After the Ministry of Culture and the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) announced that it will remove the Moplah Rebellion leaders Variamkunnath Kunhamed Haji, from the Dictionary of Martyrs of India’s Freedom Struggle, the movie based in the life of Variankunnathu Kunjahammed Haji now stands cancelled as actor Prithviraj Sukumaran and director Ashiq Abu have withdrawn from a movie project.
The movie was to portray Haji as a freedom fighter during the 1921 Malabar rebellion who was later executed by the British regime. This announcment was met with staunch critisim because the Moplah rebellion was not a freedom movement but was a fundamentalist religious movement focused on forced conversion of Hindus to Islam and the creation of a Caliphate. Haji infact was a active member of Khilafat Movement.
As per reports in The Hindu newspaper, director Abu said that he and Prithviraj have withdrawn from the movie titled “Variankunnan“ due to differences with producers.
When the project was announced, Prithviraj had said Haji stood up against an empire and, “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,”.
But what Prithviraj did not know or never learned that Haji was a rioter who established a Sharia court and beheaded a large number of Hindus because they were non-believers and targeted Hindus in Eranadu and Valluvanadu taluks in south Malabar in 1921.
The film was set to be released this year, coinciding with the centenary celebrations of the Malabar Rebellion but according to Hindu Aikyaved ithe idea behind this film are with “ulterior motive” and Haji and other leaders of Malabar Rebellion were responsible for atrocities committed on Hindus in Eranadu and Valluvanadu in 1921.
However, left historians who controlled the narrative until recently said that he Malabar rebellion was peasant struggle against the Hindu feudal landlords in the region which is the same argument used against the Kashmiri Pandits when they were attacked and thrown out of the valley.
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