In the backdrop of the ongoing controversy over the inclusion of names of the 1921 Malabar rebellion leaders Variyamkunnath Kunjahammed Haji and Ali Musaliar in the book Dictionary of Martyrs of India’s Freedom Struggle, jointly published by Ministry of Culture, Government of India and the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), the ICHR is planning to revise the content of the book and according to reports, remove the names of more than 400 persons from the book, including all leaders of the Malabar rebellion and the Punnapra Vayalar uprising.
Amid strong protests from Sangh Parivar organisations against the inclusion of the names of the Malabar rebellion leaders in the book, the PDF copy of the book was withdrawn from the Ministry of Culture website on Friday night.
It was on Wednesday that the details of the book, which is yet to be made officially available in the market, came to light, after the Ministry uploaded the PDF of the book on its official website. The book was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March 2019.
The inclusion of Variyamkunnath Kunjahammed Haji and Ali Musaliar in the list of martyrs of the freedom struggle came as a major embarrassment for the BJP and other Sangh Parivar organisations in Kerala who had strongly opposed the announcement of a film on Variyamkunnath by Malayalam director Ashique Abu two months ago. Right-wing groups accused the filmmaker and his team of glorifying Variyamkunnath as a freedom fighter while according to the BJP, the Malabar rebellion was anti-Hindu, resulting in the massacre of Hindus by Muslims.
Member of ICHR from Kerala CI Issac told TNM that the book was withdrawn from the website following a demand from him. On Friday, the Kerala unit of the Hindu Aikya Vedi had demanded that the Ministry of Culture withdraw the names of the Malabar rebellion leaders from the book.
Issac said that the book would be revised and the names of around 460 persons, including all Malabar rebellion leaders and more than 40 leaders of the Punnapra Vayalar uprising, would be deleted from volume 5 of the book.
“I had filed a report with ICHR in 2016 itself regarding the discrepancies in the list of martyrs prepared for the book. But the book was released in March 2019 without any corrections. We’ll make changes to the book after a review meeting that is expected to be held in December or January. We cannot consider the participants of the different uprisings in different parts of the country, which were not related to the freedom struggle, as freedom fighters. Names of such persons, irrespective of caste and religion, would naturally be omitted from the book. Names of all Malabar rebellion leaders and Punnapra Vayalar uprising leaders also would not be there in the revised book,” he said.
Issac said that the controversy and claims regarding the book and inclusion of the Malabar rebellion leaders were totally unnecessary. He added that the withdrawal of the book from the website had no connection to the present controversy.
“The price of the book is yet to be fixed and the copyright procedures are also yet to be completed. But the soft copy of the book was mistakenly published on the website. As a member of ICHR from Kerala, I asked ministry authorities to withdraw the soft copy of the book from the website as the free access would bring down the market value of the book,” Issac said.
However, a check of the Ministry of Culture website showed that only volume 5 has been removed, while volumes 1 to 4 are still available for download.