A fresh controversy erupted on Monday after filmmakers in Kerala announced a new period film titled ‘Vaariyamkunnan’, based on the life of a Jihadi named Variyam Kunnathu Kunjahammed Haji who was responsible for carrying out genocide against thousands of Hindus in Kerala during the early 1920s.
On Monday, it was revealed that director Aashiq Abu has cast Malayalam actor Prithviraj Sukumaran in his period film titled ‘Vaariyamkunnan’, slated to be released in 2021. The controversial movie is based on the story of Muslim leader of Moplah community, who massacred thousands of Hindus during the Malabar or Moplah communal riots in 1921.
Actor Prithviraj Sukumaran, took to Facebook, to announce his new movie and also hailed the Jihadist in his post. The actor, sharing the posters of the movie, said Variyam Kunnathu stood up against an empire that ruled a quarter of the world.
“Etched out his own country with an army that waged a never before war against the British. Though history was burned and buried, the legend lived on! The legend of a leader, a soldier, a patriot. A film on the man who became the face of the 1921 Malabar revolution. Vaariyamkunnan. Filming begins in 2021. On the 100th anniversary,” said his Facebook post.
The new Malayalam movie on the life of Islamic terrorist Variyam Kunnathu, who had unleashed massive terror on Hindus on the Malabar region of Kerala, is yet another attempt to whitewash the crimes committed by the Islamists in the country under the garb of freedom of movement.
The absolving of crimes by a section of filmmakers, especially in Kerala, by hailing a terrorist as someone who “rebelled” against the British, is nothing but an attempt to erase the history and also a dangerous act of rewriting the history of Malabar or Moplah Hindu massacres to suit their anti-Hindu narrative.
Who really was Variyam Kunnathu Kunjahammed Haji?
Variyam Kunnathu or Chakkiparamban Variyamkunnathu Kunjahammed Haji, who proclaimed himself to be the ‘Sultan of Eranad’ – the region of Kerala where the Moplah genocide occurred, was, in fact, the Father of the Moplah Hindu genocide, who along with Muslim forces looted and massacred Hindus of the region under the garb of rebelling against the British in the early 1920s.
The Moplah Hindu Genocide, also often whitewashed as the Malabar Rebellion, or the Mappila Rebellion, are a series of incidents in the history of the country, where Hindus were not only butchered by the Muslims, but also the entire barbarity was erased from history in entirety, or altered to fit a suitable political narrative.
The four-month period of horror in the Malabar region of Kerala when Muslim rioters carried out a mass genocide against Hindus, actually started as a freedom revolt against the British but ended up being as a reason for the Jihadists like Variyamkunnathu to wipe out the Hindu population of northern Kerala.
Along with his friend and aid – Ali Musliyar, Variyam Kunnathu led the Moplah riots in Kerala in 1921 and was an active supporter of the Khilafat movement, which eventually led to the partition of the country and the creation of Pakistan. The estimated Hindu deaths of the ethnic cleansing in Moplah massacre accounts to somewhere around 10,000 and it is believed that as many a 100,000 Hindus were forced to leave Kerala in the wake of the riots.
The number of Hindu Temples that were destroyed in the genocide is speculated to be a hundred. Forcible conversion of Hindus were rampant and unspeakable atrocities were poured upon Hindus. It can be read about in more detail here.
The atrocities against Hindus were so barbaric such that the leading national leaders of the day had to express their shock against the Moplah massacres.
Babasaheb Ambedkar in his book, Pakistan or the Partition of India, wrote, “The blood-curdling atrocities committed by the Moplas in Malabar against the Hindus were indescribable. All over Southern India, a wave of horrified feeling had spread among the Hindus of every shade of opinion, which was intensified when certain Khilafat leaders were so misguided as to pass resolutions of “congratulations to the Moplas on the brave fight they were conducting for the sake of religion.”
Annie Besant described the events in her book ‘The Future of Indian Politics’ as, “They murdered and plundered abundantly, and killed or drove away all Hindus who would not apostatize. Somewhere about a lakh of people were driven from their homes with nothing but the clothes they had on, stripped of everything. Malabar has taught us what Islamic rule still means, and we do not want to see another specimen of the Khilafat Raj in India”
The Malayalam movie ‘Vaariyamkunnan’, produced by a team mostly of Malabar Muslims, may have just thought that they could ignore the massacres unleashed against Hindus by their forefathers and re-write the history to hail the genocide maniac through their films.
