along the lines of a voidance of violence the method advocated being that of noncooperation with the British regime in India or the virtual boycott of all things British within the Indian realm.
