The making of the Malayalee public sphere and the exclusion of Mappila women: Language and communal politics in Colonial Malabar

Abstract

This article discusses the formation and distinctive evolution of the Malayalee public sphere in Malabar from the second half of the 19^th century. When the press was introduced, versions of Malayalam, such as Arabimalayalam, Suriyani-Malayalam, and Aryanezhuthu/modern-Malayalam, were seen to be associated with different communities. The varied community and religious orientations of Malayalam were reflected in the newly emerging Malayalee public sphere. The tensions that racked the public sphere on this count compelled the Mappila intelligentsia to turn to modern Malayalam in order to contest claims alluding to their criminality. It led to their withdrawal from Arabimalayalam which was the language of their community. The waning of Arabimalayalam had an impact on Mappila women annihilating the possibility of their voices being heard in the newly emergent public sphere.

Keywords

Arabimalayalam Malabar Mappila public sphere women

I Introduction

On 18 April 1991, Malayalam newspapers carried a photograph of a 70-year-old Mappila woman, Ayisha Chelakkodan, under a report declaring Kerala to be the first state in India to have achieved total literacy. The report was not without a touch of irony, since historical and ethnographic research shows that Mappila women in Malabar in the late colonial period were more literate than Mappila men, and lower-caste Hindu women. But the discourse that rendered Mappila women illiterate has to be apprehended within a former colonial discursive formation and the exclusions by gender, language, and community in the public sphere.

The adjectives associated with the word ‘Mappila’, such as ‘fanatic’, ‘criminal’, ‘uneducated’, and ‘illiterate’ were evident in colonial reports and such Orientalist discourse provided the backdrop for the typification of communities who protested against the colonial Portuguese and British governments (Radhakrishna 2001). The exorbitant tax system on land led to the first Mappila outbreak against the East India Company in 1836 which the rulers began to call the ‘Moplah Outrages’. After that, there were many such outbreaks culminating in the 1921 Mappila rebellion or Malabar rebellion.¹ The British Raj from that point onwards depicted the Mappila community as ‘almost entirely uneducated and their religious fanaticism is, under these circumstances, a source of danger to the public peace’ (Cornish 1874: 73).

Colonial reports had ascribed religious fanaticism to Mappilas much before the 1921 rebellion though multiple reasons lay behind the outbreaks including rent issues (Hardgrave 1977). While Dale (1980) continued the colonial narration and assigned religious fanaticism, Marxist historians (for instance, Panikkar 1989) argued that these were peasant revolts and Mappila historians (see, Randathani 2007) described them as anti-colonial struggles. Although the present article is not concerned with the reasons for the rebellion, it constitutes the vital backdrop for an understanding of the evolution of the Malayalee public sphere in the Malabar region.

II Method and fieldwork

To obtain an idea of the exclusions by gender, language, and religious community in the public sphere, I carried out 114 interviews with Mappilas by focussing on four predominantly Mappila populated areas—Nilambur, Pookkottur, Vengara, and Chaliyam. The first three regions were most affected by the Mappila rebellion, while Chaliyam is an early Mappila settlement (Prange 2018). I chose people aged 60 years or older who could speak of their own experiences as well as provide an account of the past. The fieldwork was conducted in the period from April 2016 to January 2017 in Nilambur and the second round in May–July 2018 from Pookkottur and Vengara. While the quantitative data for this article relates to the first three locations, the ethnographic descriptions (qualitative data) refer to all four sites.²

Out of the 114 interviewees, 78 were women and 36 were men. 53 of the women could read and write in Arabimalayalam, which translates into Mappila women’s literacy at about 68 per cent. Out of the 36 men, only 9 knew the language—that is, about 25 per cent of them.³ Apart from this aspect of gender, the class nature of Arabimalayalam also came to the fore. Out of 38 interviewees among working-class Mappilas, 26 were fluent in Arabimalayalam but for the colonial masters such as William Logan, ‘the entire Mappila population are a mass of ignorance’ (1887: 160), while Innes (1951 [1933]: 295–303) noted that out of every 1000 Mappilas, 945 were illiterate which implied that the literacy among Mappilas was to the tune of 5.5 per cent!

Drawing upon Foucault’s archaeological approach (Foucault 1972) in this article, I investigate the contingent political and cultural forces during the late colonial period in Malabar to map out the discourse of literacy here for an epoch that is forged through discursive—in particular written and verbal—and non-discursive or symbolic forms of communication (Foucault 1971). The discursive formation in a given period sets the conditions for the possibilities of truth which provide its conceptual boundaries. Locating discursive formations invited the analyses of different forms of communication, both academic and public, which I undertook by exploring newspapers and magazines of the period when the Malayalee public sphere and print journalism were emerging. The content analysis of documents (newspaper / colonial documents) helps to locate the nature of this discourse while the analysis of Arabimalayalam documents along with memory studies based on ethnography, vernacular archives, and oral history are useful in bringing out the exclusions by gender and communal politics within that discourse.

In the third section, I describe the ethnographic context of a language, Arabimalayalam, which is associated with the Mappilas in Malabar. It comments on the high level of literacy in pre-print Malabar and recounts the flourishing of Arabimalayalam literature among the Mappilas despite a lack of support from the British Government. The fourth section shows how the spread of published materials in different forms of Malayalam created a public sphere but it came to be fragmented by religious communities, caste, and class due to disagreements about various social and political issues like that of the 1921 Mappila rebellion. Here, I draw attention to the fact that the Mappilas were compelled to address the construction of negative images about them and their propagation in and through Aryanezhuthu or the Malayalam (hereafter Malayalam) by recourse to the latter language. This period led to a gradual shift of Mappilas from Arabimalayalam publications to Malayalam publications which resulted in Arabimalayalam’s gradual elimination from the public sphere and its confinement to lower-class Mappilas and women of the lower and middle classes. In addition, this section emphasises the shift from Othupallis (formal and informal Mappila community schools) to Madrasas (formal Islamic schools) such that the waning of Arabimalayalam led to the closure of women’s access to the former nuggets of knowledge that it encoded. In short, the waning of Arabimalayalam publications and the transformation of Othupallis to Madrasas impacted the literacy of Mappila women in Malabar from the late 19^th century onwards. I conclude by emphasising the distinctive evolution of the Malayalee public sphere and bringing out how its disparate publics retained their caste, class, and religious orientations.

III Language in an ethnographic context

Arabic-Malayalam is then Malayalam written in sophisticated Arabic script…. By adding lines and dots to consonants and vowels, the script is thus modified so that it can represent all the sounds of the Malayalam language. (Karasseri 1995: 169)

Strikingly, the structure and vocabulary of oral Malayalam or Pacha-Malayalam are reflected in Arabimalayalam. The vocabulary of Arabimalayalam is predominantly constituted by words used in oral Malayalam which includes several words from Tamil and loan words from Arabic, Sanskrit, Persian, Urdu, and Tulu/Kannada as well (Abu 1970: 28–32). The sounds of some Arabimalayalam letters differ from Arabic because there are only 15 Arabic letters that can be written in Malayalam whereas the Arabimalayalam script can recreate all the sounds of oral Malayalam.⁴ Arabimalayalam incorporates words from Sanskrit, Tamil, and other languages as well as certain sounds that are necessary for expressing Islamic and Mappila cultural texts. Arabimalayalam has a distinct identity that cannot be equated with either Arabic or Sanskrit-Malayalam. It constitutes in my view a semi-autonomous language that is one of three semi-autonomous Malayalam languages that formerly existed in Malabar—Arabimalayalam associated with the Mappilas, Suriyani-Malayalam used by the Syrian Christians, and Sanskrit-Malayalam or Aryanezhuthu which tended to be the preserve of the Nairs and upper-caste Thiyyas. Until Sanskrit-Malayalam was essentialised as ‘modern’ Malayalam or the Malayalam, Arabimalayalam was ‘a Malayalam’ and the adjective ‘Arabic’ was not used:

Mapilahs all speak the Malayalam language, but they use a modified form of the Arabic alphabet to write in…. But its use extends over the whole Tamil country also, and since the last few years it has been the favorite character of all Mahomedans in Southern India, who make ever so small a claim to be educated. (Cornish 1874: 173)

The oldest document which has survived in Arabimalayalam is the Muhiyuddin-Maala⁵ which is said to have been composed in 1607 AD and authored by Khazi Muhammed of Calicut (Moulavi and Kareem 1978: 44). However, the massive growth of Arabimalayalam literature is evident only from the 18^th century because of the increasing dominance of print culture, the growth of the rural Mappila population due to the massive conversion of lower castes to Islam from the 16^th to 18^th centuries (Dale 1980) and migration of Mappila population from the coastal belt to rural areas due to the Portuguese attack on Mappilas and the gradual replacement of Arabian traders from the coastal belt (Panikkar 1989: 51).

The poetic tradition in Arabimalayalam is commonly known as Mappilappattu (Karasseri 2009).⁶ Poetic texts which have ritual significance are generally referred to as Maalas (and Maalappattu or Neerchappattu). Maalas are recited on many occasions,⁷ at times of calamities or epidemics, and also on such occasions as housewarmings and when Auliyas or saints are commemorated. Reciting these songs helped the new converts to Islam to learn the context and content of the texts. Songs written in Arabimalayalam are also marshalled for the performing arts such as Oppana and Kolkkali. An interesting custom staged a literary competition (the Mappilappaattu) among people from the groom’s and bride’s side on the day of marriage though this tradition has disappeared now. An 82-year-old woman, Aleematha, recalled that women’s command over Arabimalayalam on that occasion was accorded a high value. Remembering her youth, she said:

I was one of the villagers chosen to represent my village. I had to compete with the bride. Every bride from an upper-class family knew Arabimalayalam, Mappilappaattu, and other markers of religious learning. Prior to the marriage ceremony, the bride’s learning was a topic that was discussed in the village. Before she entered her husband’s home, she had to compete with me (the village representative). If the bride lost the competition, it was considered to be a shame for the family. Sometimes, I was also secretly approached by the families to let the bride win the competition if she was marrying into a highly respected family. If I won, I had the right to hold her hand and accompany her to her room. If she won the competition, she would be respected by the community and society since it was an indication of her learning. Then those women who taught in Othupallis often approached these women to clarify their doubts about both religious and non-religious matters since apart from religion and the arts, these women had knowledge of the herbal medicinal system and its practices.

Mappilas learned Arabimalayalam through the community-oriented school system called Othupalli. Othupallis from the late 18^th century were mostly financed by feudal Mappila families. This is where working-class Mappilas learned Arabimalayalam. Ethnographic interviews conducted in different parts of Malabar shed light on the Othupalli educational system. Othupallies could be formal or informal and engage both male and female teachers. When these were run by female teachers, the boys left after successful completion of four/five academic years but both girls and boys could continue in Othupallis where male teachers taught. These Othupallis imparted basic education and Arabimalayalam which enabled Mappila women to acquire learning related to their lifeworld in domains such as religion, art, arithmetic, and medicine. While knowledge of arithmetic was necessary for trade, medicinal knowledge helped women to care for their children and the elderly since most of the time the working male members were outside the home for petty trade in weekly and monthly markets. Kathleen Gough notes:

In the Mappila schools called othupallis, the local mulla … taught children to recognize the Arabic letters, carved on wooden planks. He gave instruction in Malayalam grammar and syntax, logic, the traditions of the prophet, and the chanting of the Quran [emphasis added]. (1968: 138)

Most of my female informants were taught by female teachers. While some addressed them as ‘Muliyarichi’ (a female version of Musliyar or male teachers in Othupallis/Madrasa), some others called them Mukkrichi (female version of Mukkri—a muezzin from the mosque who calls out the Adhan five times a day). This was used more like an adjective as in ‘Mukkri-Sainaba’.⁸

Mappila women also learned Arabimalayalam without formal teachers. An 87-year-old lady, Beepathu, told me that she could read and write Arabimalayalam despite not attending an Othupalli because:

Everyone had to recite the Quran or Edus⁹ after the daily namaz (five-time prayer) as a part of the tradition. I had to recite the Quran from memory but by looking into the text without knowing the script. Gradually I picked up Arabimalayalam scripts since many Edus and other written texts were in Arabimalayalam.

Literacy in pre-print Malabar

The rapid growth of print culture is possible only in a literate society. Although the print culture and its aftermath are attributed to a time referred to as ‘Kerala’s modernity’, pre-print Kerala had an unusually high literacy rate (Gough 1968; Jeffrey 1992). Considering the ethnographic context of different communities, Gough has argued that the literacy of Kerala’s inhabitants in the early 18^th century was 38 per cent, but Michael Tharakan (1984a, 1984b) contends that female literacy was very low because it had not spread to the lower castes like the Pulaya and Cherumar. However, from the 16^th century, the major village school system in Kerala called Kudippallikkodam began to incorporate Sanskrit training into their syllabus, and with this, Sanskritised Malayalam began to spread to the Ambalavasis (temple dwellers), the upper strata of Nairs, and the Thiyya-Nairs or Upper-Thiyyas. These Thiyya-Nairs or Upper-Thiyyas were often identified with regional names along with their occupational identities such as Asan, Ezhuthachan, Panicker, etc.¹⁰ These occupations included teaching the martial arts by selected members from Upper-Thiyya communities and teaching Sanskrit and vernacular languages (mainly Sanskrit-Malayalam/Aryanezhuthu and nominally Vattezhuthu/Vatteluttu¹¹) by Asan or Ezhuthachan.¹² Panickers mainly engaged in assisting astrological rituals¹³ performed by Brahmins in the Nair-Kalari which later became the principal educational institution for Nair men.

Before the institutionalisation of Kalari as an educational institution for Nair men, certain members from Thiyya-Nairs or Upper-Thiyyas were experts in the fields such as the vernacular language, using local weapons, and identifying local herbs. Gradually, they picked up Sanskrit and astrology as well.¹⁴ And, in due course of time, they formed into specific communities based on their occupational identities such as Asan, Ezhuthachan, etc. The formation of this group also led to the creation of a new indigenous educational institution for the children of this community called the Ezhuthu-Kalari.¹⁵ In short, Malabar was a region of varying school systems and different Malayalams. The school systems included the Nambudiri Padashala, Mappila Othupalli, Nair-Othupalli, Nair-Kalari, Upper-Thiyya-Ezhuthu-Kalari, and Kudippallikkodam.¹⁶

Mappilas had Arabic (theological), Arabimalayalam (the common language of the Mappilas), and nominally Vattezhuthu (a version mostly, employed for cross-community trade). Apart from Sanskrit, Brahmins knew Malayanma and Aryanezhuthu or Malayalam. Nairs and Ambalavasis knew either Sanskrit or Aryanezhuthu. Language literacy was quite high among the Nambudiris, Nairs, Thiyya-Nairs, and the elite Mappilas. This language literacy prepared the ground for print culture and a public sphere, which was, however, fragmented, as we shall see below, on the grounds of the diversity of community knowledge systems and their association with different versions of Malayalam. However, the working class, except those from the Mappila community, did not have access to the existing forms of the school system.

From the very beginnings of print culture, magazines and newspapers in Malayalam and Arabimalayalam were published and circulated in the Malabar region. Arabimalayalam literature functioned as a knowledge resource for Mappilas and was disseminated to women through local vendors. Pathummanni (72-year-old) explains how she procured books in Arabimalayalam:

I was the second wife…. She (first wife) never allowed me to interfere with matters related to the kitchen. I was to monitor outside work. Panikkari-Pennungal (those women who work in the land) would come to the rear of the Tharavadu (house) and they did the weaving of coconut fronds after their work. Whatever I learned through Arabimalayalam I would explain to them. I would get some money from selling these coconut fronds…. Those who sold fish and those who sold ornaments, I noticed, would also carry Arabimalayalam Alppachadies (a kind of non-sacred small book).

Learning Arabimalayalam had dual benefits. Since the Arabimalayalam script adds certain symbols to Arabic letters, learning Arabimalayalam also enabled the person to read Arabic with relative ease. Interestingly, some of the respondents replied that they only know Malayalam and not Arabimalayalam. When a resident told me that she only knows Malayalam, I gave her a novel written in Malayalam to read. Her reply to this was, ‘ithu ippothe kuttikalu vayikkunna maalayalalle!’ (this is the Malayalam of the new generation!). In fact, many believed that the Arabimalayalam they were reading was Malayalam only.

Arabimalayalam was already an accepted language of the Mappilas at the time when print culture and the modern school system set in. The Mappilas did not have to learn the new script of Sanskrit-Malayalam or Aryanezhuthu developed by Ezhuthachan communities for expressing Brahmanical epics. When the Basel Mission, and later the British, introduced the modern school system (Kurup and John 1993), all those who were educated from community-oriented institutions protested against it, but their protests were ignored.¹⁷

Arabimalayalam flourishes despite the exclusions by the British

When the Basel Mission began to work from Malabar, the script of Aryanezhuthu was accepted as the Malayalam by the colonial government. The language of the Syrian Christians, the Suriyani-Malayalam or Karshoni (Perczel 2014), was not taken into consideration by the Protestant missionaries. However, the Basel Mission incorporated the people’s vocabulary and therefore Tamil and oral Malayalam as ‘it has been found difficult to draw the line of demarcation between Malayalam and Tamil’ (Gundert 1871: iii).

The adoption of the structure of oral Malayalam or Malayalam spoken by the masses, like Arabimalayalam, was necessary for communicating with the lower strata of society.¹⁸ But the Basel Mission also began to cultivate a new culture of education that could guarantee better social mobility. They employed Christian converts, who were mostly from Thiyya and other lower castes (Kurup 1993), in their companies which were spreading in the coastal belt of Malabar/Canara from the second half of the 19^th century (Raghaviah 1990). Further, when the British made the English language a qualification for government jobs, most of the Thiyyas from Malabar procured Government jobs whereas Nairs, Nambudiris, and Mappilas lagged behind the Thiyyas in the initial stage of modern education (Kurup 1993).

Although the first Malayalam journal from Malabar, Rajya Samacharam, was printed by a Christian missionary¹⁹ from the Basel Mission Press of Telicheri in June 1847, it opened up the world of print in Malabar (Sam 2003; Govi 1998).²⁰ The Mappilas did not lag behind the Christian missionaries much, registering an unusually high growth of Arabimalayalam literature. The first Arabimalayalam printing press was set up in 1868 in Telicheri and the Mappila intelligentsia preferred to bring out newspapers and magazines from small towns for both political and communitarian reasons (Moulavi and Kareem 1978: 45–46). A respondent associated with the Arabimalayalam press opined that ‘since Mappilas did not accept the authority of British, most of the Arabimalayalam press were not formally registered and often worked secretly’.

Although the Kerala Pathrika (1884) is often considered the first vernacular newspaper in Malayalam, an Arabimalayalam newspaper named Hidayathul-Iquvan was published by a press named Ameerul-Islam-fi-Mahdinil-Uloom owned by Chalilagath Ahmed of Thiroorangadi (Majida 1998: 1; Mangad 2009: 2; Moulavi and Kareem 1978: 51).²¹ In 1899, a Mappila school inspector, Saidalikkutty, bought a formally registered Arabimalayalam newspaper named Swalahul-Iquivan from Ponnani (Moulavi and Kareem 1978: 51) which was widely circulated among Mappilas.²² The sole purpose of Swalahul-Iquivan was to cultivate scientific knowledge among the Mappila community: ‘He (Saidalikkutty Master) tirelessly engaged in writing lengthy essays to teach modern science to Muslims’ (Moulavi and Kareem 1978: 65).

At the end of the 19^th century, several magazines and newspapers in Arabimalayalam were published aiming at reforms among Muslims. The notable ones among this category are Manivilakku, a monthly brought out from 1899 onwards, which was edited by the founder of Kerala Majilisul Ulma, P.M. Abdul Khadir Maulavi (Majida 1998: 1). From 1910, Al-Islam, another Arabimalayalam publication was issued from Al-Islam Litho press by Vakkam Md Abdul Khadir Moulavi (ibid.: 2).²³

The first women’s magazine in Malayalam, Keraliya Suguna Bodhini, was published in 1884 and was edited by a man (Herbert 1932).²⁴ Similarly, one of the early women’s magazines for Mappila women, Nisa-ul-Islam, made an appearance in 1929 and was edited by a man K.C. Komukkutty. The method of direct home delivery was adopted to popularise it among Mappila women (Ilias and Hussain 2017: 63). Although Nisa-ul-Islam had a life of only one and a half years, it was very influential in disseminating ideas of reform among Muslim women.²⁵ In the same year, another magazine for women, Al-Hidaya, was published in Irimbliyam, a rural locality near Malappuram, and edited by Hyder Vaidyar. This magazine too stressed the importance of women’s education and argued that Arabimalayalam should be the preferred medium to reach Mappila women. Al-Hidaya in its first issue discussed the importance of the press in this effort. Much later, Muslim Vanitha (1946), a magazine edited by Halima Beevi became notable (Devika 2005: 168–73; Krishnakumari 2010).

From 1935 until 1939, Al-Murshid magazine was published under the editorship of K.M. Maulavi for Kerala Jem-iyyathul-Ulma. In its first issue, it reiterated that a large number of Muslims, especially women, were not familiar with modern Malayalam whereas they could read Arabimalayalam and that was the reason why the magazine was being published in Arabimalayalam. The magazine stressed the importance of Arabimalayalam for communicating with Mappilas but also encouraged the importance of learning modern Malayalam for public engagement.

Again, though several women did not have access to magazines and newspapers, most of them could reach out to Arabimalayalam literature in some form, at least to the Maalas, Edus, etc., to sustain their reading. Those women who were familiar with this literature disseminated its content through informal Othupallis to people belonging to the lower classes in written and oral form.²⁶ In short, until Othupallis began to give way to the Madrasa system from the third decade of the 19^th century, Mappila women were literate in aspects that pertained to their lifeworld.

IV Community, public sphere, and discursive formations

Print…speeded up the velocity and range of communication among existing communities of knowledge…. It marginalised and subordinated others (Bayly 1999: 243).

With the spread of published materials in different forms of Malayalam, a public sphere based on community and religion began to emerge in Malabar in the late 19^th century. Conceptually for Habermas (1991), a public sphere comprises a domain that discusses matters of general interest that emerged in 18^th-century Europe. Almost a century later, a public sphere developed in Kerala with the public interest as its key concern (Devika 2007: 6). But how the public interest was articulated here gave a fillip to the development of community identities even as it promoted the public sphere. The notable ‘common’ or ‘public’ topics were nationalism, tenancy/Kudiyan Bill,²⁷ the 1921 Mappila rebellion, caste and Kshethra Pravesanam (temple entry).

While in Europe the ‘public’ in the transition period from the literary public sphere to the political public sphere was mostly patriarchal and bourgeois, in Kerala the community conscience articulated which ‘public’, the public sphere should consider. The question of nationalism also came to be linked with questions of the community. A kind of triangular sensibility or consciousness (religion-caste-and-class) often crystallised in the constitution of ‘the common’ or ‘public’. In other words, in the initial stages of the development of the Malabar public sphere, its voice had a community inflection. The ‘publics’ came to be circumscribed by their community spirit here and often not within the framework of reason.

Tenancy, nationalism, the 1921 rebellion, caste and temple entry were ‘common’ issues in the early publications. For Mappilas and the upper castes, nationalism was oriented against Western forces that had destroyed their economy. However, nationalism meant different things for the two communities. Further, the press under missionaries and Christian organisations remained loyal to the colonial government.

In Arabimalayalam publications, the 1921 rebellion came through as an anti-colonial struggle. But for any other magazine which represented visions of the three upper-caste communities, it was a Mappila atrocity. Two important points should be highlighted here: First, early newspapers, prior to the 1921 Mappila rebellion, which emerged from the nationalist ferment did not link Tipu Sultan with Mappilas whereas the newspapers affiliated with the upper castes and Christian communities began to portray Mappilas as the followers of Tipu Sultan and, therefore, the 1921 rebellion was viewed as an attempt of Mappilas to reinstate a Muslim kingdom. Secondly, magazines and newspapers like Mithavadi and Gajakesari²⁸ which were brought out by the newly educated Thiyyas were concerned with social issues of caste and tenancy that were relevant to their interests. Krishnan Vakkeel, popularly known as Mithavadi Krishnan,²⁹ after meeting with M.K. Gandhi in 1918, was convinced that the Indian National Congress (INC) and his ‘varna nostalgia’ did not help to empower the lower castes (Nedungadi 1939). Krishnan was instrumental in organising the lower classes of Thiyyas and Nairs who played a crucial role in the tenancy agitations (Radhakrishnan 1989: 54).³⁰ While Thiyya newspapers addressed the class question and brought out the caste-inflected nature of the Indian National Congress and Brahmanical elements of Congress nationalism, such expressions of nationalism were not welcome by the upper castes.³¹

Although the newspaper Mathrubhumi began to be published two years after the 1921 rebellion, terms like ‘fanatic-Muslim’ and tracing Muslim lineages back to Tipu Sultan became a recurrent affair. Since the destruction of the feudal economy had mainly affected those Mappilas who were engaged in petty trade and commerce, Tipu came to be accorded a lower-class status and connotation. Mathrubhumi represented upper-caste voices through a nationalist ideology that was often indistinguishable from that of the Hindu Mahasabha,³² even though Mathrubhumi supported tenancy agitations and published the writings and speeches of leaders agitating for tenancy reforms. Mathrubhumi through its independent columns traced the origin of the 1921 rebellion to Tipu, while Christian newspapers followed the European racial theory which originated from Topinard and passed on via Herbert Risley to his South Indian Census protégée, Edgar Thurston, and thus to the Christian newspapers like Malayala Manorama and Nazrani Depika as we will see in the following discussions. These newspapers did not talk about nationalist Muslims; rather, they focused on the inherent racial character of Muslims across the world.

The founding managing director of Mathrubhumi and an INC leader, K. Madhavan Nair, supported the ideology of the Hindu Mahasabha and brought the connection with Tipu into the frame. For Madhavan Nair, caste unity among the Hindus was required for a balanced economy; the class issues of the lower castes were not as significant. On 01 May 1923, for instance, he wrote in Mathrubhumi appealing to lower castes, like Thiyyas and Cherumans, to unite under a single Hindu category.³³ On 15 May 1923,³⁴ he wrote another piece tracing the origin of the Mappila rebellion to Tipu placing it within the colonial framing that portrayed lower-class Mappilas as followers of Tipu.

Later, Madhavan Nair (2012 [1971]) explained his account of the Tipu connection by beginning with a narration of unity among the Mappilas and Hindus during the feudal era but jumped to the conclusion that it was Tipu’s Chelakalapam³⁵ that sowed the seed of Mappila Lahala (Mappila riots). Even though Nair’s friend from Mysore, Mr Setlur, who had clarified that it was Tipu who protected the temples in Mysore, Nair sought to confirm his construction by referring to William Logan’s (1887) Malabar Manual which had already ratified the colonial version. The colonial account convinced Nair that it was the divide and rule policy of Tipu that led him to deploy the Mappilas against the Hindus (Nair 2012 [1971]: 29–30). Madhavan Nair did not assign any negative qualities to Islam or the Prophet, nor did he describe Mappilas as outsiders but honoured Tipu as the ‘Guru’ of ‘Mappila Lahalas’ (ibid: 30). The official version of the colonial story became the official version of Mathrubhumi.

While Mathrubhumi was engaged with Brahmanical interpretations of public matters without constituting the element of ‘commonness’, the newspaper Malayala Manorama was engaged in tracing the origin of the rebellion to the racial character of the Mappilas. Through their editorials and a series of independent articles starting from 25 August 1921, this newspaper reiterated the colonial typification of Mappilas as idiots, fanatics, and looters.³⁶ On 20 September 1921,³⁷ the Malayala Manorama traced the origin of the Mappilas to ‘Arab blood’, imbuing them with racial connotations. The inherited and criminal character of the Arabian was ascribed to the Mappilas and the new prefix ‘criminal’ came to be attached to their name. Manorama also aligned with the upper castes by republishing articles of the Nambudiris which were published in their community magazines like Yogakshemam and Unni-Namboothiri. Manorama circulated M.P. Thuppan Nambudiri’s article on 06 October 1921,³⁸ which reiterated the colonial narrative about Tipu and the article thanked the colonial government for not letting Mappilas convert Hindus.

Newspapers such as Malayala Manorama and Nazrani Deepika³⁹ played a crucial role in uniting the sentiments of upper castes, the colonial government, and Christians. Although Mathrubhumi remained critical of colonialism, the meaning of nationalism for the newspaper often fluctuated between the INC’s version and that of the Hindu Mahasabha. Nazrani Deepika was also engaged in spreading an image of Mappilas as looters and converters.⁴⁰ It went a step further in this direction when its editorial on 02 September 1921⁴¹ declared that Mappilas were placing the Quran in the Sreekovil (Hindu sanctum sanctorum) of Thrikkandiyur Temple.⁴²

Under these pressures, the Mappila intelligentsia was unable to take a strong stand on the language issue in Malabar. They were compelled, first and foremost, to address the construction of the negative images of Mappilas and their propagation in and through Aryanezhuthu or the Malayalam. The modern-educated Mappila intelligentsia began to turn to Malayalam rather than Arabimalayalam which gradually led to the waning of printed documents in Arabimalayalam. Even the nationalist newspaper, Al-Ameen, born in 1924, had to respond to the issues generated by the upper-caste and Christian newspapers. While nationalist Mappilas, such as Md Abdurahman (Chekkutty 2005) and K.M. Moulavi, questioned the very meaning of nationalism espoused by Mathrubhumi. In short, community-oriented issues were the central core of all newspapers during the formative years of the Malabar public sphere which led to its fragmentation.

Education under linguistic transition

Under the weight of a divided public sphere, Mappila leaders were forced to publish in Malayalam and take on the challenge from other communities. This period saw a gradual shift in the focus of Mappilas from Arabimalayalam to Malayalam publications. The result was Arabimalayalam’s total elimination from the public sphere and its confinement to lower-class Mappilas and women of the lower and middle classes. In addition, the colonial government began to encourage the opening of modern schools that benefitted the elites of the previous feudal era, including the Mappila elites. Most of my informants opined that their poor economic condition entailed that only their male siblings could be sent to these schools while the majority of the lower-class Mappila men and women continued to be educated at Othupallis.

From the second decade of the 20^th century, when the modern school system began to spread, a group of the newly educated Mappilas gravitated to the puritan movement in Islam known as Salafism. Locally known as the Mujahid, it sought to reject every contextual aspect of Mappila culture: the authority of the Ulemas, their endogenous language Arabimalayalam, Othupalli, all forms of religious and cultural expressions especially the maalas, and such expressions of art such as Kolkkali,⁴³ Mappilappaattu, etc. Later the Jamaat-e-Islami of Kerala joined hands with them. The main target of this group was the Othupalli, an epitome of Arabimalayalam. This newly emerged puritan group, the Mujahid, started a new religious educational institution, the madrasa, to teach Arabic as well as the interpretation of the Quran and Islam in terms provided by Md ibn Abd al-Wahhab.^⁴⁴

Informal Othupallis gradually disappeared and formal Othupallis adopted the structure of the madrasa system. Its curriculum began to be designed by religious organisations. Such a structural change impacted Mappila women multiply. Firstly, Mappila women lost out on teaching and imparting knowledge in the newly formed madrasa system. Secondly, the knowledge disseminated through the madrasa narrowed down to religious affairs, while in Othupallis the curriculum covered diverse domains of knowledge relating to medicine, art, and language which were pertinent to the life-worlds of women. Over and above, Mappilas preferred to educate their sons in the modern school system which sharpened the gender divide and annihilated the positive features of Othupallis for women in the preceding era.

V Conclusion

As we discussed above, the Malayalee public sphere emerged around the middle of the 19^th century with the emergence of print culture. Since Malabar was administered directly by the colonial powers (since it fell under the Madras presidency), the printing press became a significant factor early on and impacted the formation of the Malayalee public sphere in Malabar. The Malabar rebellion, the tenancy movement, the temple entry movement, and the nationalist movement that took place were all the focus of discussion in newspapers and magazines, but the public sphere showed the fissures created by caste and religion. These fissures were predominant and communal in the discourse on the Malabar rebellion. Although Mappilas had a well-developed language and print culture in Arabimalayalam, it was not adequate to address the discourse against the Mappilas generated in the public sphere. The Mappila intelligentsia had to take recourse to Malayalam which led to the waning of Arabimalayalam. Once the space for Arabimalayalam dried up, the Othupallis, the vernacular sites for the acquisition of knowledge by Mappila women, also withered away.

During the course of my fieldwork, I had hardly come across a Mappila woman older than 60 years who did not have a basic understanding of Arabimalayalam. But the ability to read and write Arabimalayalam was not taken into account once ‘literacy’ became a political concept. Even though the census authorities had directed that ‘All that the census professed to ascertain in regard to instruction was the number of persons, male and female, of each religion, able to read and write’ (Cornish 1874: 190), the colonialist powers had construed literacy in terms of the language they decided, and those Mappilas who could read and write Arabimalayalam came to be declared as illiterates. This process continued well into the post-colonial period.

To put it in a nutshell, while the Malayalam public sphere was racked by divisions of caste, class and religious community, Mappila women were the most affected. Without writing as their medium of expression, they were unable to enter the public sphere or expand their life-worlds. The process traditionalised Mappila women as pre-modern. Ironically, Ayisha Chelakkodan, a Mappila woman, was declared to be a new literate when Kerala announced total literacy in the province.⁴⁵

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank to Janaki Abraham, Rajni Palriwala, Anuja Agrawal and Satish Deshpande for their critical comments on this article. The author is also grateful to Shafeek, Gayathri and Nimal for their editorial and fieldwork assistance.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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