BOOK REVIEW 97 themselves once again under the subjection of the old landlordism, this time more virulent, strengthened by British jurisprudence. Panikkar, however, considers the view, that the Mappilas had benefitted under Tipu's rule to be erroneous. According to him, there was no large scale transfer of land to the Mappilas and even those who got some land did not benefit, as, instead of rent, they had to pay considerable land revenue to the government. While this may be true to some extent, it should be remembered that the Mappilas who were groaning under jenmi oppression in the pre-Mysore rule days, must have found the vanquishing of the old ^nmf-raja rule, a relief. Further the British were seen not as liberators but restorers of the ancient regime. Apart from this, Pannikkar has meticulously documented the nature of the 'outbreaks' which punctuated the whole of the nineteenth century. In all these incidents, the main actors were impoverished peasant Mappilas who attacked the hated jenmi or his agents. Analysing the social composition of the attackers and the victims of four Mappila uprisings, Pannikkar shows that the overwhelming majority of the rebels were either tenants or agricultural labourers - the rural poor. Their targets were predominantly 'men of property and government servants'. Of the eighty-three killed by the rebels, forty-two were jenmis. The study also shows that these were not fanatical Mappila outrages against Hindus inspired by religious fanaticism. In the pre-1921 rebel attacks, there were no indiscriminate attacks on Hindu lives or property. The religiosity of the Mappila rebels was a common feature in all the anti-landlord attacks. Their alienation from, and hatred of the system was expressed through the religious idiom. Killing a jenmi who evicts his tenant was not a sin, ordained the tangals who provided the ideological leadership for the revolts. While Panikkar concludes that the 1921 uprising, 'underlined a consciousness primarily rooted in a opposition to the landlord and the colonial state', he does not discount the influence of religion which 'informed the beliefs and outlook of the peasantry.' He emphasizes the combination of the economic factor and religious belief. 'It was in the interplay of these two factors and not just in any one or both of them that the uprisings were rooted.' While conceding that both these factors are to be taken together, it needs to be stressed that the fundamental cause of the Mappila peasant outbursts was the agrarian economic oppression. The religious fervour associated with the Mappila rebels in the successive revolts was literally the 'sigh of the oppressed'. In this respect, Conrad Wood in his book. The Moplah Rebellion and its Genesis (Peoples Publishing House, New Delhi, 1987) has treated the rebellion as emanating from economic exploitation. This approach, which as Panikkar puts it, 'follows an essentially economic interpretation treating religion only as a means of mobilisation', has its merits. In this connection, in Panikkar's illuminating work, there are certain aspects, which given more attention would have clarified the sec-