Malappuram Beedi Rolling Mapilla Spice Farming Kerala

Malappuram district in central Kerala has a significant beedi (hand-rolled cigarette) manufacturing industry employing Muslim Mapilla women in cottage units who roll country-made beedis from tendu leaf and tobacco in piece-rate employment, earning supplementary income. The district's interior hills around Nilambur are famous for the Nilambur teak — some of the oldest teak plantations in the world (1840) that produced the highest-quality ship-building and furniture teak in colonial India. Malappuram is demographically Kerala's most Muslim-majority district and the birthplace of the Mappila Revolt of 1921 (Malabar Rebellion) — an anti-colonial and anti-landlord uprising that was crushed by British forces, with debates continuing about whether it was nationalist or communal in character.