The Moplah Rebellion 1921 – A British Soldier's viewpoint
Posted by Labels: Jewel of malabar, Moplah rebellion, Sinderby Malabar
Donald Sinderby in
Malabar
There are so many books with deal with the revolt in
Malabar, or what the British Raj termed a rebellion (i.e. waging war against
the crown) with a purpose to clamp down the area under martial law. Some of these were written by Malayali
congressmen and survivors, some others by the British administrators who were
in the thick of things. There are very few firsthand accounts from the British
side perhaps because such reporting was not encouraged. There is one, a work of
historical fiction which gained a certain amount of popularity but vanished
from the shelves after a while. Having obtained a dog eared 1927 copy of that
book, I decide to peruse it carefully without tearing those ancient pages, with
an intention of finding out what a common soldier thought about the whole
thing. What you will read on is not a review but a summary of Sinderby’s
opinion of Malabar, the Nairs, the administrators and the revolting Moplah, not
about the love story which he wrote. In a way this book is unique since it is
one of its kind, though the contents are not summarily of great value.