Malabar District
Malabar District, or Malabar, also known as British Malabar was an administrative district on the southwestern Malabar Coast of Bombay Presidency, Madras Presidency and finally, Madras State in India. It was the most populous and the third-largest district in the erstwhile Madras State. It was sub-divided into two divisions South Malabar and North Malabar, the historic town of Kozhikode of South Malabar region was the administrative headquarters of this district.
The district included the present-day districts of Kannur, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Malappuram, Palakkad northern and central parts of present Kerala state, the Lakshadweep Islands, and a major portion of the Nilgiris district in modern-day Tamil Nadu. The detached settlements of Tangasseri and Anchuthengu, which were British colonies within the kingdom of Travancore in southern Kerala, also formed part of Malabar District until 1927.
Malayalam was the administrative as well as the most spoken lingua franca of Malabar district. Jeseri, a distinct dialect of Malayalam, was spoken in the Laccadive Islands. Malabar District merged with the erstwhile state of Travancore-Cochin to form Kerala according to the States Reorganisation Act, 1956. On the same day, the present Kasaragod district of South Canara District was also attached to Malabar, and the Laccadive and Minicoy Islands of Malabar were reorganised to form a new Union Territory. Malabar was trifurcated to form the districts of Kannur, Kozhikode, and Palakkad on 1 January 1957.
The city of Kozhikode was the capital of Malabar. Malabar was divided into North Malabar and South Malabar in 1793 for administrative convenience, with their regional headquarters at Thalassery and Cherpulassery respectively. During the British rule, Malabar's chief importance lay in its production of Malabar pepper, coconut, and tiles. In the old administrative records of the Madras Presidency, it is recorded that the most remarkable plantation owned by Government in the erstwhile Madras Presidency was the Teak plantation at Nilambur planted in 1844. The District of Malabar and the ports at Beypore and Fort Kochi had some sort of importance in the erstwhile Madras Presidency as it was one of the two districts of the Presidency that lies on the Western Malabar Coast, thus accessing the marine route through Arabian Sea. The first railway line of Kerala from Tirur to Beypore in 1861 was laid for it. The work Malabar Manual authored by William Logan in two volumes explains the characteristics of Malabar.
The district lay between the Arabian Sea on the west, South Canara District on the north, the Western Ghats to the east, and the princely state of Cochin to the south. The district covered an area of, and extended along the coast and inland.
All the major pre-independence political parties of Kerala such as the INC and CPI started their functioning in Kerala at Malabar District as a part of the freedom struggle. KPCC was formed in 1921 at Ottapalam, on the bank of river Bharathappuzha. In July 1937, a clandestine meeting of the CSP, which was the political party formed by socialists of Congress, was held at Calicut. The CPI in Kerala was formed on 31 December 1939 with the Pinarayi Conference, held near Thalassery. It was the erstwhile leaders of Congress Socialist Party, such as P. Krishna Pillai, K. Damodaran, E. M. S. Namboodiripad, who formed the CPI branch in Kerala. The Indian Union Muslim League was also formed in the 1930s, on a meeting held at Thalassery.
Etymology
Until the arrival of British, the term Malabar was used in foreign trade circles as a general name for Kerala. Earlier, the term Malabar had also been used to denote Tulu Nadu and Kanyakumari which lie contiguous to Kerala in the southwestern coast of India, in addition to the modern state of Kerala. The people of Malabar were known as Malabars. Still the term Malabar is often used to denote the entire southwestern coast of India. From the time of Cosmas Indicopleustes itself, the Arab sailors used to call Kerala as Male. The first element of the name, however, is attested already in the Topography written by Cosmas Indicopleustes. This mentions a pepper emporium called Male, which clearly gave its name to Malabar. The name Male is thought to come from the Dravidian word Mala. Al-Biruni must have been the first writer to call this state Malabar. Authors such as Ibn Khordadbeh and Al-Baladhuri mention Malabar ports in their works. The Arab writers had called this place Malibar, Manibar, Mulibar, and Munibar. Malabar is reminiscent of the word Malanad which means the land of hills. According to William Logan, the word Malabar comes from a combination of the Dravidian word Mala and the Persian/Arabic word Barr.History
South Malabar
Ancient era
The ancient maritime port of Tyndis, which was then a centre of trade with Ancient Rome, is roughly identified with Ponnani, Tanur, and Kadalundi-Vallikkunnu. Tyndis was a major center of trade, next only to Muziris, between the Cheras and the Roman Empire. The River Bharathappuzha had importance since Sangam period, due to the presence of Palakkad Gap which connected the Malabar coast with Coromandel coast through inland.Pliny the Elder states that the port of Tyndis was located at the northwestern border of Keprobotos. The North Malabar region, which lies north of the port at Tyndis, was ruled by the kingdom of Ezhimala during Sangam period. According to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a region known as Limyrike began at Naura and Tyndis. However the Ptolemy mentions only Tyndis as the Limyrike's starting point. The region probably ended at Kanyakumari; it thus roughly corresponds to the present-day Malabar Coast. The value of Rome's annual trade with the region was estimated at around 50,000,000 sesterces. Pliny the Elder mentioned that Limyrike was prone by pirates. The Cosmas Indicopleustes mentioned that the Limyrike was a source of peppers.
Early Middle Ages
Three inscriptions, that date back to 932 CE and found from Triprangode, Kottakkal, and Chaliyar, mention the name of Goda Ravi of Chera dynasty. The Triprangode inscription states the agreement of Thavanur. Several inscriptions written in Old Malayalam dating back to the 10th century CE and found in Sukapuram near Edappal, which was one of the 64 old Nambudiri villages of Kerala. Descriptions about the rulers of Eranad and Valluvanad regions can be seen in the Jewish copper plates of Bhaskara Ravi Varman and Viraraghava copper plates of Veera Raghava Chakravarthy. Eranad was ruled by a Samanthan Nair clan known as Eradis, similar to the Vellodis of neighbouring Valluvanad and Nedungadis of Nedunganad. The rulers of Valluvanad were known by the title Eralppad/''Eradi. It was the ruler of Eranad who later became the Zamorin of Calicut by annexing the port town of Calicut from Polanad, which was vassal to Kolathunadu. The ruler of Kingdom of Cochin also traces back to Ponnani in South Malabar. South Malabar was also the seat of the kingdoms of Parappanad, Vettathunadu, Valluvanadu, Nedungadis, and Palakkad. Parappanad royal family is a cousin dynasty of the Travancore royal family. The Azhvanchery Thamprakkal'' were the feudal lords of Athavanad. Tirunavaya, the seat of Mamankam festival, lies on the bank of the river Bharathappuzha.Rise of Kozhikode
In the 14th century, Kozhikode conquered larger parts of central Kerala after the seize of Tirunavaya region from Valluvanad, which were under the control of the king of Perumbadappu Swaroopam. The ruler of Perumpadappu was forced to shift his capital further south from Kodungallur to Kochi. In the 15th century, the status of Cochin was reduced to a vassal state of Kozhikode, thus leading to the emergence of Kozhikode as the most powerful kingdom in medieval Malabar Coast.During the 15th century Kalaripayattu was important in the history of Malabar, where some warriors lived, most notably puthooram veetil Aromal Chekavar and his sister Unniyarcha, chieftains of martial arts.
Kozhikode was the largest city in the Indian state of Kerala under the rule of Zamorin of Calicut, an independent kingdom based at Kozhikode. It remained so until the 18th century CE. The port at Kozhikode was the gateway to South Indian coast for the Arabs, the Portuguese, the Dutch, and finally the British. The Kunjali Marakkars, who were the naval chief of the Zamorin of Kozhikode, are credited with organizing the first naval defense of the Indian coast. Under British Raj, Kozhikode became the headquarters of Malabar District, one of the two districts in the western coast of erstwhile Madras Presidency. The port at Kozhikode held the superior economic and political position in medieval Kerala coast, while Kannur, Kollam, and Kochi, were commercially important secondary ports, where the traders from various parts of the world would gather. The Portuguese arrived at Kappad Kozhikode in 1498 during the Age of Discovery, thus opening a direct sea route from Europe to South Asia. Kallingal Madathil Rarichan Moopan and Pullambil Sankaran Moopan and Vamala Moopan families were very prominent among those who said that two centuries ago, some Jenmis in Kozhikode were engaged in sea trade and shipping.
At the peak of their reign, the Zamorins of Kozhikode ruled over a region from Kollam in the south to Panthalayini Kollam in the north. They were the most powerful rulers on Malabar Coast and Kozhikode was the largest city of Kerala until the Portuguese era. The Zamorin of Calicut, who was originally the ruler of Eranad based at Nediyiruppu, developed the port at Kozhikode and changed his headquarters to there for maritime trade. Ibn Battuta, who visited the city of Kozhikode six times, gives the earliest glimpses of life in the city. He describes Kozhikode as "one of the great ports of the district of Malabar" where "merchants of all parts of the world are found". The king of this place, he says, "shaves his chin just as the Haidari Fakeers of Rome do... The greater part of the Muslim merchants of this place are so wealthy that one of them can purchase the whole freightage of such vessels put here and fit-out others like them". Ma Huan, the Chinese sailor part of the Imperial Chinese fleet under Cheng Ho states the city as a great emporium of trade frequented by merchants from around the world. He makes note of the 20 or 30 mosques built to cater to the religious needs of the Muslims, the unique system of calculation by the merchants using their fingers and toes, and the matrilineal system of succession. Abdur Razzak, Niccolò de' Conti, Afanasy Nikitin, Ludovico di Varthema, and Duarte Barbosa witnessed the city as one of the major trading centres in the Indian subcontinent where traders from different parts of the world could be seen.
The Kingdom of Cochin used to adopt members from Kingdom of Tanur in the medieval period. Being home to the prominent figures like Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan, Poonthanam Nambudiri, Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri, Kunchan Nambiar, and Zainuddin Makhdoom II, South Malabar was the cultural capital of medieval Kerala. The Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics flourished between the 14th and 16th centuries. In attempting to solve astronomical problems, the Kerala school independently created a number of important mathematics concepts, including series expansion for trigonometric functions. The Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics was based at Vettathunadu of South Malabar.
Kozhikode, Tanur, and Ponnani were the three major port cities in South Malabar region, while the minor trading ports included Beypore, Parappanangadi, and Chaliyam. The coastal Kingdom of Tanur, the Kingdom of Valluvanad in inland, and Palakkad in the hilly region formed other major kingdoms in South Malabar region in the medieval period. Marthanda Varma, the founder of Travancore, belongs to Parappanad royal family. In 1664, the municipality of Fort Kochi was established by Dutch Malabar, making it the first municipality in Indian subcontinent, which got dissolved when the Dutch authority got weaker in the 18th century.