Abstract
In the history of Mappilas and their two centuries resistance against the British colonial rule, one name resonates with particular infamy, H. V Conolly (Henry Valentine Conolly), the district collector of Malabar from 1840 until his assassination in 1855. To the Mappilas, he embodied relentless surveillance and ceaseless pursuit, meticulously cataloguing their every activity in the broader tapestry of anti-colonial resistance. Even today, his name remains indelibly engraved in the historiography of Mappila resistance. This paper seeks to examine the mechanisms by which the British deftly silenced subaltern voices in Malabar, while simultaneously enshrining their perspectives through official records. At the centre of this enterprise stood Conolly, whose administrative reports and polemical accounts codified a narrative that marginalized indigenous resistances, shaping perceptions of Mappilas long beyond the cessation of the British authority in the region. Through this lens the enduring legacy of colonial historiography emerges not merely as a record of governance, but as a carefully curated memory that privileged the voice of the conqueror over that of the subaltern.
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References
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