They are just lying there, piled up one above the other. Some are still inside the wagon and the others spilled over to the platform.. lifeless and horror struck. And there are the policemen, dragging the bodies by the leg over the platform and pulling them out one by one. There also stands the officer overseeing that all bodies are cleared from the unventilated goods wagon No. 1711.
Wagon Massacre, installation by Sreenivasan Chitranjali at the history exhibition being organised in the Kannur Collectorate ground as part of the 23rd Party Congress of CPI-M is indeed a crowd puller. The installation is a stark reminder that the incident was a gruesome massacre by the British empire, not some tragedy as we were taught in the school and being retaught day after day by Sangh Parivar and far right organisations.
Way back in 1921, Britishers had rounded up a large number of people in connection with the Malabar Rebellion and sentenced them under martial law. Since the jails in Malabar were packed, it was decided to send them to the prison in Bellary. Nearly 100 of them were taken to Tirur and stuffed into the goods wagon of train no 77. The train left the station at 7.15 p.m on November 19.
Even as the train was passing through Shoranur and Olavakkode stations, the police sergeants led by A H Andrews, who were in the second class compartment could hear their heart wrenching cries for help. People were gasping for air and tearing at each other to survive but the officers have done nothing at all. The cries had died down by the time the train reached Podhanur junction in Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu by 12.30 a.m the next day. The other passengers, who had been listening to their wails for hours, demanded the wagon to be opened at once. 56 of the 100 people were already dead by the time the officers opened the wagon. Six people died on the way to the hospital and later, the death toll reached 70. The survivors were stuffed into the same wagon and sent back to Tirur.
Now in Collectorate Ground, students, youngsters and history lovers stand long minutes by the installation discussing and recollecting what it represents. When Hindutva organisations led by Sangh Parivar leaves no stone unturned to erase, distort and rewrite historical facts in every corner of life, the installations and representations in the exhibition of the innumerable struggles of the Indian working class led by the Communist Party are a reminder of the past and what we have survived. There are reminders of Malabar Rebellion, the 387 martyrs of which the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) intends to remove from the list of martyrs of freedom struggle of the country. Telengana Struggle, Keezh Venmani Massacre and Tholvirak Movement.. all are there to remind us that history indeed am arm for struggle.
