Moplah

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A raw account of the gruesome, targeted massacre of the Hindus in Malabar in the backdrop of the Khilafat movement, Moplah also captures the undercurrents of caste tensions that in part led to the Moplah rebellion of 1921 that saw rioting, forcible conversions and stomach-churning brutalities against Hindus. Authored by the great scholar, poet, writer extraordinaire, and eminent historian Swatantryaveer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Moplah is a story of how Hindus were deceived by their delusional leaders.

Manjula Tekal loves to make sense of stories separated by place, time and context. She has transitioned to writing after a long and successful corporate career. She is the author of Devayani, a novel based on a story from the Mahabharata, set in pre-Rigvedic times. She is now working on a second novel based on a puranic story. Her literary translations include Dr Babu Krishnamurthy's Azad, the Invincible (English) and Jagmohan's My Frozen Turbulence in Kashmir (Kannada). Savarkar's Moplah (English), K. S. Narayanacharya's The Last Moments of Krishna's Life (English) and Sankrant Sanu's The English Medium Myth (Kannada) are on the anvil. Several of her articles have been featured in Indica Today.

Manjula holds master's degrees in management from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

About a hundred years have passed since the massacre of Hindus by Muslim Moplahs in Malabar, Kerala. But it does not seem like we have learned anything in the past hundred years. If we had learned anything, our country would not have suffered a bloody partition within hardly two and a half decades after the genocide of Hindus by the Moplahs, in which millions lost their lives. Seven decades later, scores of Hindus would not have been killed, and survivors would not have been expelled from Kashmir. The truth is that we have not made any effort to understand the true character of Islam. Therefore, we must analyse all Abrahamic religions, including Islam.

In the history of mankind, while the ancient Sanatana dharma and nature worship held sway, virulent and widespread sectarian violence was almost non-existent. But after Abrahamic religions were born and especially after Christianity gained acceptance, its terrible effect on humanity was felt on an unforeseen and unimaginable scale. In fact, Christianity started the trend of trying to obliterate any sect or group of people who were perceived to be different. It is worth noting that what Christians themselves label as a 'triumph of Christianity' is a complete destruction or an erasure of an existing culture. As the author, Nixey, explains, 'Roman Triumph' is simply obliteration. (Catherine Nixey, "The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World," Pan Macmillan, 2017). It is not merely victory. As an example, the meaning of, a word widely used by Muslims, is to rescind, renege, or root out and destroy. Christians and Muslims do not think of war merely in terms of victory or defeat but believe in complete destruction. This outlook is so starkly different from Hindus that we have difficulty understanding it.

It is no wonder then that the old civilisations of the American continent were destroyed by the Christians, and the local people there were massacred. Something similar happened in Africa to a large extent as well, resulting in cultural genocide everywhere. Islam progressed in a similar trend because there is no fundamental difference between Christianity and Islam. A significant part of the Quran is simply copied from the Bible. Both religions are monotheistic and believe in one wrathful God or Allah. Both are constantly and anxiously working to bring people of different beliefs into their fold. Both continuously increase their numbers and strength by bringing people into their ranks, even when they start from zero. Both consider their religion the 'only' true religion and others false. This becomes the main reason for enmity and violence. Both have a single-minded objective to establish their rule everywhere by eliminating others. Both believe that it is unfair or illegal for people different from them to live in this world and strive to obliterate them. They see it as their duty.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages