Salt Sathyagraha

Payyannur was the main venue of the Salt Sathyagraha in Malabar. On 13th April , a batch of Congress volunteers under the leadership of K. Kelappan started on foot from Kozhikode to the beaches of Payyannur and broke the salt laws there on April 21. The Satyagraha camp at Payyannur was raided and the campers were beaten up. There were widespread demonstrations in Kannur, Thalassery and other parts of the district and a number of Congress workers were arrested. The district was always in the forefront in Civil Disobedience Movements and all along Congress workers broke salt laws and picked foreign good dealers and liquor shops.

The period following the withdrawal of the Civil Disobedience Movement witnessed the emergence of a radical wing in the Kerala Provincial Congress. Some of the radical elements in the Kerala Pronvircial congress organiszed a Kerala unit of the Congress Socialist Party in 1934 and functioned as a seperate group within the Provincial Congress. The leadership of this group was in the hands of persons like P. Krishna Pillai., A.K. Gopalan and E.M.S. Namboothiripad. An extremist group of Nationalist Muslims also emerged within the Congress during this period under the leadership of Mughammad Abdur Rahiman. The Congress Socialists and the Nationalist Muslims made common cause against theGhandhian group known as the Right Wing which was led by such leaders as K. Kelappan, C.K. Govindan Nair and K.A. Damodara Menon.

A notable development in the politics of Malabar during the thirties was the rise of the Muslim League as a distinct political party. It was the Muslim leaders of Kannur and Thalassery who played the lead role in forming this organisation.

The leftist elements in the Kerala Provincial Congress were also active in the politics of Malabar in the late thirties. They took active part in organising the workers, peasants, students and teachers of Kannur district under their banner. In the election held to the Kerala Provincial Congress Committee in January 1939, in the righiest suffered a servere setback. Muhammed Abdur Rahiman was elected as the president of the K.P.C.C. and E.M.S. Namboothiripad as its general secretary. Towards the end of the same year, a branch of the Indian Communist Party was formally founded in Malabar. The Congress Socialist Party workers joined the Communist Party block.