36 SOCIAL SCIENTIST companies.5 These legislations and their amendments and the subsequent legislations like the Nair Regulations against the matrilineal system, a feudal institution, in the long-run weakened the traditional feudal class and landlordism. In Malabar, the planter-capitalist interests had been concentrated mainly in Wynad, where the major part of the land holdings had been obtained by the British government through escheat and confiscation. Therefore, the British never felt the necessity of an agrarian legislation in Malabar. There they strengthened the interests of the feudal class and kept the peasantry without fixity of tenure and fair rent. This intra-regional difference in the land tenurial relations of Malabar and Travancore-Cochin can be traced in the character and growth of agrarian struggles in these two regions as well. In the 20th century, Malabar and Kasargod came to the forefront of anti-feudal and anti-imperialist struggles, in which the peasantry were the main participants, whereas in Travancore-Cochin the main role in these struggles was played by the labourers and working class. In Malabar-Kasargod, the peasant movements and agrarian struggles were part of the mainstream of the nationalist movement. This situation even led to the emergence of peasant nationalism. The Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movements in Malabar led to violent uprisings mainly by the Mappila peasantry in the southern taluks of Ernad and Valluvanad.6 This rebellion of 1921 in Malabar was probably the greatest anti-feudal and anti-imperialist revolt after 1857. The revolt was brutally suppressed by the British through enforcing 'shoot at sight' orders against the Mappilas under martial law. The rebellion drew its strength primarily from the marginal and poor peasantry. Later the Indian National Congress disowned this peasant mobilization as it culminated in violence and rebellion.7 The brutal suppression of the marginal peasantry and the subsequent introduction of Muslim League politics by the rich sections of the Mappila community restricted the growth of the nationalist movement in the southern taluks of Malabar. In brief, these taluks were kept away from the mainstream of the nationalist movement.8 EMERGENCE OF A UNITED PEASANT MOVEMENT During the 1930s, the Civil Disobedience Movement, a programme launched as part of the struggle for freedom, spread to places like Calicut, Cannanore, Payyanur and Kasargod in Malabar. The peasantry and the rural proletariat participated in the programme as individuals but not as a united class. The reason was that the orthodox Congress leadership, which largely originated from the urban middle class, did not like the politicization of the peasantry. They did not realise the need for a separate platform for peasants as they felt the Indian National Congress itself was a kisan or peasant organisation.^ However the impact of the Great Depression and the growing frustration with Gandhian methods in the struggle for freedom