The Society for Development, the forerunner of the Cutchi Memon Association was organized at a time when the economic condition of ordinary Cutchi Memon in Kochi was deplorable. Marhoom Essa Ahmed Sait who was a member of the Society as a young man, gave a vivid picture of the environment which led to the formation of the Majlis and some of its early activities and the torture suffered in the course, presumably in an article in the Memon Mirror, which was reproduced in full in the CMJ-CMA Jubilee Souvenir (1998-99). The present article relies on his article for details.

It was around the 1930s. The social and financial state of the common Memon was very backward. Wealth was concentrated in a few hands. The waqfs and other endowments made by the Memons of earlier generati-ons was held and enjoyed by the trustees.  What, as a general observation, was distributed as charity was limited to a monthly pension of a paltry sum of two or three rupees and a quarter bag of rice costing a rupee and a quarter. The pension, in fact, made the recipients lazier and uninterested in working. Terms of the Trusts were being flouted by most of the trustees for the simple reason that the beneficiaries had no chance of knowing about the existence of any trust or their entitlements. They neither had the access or interest to know anyth-ing. Trustees were obliged by law to obtain annually approval of their accounts from the local court. They used to fake the accounts to match the dictates of the trust deeds and get them approved under affidavit as there was no one capable or interested in challenging the accounts. 

There was no interest in education among the ordinary Memons. A few of them who had petty jobs under the rich traders, Cutchi or Halai Memons, though under paid, were content with an elementary knowledge of Gujarati as needed to carry out their small jobs. The benefits of English education was never thought of. The entire community considered educating girls a sheer waste and boys generally dropped off after the 8th or 9th grade.  In those days, according to Essa Ahmed Sait, the only person who could go upto the Maharaja’s College in Ernakulam was Abdul Sathar Esmail Sait and the single soul who could read and understand English was A.R. Sulaiman Sait.

Social discrimination was rampant. The distance betwe-en the rich and the poor was long. Rich and poor alike would not give their daughters to poorer men. This invariably led to the men seeking marriage from among the non-cutchi Muslims. Simultaneously, however, poly-gamous rich men would have their second and subseq-uent wives from outside the community as there was reluctance to give a daughter as a second wife or to a widower of advanced age. The result was a fast develo-ping sect of Second Grade Memons, children of non-Cutchi Memon women-the Bessar. Children of a Bessar were invariably Bessar, as the purity of blood was alre-ady lost a generation ago.   Yet, the number being smaller, they were being discriminated against by the majority by boycotting their marriage and other functi-ons and refusing other social intercourse. 

The resultant scenario was awkwardly distressful and compelled a few free-thinkers in the community to contemplate in terms of a social emancipation progra-mme, as a result of which an organization under the style “ Majlis-e-Ithehad-e-Tarakkey  was formed fructif-ying the efforts of A.R. Sulaiman Sait, Abdulla Umar Sait, Usman Mohamed Hashim Sait, Yousuf Esmail Sait, Abdul Rahman Mohamed Elyas Sait, Haji Ahmed Haji Abdul Sathar Sait, Esmail Abdul Rahim Sait and others.  The Majlis aimed at finding solutions to the discriminat-ory behaviour, mismanagement of waqfs and other trusts and encouraging education among both boys and girls. One of the steps taken by some of the waqafs and trusts, in consequence of the Majlis’s activities, was to democratise their working by coopting family members, other than the managing trustee, and other reputed members of the community as co-trustees or advisers.

A volunteer corp comprised of young men was organ-ised by the Majlis with Abdulla Omar Sait as captain. The volunteers’ uniform included a green sash worn across the body over the right shoulder. The so called “green platoon” used to assemble at the Majlis office every morning and before Magrib prayer. They formed a procession from the office to the mosque, moving through the streets with Takbeer and singing beautiful songs urging people to cooperate in the development programme of the Majlis. Abdul Hamid Zakaria Sait and Ismail Noor Mohamed Sait led the chorus. The volunte-ers provided immense help in marriages, funerals and other social and religious functions.

The Majlis decided  to form a general or common management committee for all the trusts in Kochi in order to create a supervisory mechanism. Though with initial reluctance most of the trusts complied wth the decision of the Majlis. Still there remained a few who did not want to be disciplined. Essa Ahmed Sait described in meticulous detail the confrontation with one such dissident which led to the imprisonment of 27 Majlis volunteers in one night. 

The confrontation started with Ommar Haji Ayyub Sait refusing to comply with the decision of the Majlis. The volunteers made pamphlets in Urdu against Ommar Haji Ayyub  Sait and cyclostyled copies were circulated widely. Ommar Haji Ayyub Sait responded by printing and circulating pamphlets in Malayalam against the Majlis and its members. The Majlis was supported and encouraged by Hazrat Abdullah al Yamani who wrote the songs and drafted the pamphlets. Abdulla Omar Sait spoke in Cutchi with great force and firmness. As Ommar Haji Ayyub Sait continued to be adament, it was decided to picket and hold a Satyagraha at Ommar Haji Ayyub Sait’s business premises. Incidentally, it was one of the earliest manifestations of Satyagraha as a coerc-ing tool outside the political movement in India and it is worth recalling that the very idea of Satyagraha was in its infancy and Kochi Memons were able to comprehend and experience its power, a decade and a half before even the British could realise it. The decision to picket was not acceptable to A.R. Sulaiman Sait and he resig-ned as President of the Majlis. Abdul Rahman Mohamed Elyas Sait was elected President in his stead. 

The volunteers divided themselves into batches and one after another entered the business place of Ommar Haji Ayyub Sait, under the leadership of Abdulla Omar Sait and Ayyub Zakaria Sait, shouting slogans and creating disturbance to his business.