2026/05/19 by Abdul Vajid Punakkath · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Islamic Studies and History #Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies #Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East
paper · doi:10.1080/1462317x.2026.2641334
openalex publication_date 2026/05/19 · openalex created_date 2026/06/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
This paper analyzes the political-historical relationship between the Communist Movement in India and the Malabar Rebellion of 1921, an anti-colonial and anti-feudal uprising led by the Muslim peasantry of the region, articulated within a distinctive Islamic framework. Despite being demonized by Colonial authorities and postcolonial elites as fanaticism, early Indian Communists emphatically defended and memorialized the uprisings. I argue that the historiographical bridges constructed by early Indian Communists between this religious revolt and their own beginnings offer a theoretical model for studying religion and revolution. However, the Communists' approach was rooted in an orientation of secular supersessionism, viewing religiously inspired uprisings as the residues of alienation, to be superseded by secular-modern political rationality. But through analyzing historical elements like anti-caste subtraction and heretical messianism, I demonstrate the Rebellion as a case of political experimentation and the invention of revolutionary subjectivity, rejecting its treatment as a transitional inadequacy toward secular emancipation.