By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter
The name of the great revolutionary Variyamkunnath Kunhahammed Haji should be inscribed on the India Gate along with other freedom fighters, said participants of the programme held in commemoration of the Malabar Struggle leader on his martyrdom day in Malappuram. The resolution passed by the programme asked the government to release a postal stamp in memory of the revolutionary leader and Malabar Struggle on its 100th anniversary in 2021. The programme was organized on January 21 by the Variyamkunnath Kunhahammed Haji Foundation (VKH Foundation) of India at Pandikkad, one of the main centres of the historic Malabar Struggle. It also asked to install a commemorative inscription at Pandikkad and to declare Pandikkad as a historic pilgrimage centre.
Historian Dr Hussain Randathani inaugurated the session and delivered a commemorative speech. Dr P Sivadasan (head of the department of history at the Calicut University and chief advisor of the VKH Foundation) launched the Foundation’s one-year long awareness programmes to commemorate the great leader and to hand over to the new generation the truth of the history marred by imperialist historians. Alavi Kakkadan (chairman of the VKH Foundation and popular historian) delivered the key-note address. VP Shoukathali also spoke at the function presided over by Nasar Debonah.
The function also witnessed a get-together of the existing descendants of those who had participated in the Malabar Struggle and were shot dead, hanged to death, martyred or exiled to the Andamans. VK Hamsa (great grandson of Variyamkunnath), Seethikoya Thangal (grandson of Chembrasseri Thangal) and Brahmadattan Namboodiripad (grandson of Brahmadattan Nambodiripad) were among those who were present at the 98th martyrdom anniversary.
Variyamkunnath was the leader in the Ernad and Valluvanad areas during the 1921 Malabar Struggle, which began as a part of the All India Khilafat Movement. He was known as the ‘Khilafat King’ of the revolutionary government which was in power for about six months (from August/September 1921 to January 1922) in a large part of Malabar with its own passport and currency. It was the only such experience for the British colonial power spread all over the world, and was crushed brutally bringing in the Gorkha and Dorset Regiments. Kunhahammed Haji was caught by the British in early January 1922, tried in court and sentenced to death. He is known for his courage even at the time of the trial, when he requested the British not to cover his eyes and shoot from behind as per tradition, but to shoot him in the front so that he can die seeing his motherland. The trial and execution took place at Kottakunnu in Malappuram and the body was set fire along with all available records and information about the rebel government, thus erasing all traces of its existence.