The 1921 Malabar Genocide of Hindus by the Moplah Muslims was a dark chapter in the history of Hindus and the civilisational state of Bharat with an estimated over 10,000 Hindus being massacred by Moplah Muslims. The genocide was a direct consequence of the Khilafat movement that was espoused by none other than Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Ever since, the genocide of Hindus has been whitewashed, pushed under the rug or distorted to paint the aggressors as the ‘real’ victims. The Left has spent decades trying to push the narrative that the Malabar genocide was actually a “peasant uprising” where poor Muslims rose up against the evil Hindu landlords, demanding their legitimate rights. The killing, was a result of the oppression faced by Muslims and not a product of sectarian hate that the Islamists harboured.
The truth is, of course, far from it. In the book The Moplah Rebellion, 1921 written by Diwan Bahadur C. Gopalan Nair, he narrates how even before the Moplah massacre of Hindus, intermittently, there were times when Muslims went into a frenzy and slaughtered Hindus. He writes how the Muslims would sometimes go into their “Hal Ilakam” (Religious frenzy) and not only slaughter Hindus but also desecrate their temples.
At that time, one MR TL Strange was sent as the special commissioner in Malabar to understand what the cause of these frenzied episodes are. In an 1852 report, Mr Strange categorically rejected the theory that the transgressions by the Muslims against Hindus were a result of a peasant uprising. The report also said that the Hindu landlords treated the peasants well and the violence against Hindus was a clear result of Islamic hate.
Any attempt to change the established Left narrative about the Malabar Genocide of Hindus has been met with steep resistance, it was, therefore, expected that the upcoming movie by Ramasimhan (previously known as Ali Akbar) would meet the same fate. On June 27, news emerged that the censor committee of Kerala had denied a certificate to the upcoming Malayalam film ‘Puzha Muthal Puzha Vare’, revolving around the Malabar Genocide of Hindus, by filmmaker Ali Akbar aka Ramasimhan Aboobakker. What presumably made matters far worse for Ramasimhan, was that he had reconverted to Hinduism after being disillusioned by the conduct of Islamists in several cases, particularly, after the tragic death of CDS General Bipin Rawat.
“There was a movie that was being released on the Malabar Genocide of Hindus that glorified the murderers. The movie ‘Vaariyamkunnan’ was based on the life of Variamkunnath Kunhamed Haji and Ali Musaliar – the Jihadis responsible for carrying out genocide against thousands of Hindus in Kerala during the early 1920s. When this movie was announced, many people approached me to make a movie that represented the truth about what happened to the Hindus community. That is when I decided to make this film”, Ramasimhan said.
This movie by Ramasimhan is completely crowd-funded. “From Rs 50 onwards, people started giving me money to make this movie. I collected Rs 1.4 crores by people’s contribution”, he said.
It is pertinent to remember that Malayalam director Aashiq Abu had cast controversial Malayalam actor Prithviraj Sukumaran in his period film titled ‘Vaariyamkunnan’. After the outrage, it was reported that the movie was shelved. In June 2020, controversial Malayali actor Prithviraj Sukumaran took to Facebook to announce the new movie and hailed the Jihadists 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. The moviemakers were accused of whitewashing the crimes of Jihadists of the Moplah Hindu massacre under the garb of freedom of movement. Several people had raised objections against the movie, alleging that the movie was another attempt to absolve crimes by hailing a terrorist as someone who “rebelled” against the British.
Ramasimhan (Ali Akbar) told OpIndia that from the very beginning, a regional officer called Parvati in the Kerala Censor Board was against the movie. “From the registration itself, she was against me”, he said. “It took around one and a half months to register the movie in the software e-pramaan. The software would keep saying it was under scrutiny. The moment I said I will approach the High Court, the registration went through. After that, they called for screening. But after the screening, without any notice, she suggested the movie to the Revision Committee, Mumbai”, he added.
According to Akbar, when he reached Mumbai, there was a 9 person hearing at the Revision Committee. There were Malayalis as well so the local context is not lost. The Revision Committee said that because the movie has a little bit of violence, the certificate that would be given to it would be an A certificate. The Review Committee also suggested some minor cuts that were accepted by Ramasimhab. He told OpIndia that the cuts suggested in this first review meeting were nothing major that altered the foundation of the story itself.
After this meeting, while Ramasimhan waited for the list of cuts that he had to make, he got a notice from the CBFC that another Revision Committee meeting was to be held. Ramasimhan was a little flummoxed because he did not understand the reason for a second revision. His contacts told him that the movie was passed by the first committee but after that, it could only be something “fishy” that led to a second meeting.
When he reached for the second Revision Committee meeting, Ramasimhan says that there were no Malayali members in the panel.
One of the first scenes that the CBFC censored in the movie was a scene where the Thuvur well incident was depicted. On the 25th of September 1921, on the barren hillside between Thuvoor and Karuvayakandi in North Kerala Chambrassery Imbichi Koithangal, one of the Khilafat leaders, held a rally with over 4,000 of his followers. During this meeting, more than 40 Hindus were caught hold of and taken to him with their hands tied behind their backs. 38 were murdered. 3 of the 38 were shot but the rest were beheaded and thrown in the Thuvoor well.
Besides the Thuvoor well incident, there were several other scenes which were cut. For example, Akbar tells OpIndia that in the movie, there was one dialogue that spoke about the Al-Daula (Islamic State) that was established in Malabar by Kunjahammed Haji. According to several records, this was evidently an ‘independent area’ that the Islamists had established where they had even imposed Jizya on Hindus. One lady, who was a part of the censor board, asked Akbar questions about what he knew about Shariat and Islam, and then proceeded to cut that dialogue altogether.
Akbar told OpIndia that during the 1921 Genocide of Hindus, the carnage was rampant. There was the forcible conversion of Hindus, the deliberate slaughter of cows was rampant just to insult the faith of the Hindus, several thousand were beheaded and temples were razed to the ground. In the movie, he had scenes where he depicted the forcible conversion of Hindus and the temples being razed by Islamists, these scenes were also disallowed by the censor board. In another scene, without really showing the cow slaughter, he had alluded to cows being slaughtered by Islamists and that too was cut.
Aside from such scenes, OpIndia was told that the censor board even told Ali Akbar to ensure that chants of “Allahu Akbar” and “Naara-e-Taqbeer” were not shown so frequently.
Essentially, all the cuts in the movie would strip down the essence of the movie, which was to show the genocide of Hindus by Moplah Muslims in 1921. He suspects that the censor board was under the influence of the Kerala officer who, according to him, is a Communist wanting to peddle the communist narrative of the 1921 genocide being a “peasant uprising” against “landlords”. In fact, this is evidenced by the fact that when the movie referred to the family of the Hindus Kings of the area as “Lords”, the censor board insisted that it be changed to refer to them as “Landlords”.
The full list of cuts that Ramasimhan got, essentially would mean that he would have to show a movie on the genocide of Hindus without really showing how the Hindus were murdered and tortured, essentially, peddling the “peasant uprising” propaganda of the Leftists. Mr TG Mohandas uploaded the full list of cuts on Twitter as well.
Dear @ARanganathan72 & @Iyervval you both are free speech absolutists. Just see the cuts Censor Board imposes on the Malayalam film Puzha Muthal Puzha Vare depicting Hindu Genocide of 1921!
— TG Mohandas (@mohandastg) September 7, 2022
Please prevail upon @ianuragthakur to overrule Censor Board#ReleaseRamadimhanMovie pic.twitter.com/7j9qfZbHTP
“After these cuts, only goodness of the Muslims would be there, there would be nothing that would show the plight of Hindus who were murdered by the Moplah Muslims”, Ramasimhan told OpIndia.
Ramasimhan also said that among the many cuts that would change the character of the movie, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) during its Revising Committee meeting also was forcing him to use his Muslim name, Ali Akbar, as the Director of the movie. “I think they have a problem that a Muslim man converted to Hinduism and is making a movie on the Malabar genocide of Hindus”, he told OpIndia. “They don’t want this message going out”, he added.
“So many people use pen names. So many artists and technicians use a different names. Why should they have a problem if I want to use Ali Akbar as the producer name but my Hindu name as the Director? They are supposed to review the movie, not decide on names”, he added. He told OpIndia that he had also submitted his conversion certificate to the censor board, however, they insisted that he use the name Ali Akbar as the Director and not Ramasimhan.
“I am suspicious that it was Parvati from the Kerala Censor Board who told the Revision Committee of CBFC that these cuts should be there. I suspect some pressure from Islamist organisations like PFI as well”, he said. Since the Kerala Censor Board and the Revision Committee, both come under the central government, on being asked why he thinks his movie is being stonewalled, Ramasimhan said, “You have to remember that dialogue from The Kashmir Files – The government might be outs but the establishment is still theirs. Also, I think the central government is more interested in economic growth and in the process, they ignore important cultural issues”, he said.
Other roadblocks that Ramasimhan faced while making the movie on the 1921 genocide – threats, intimidation and clandestine stonewalling
Ramasimhan told OpIndia that it was not just the cuts by the Censor Board that were stonewalling the movie, He wanted to register a name for the Hindi version of the movie, however, that too proved to be difficult. Ramasimhan wanted to register the Hindi version of the name, “1921: Puzha Muthal Puzha Vare”, which essentially translates to “1921: Nadi Se Nadi Tak”. However, when he tried to register the name, it was already taken by someone else.
“I tried to register 20 different variations of the name, from Malabar Genocide to every variation one can think of, however, all had been registered by someone else. It was almost as if someone did not want me to find a name for the Hindi version of the movie”, he said. Ramasimhan suspects that someone is deliberately registering all possible names for the movie so he cannot register a Hindi name.
Ramasimhan further said that the Kerala state police and the Central Intelligence officers have approached him, informing him that he is under serious threat. “After the movie came into the news, and even when I was filming the movie, there were threats. The central agencies came to my house and told me to install 8 cameras for security purposes”, he said.
“Even when I was filming the movie, beyond the threats, the state tried to stonewall the movie by denying me permission to shoot”, said Ramasimhan. “They did not give me permission to shoot in public areas, I had to come to private areas and finish the shooting of the film”, he added. About the threats, Ramasimhan said that radical Islamists had threatened even the artists working in the movie, asking them to stop their association with the film. Eventually, Ramasimhan says that he made the set on his own property to finish the filming. “They did not even allow me to visit the area of the Thuvur well. Actually, the Thuvur well area is now purchased by these Muslims. They are still looking to create a Muslim caliphate in Malabar”.
Ramasimhan believes that given the threats he has received since he reconverted to Hinduism, he is a dead man walking. “They will finish me the day they get the change”, he said. “The only security I have is my Krishna”.
Ramasimhan, previously known as Ali Akbar, has now decided to approach the High Court to seek justice against the cuts imposed by the CBFC.
