Records of 'Mappila Rebellion' being salvaged

Kochi, Oct 15: Thousands of records relating to the 1921 'Mapilla Rebellion' in northern Kerala, lying in police stations all over the Malabar region, are being retrieved and preserved under the National Manuscripts Mission (NMM) of the Central Government.

Mr K J Sohan, Convenor of the Kerala Chapter of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), said thousands of documents such as log books, written evidence and diaries, maintained by the British police officers regarding the 1921 peasant uprising, which came to be known as the 'Mapilla Rebellion', were lying in boxes in police stations all over the Malabar area.

''When Mr Hormese Tharakan was the Director General of Police, he took a personal interest in the retreival of these records, which he remembered seeing when he was posted in these areas,'' Mr Sohan told reporters on the sidelines of a function here over the weekend.

Efforts are being made to retrieved and preserve these records under the National Manuscripts Mission of the Union Department of Culture.

''We will like to create 'police museums' in places which were at the centre of the Mapilla Rebellion and display these records,'' he said.

Apart from the preservation of police and other official records lying in government offices, the restoration of palm leaf 'granthas' is also being taken up under the NMM.

''In the Thiruvananthapuram area alone, at least ten million palm leaf 'granthas' are lying dumped in household corners, with no one knowing what precious information is locked up in them,'' Mr Sohan said.

As very few Keralites are now familiar with the old Malayalam script in which these manuscripts were written, these may be lost to the posterity if an effort is not made to preserve them, he said.

''These are footprints in our march through time,'' he added.

UNI