This week’s story is from Kerala where the Hindu-Muslim politics is less polarised (at least so far), the historical memory of Muslim colonial rule less divisive, and the mandir-masjid divide less in your face.
Even the state’s Muslim League called the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) is different — rooted more in coastal Kerala’s liberal pluralist traditions than North India’s reactionary brand of Muslim politics obsessed with issues of religious and cultural identity.
Its response to the Ram temple controversy has been in stark contrast to that of Muslim groups in other parts of India.
Even as Muslim leaders like Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) have been breathing fire following the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of using it to impose Hindutva on the country, the IUML has advocated reconciliation.
In a speech that went viral on social media, Kerala president Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal last month urged Muslims to stop protesting against the temple and instead celebrate it as a “symbol of secularism”.
Addressing a public meeting in Manjeri near Malappuram on January 24, he argued that the temple was “worshipped and revered by the majority of the people and there is no need for us to protest against it”.
“The temple came up based on a court order and the Babri Masjid is about to be constructed. These two are now part of India. The Ram Temple and the proposed Babri Masjid are two best examples that strengthen the secularism of our country. We should imbibe that,” he said
Thangal recalled how Muslims in Kerala had managed to keep peace in the wake of Babri Masjid’s demolition in 1992. At the time, the party had firmly told Muslims not to allow any harm to come to Hindu properties.
“Not a single stone should fall on a Hindu house. Muslims should stand guard for Hindu temples if required,” its then leader, Panakkad Syed Muhammedali Shihab Thangal, had said.
Predictable reactions
Meanwhile, the Muslim reaction to the Malappuram speech was predictably along the North-South divide in Muslim politics.
While local Muslims generally welcomed his remarks, many outside Kerala accused him of “borrowing the language of RSS” and “betraying” the community. The IUML’s political rivals warned of a backlash from its workers.
“They are making a fool of its ranks. It’s not possible to believe that the ordinary party workers of IUML will accept this position,” said NK Abdul Azeez of the Indian National League.
On the streets, ordinary Kerala Muslims say what the community really needs are not more masjids but more schools, jobs, and security.
“We can’t go on weeping and wailing forever over the loss of Babri Masjid. We need to realize that we are a minority and our interests are best served by living in harmony with the majority community,” Muhammad Ali, a Malabar-based social activist, told me.
A local academic, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the North Indian Muslim leadership as “obscurantist and unfit for modern times” and suggested that “the educated and tolerant Muslims of Kerala should take over the leadership of Indian Muslims”.
Intriguingly, there has been no reaction from the BJP, which regards the IUML as communal and an extension of Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s separatist Muslim League.
Last year, top BJP leaders kicked off a bitter public row over Rahul Gandhi’s comment that the IUML, a Congress ally, was not a communal party. They lined up to denounce him for giving a clean chit to a party, which they insisted was responsible for Partition.
During a media interaction in Washington, DC last June, Rahul was asked about his party’s alliance with the IUML even as it talked about secularism. To which he replied: “Muslim League is a completely secular party. There is nothing non-secular about the Muslim League.”
Back in India, the BJP was up in arms.
Union minister Anurag Thakur said, “These are the same people who had stayed back after Partition.”
“They formed the Muslim League here after Partition and became MPs. They advocated for Sharia law and wanted separate seats reserved for Muslims. They are the same people who are part of the same Muslim League. It is Rahul Gandhi and the Congress that sees Hindu terrorism but feels Muslim League is secular,” he fumed.
BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya inaccurately described it as “Jinnah’s Muslim League, the party responsible for India’s Partition on religious lines”.
Minister of State for IT and Skill Development Rajeev Chandrasekhar said Rahul Gandhi was living in an “alternate reality” and wanted to drag others into it by calling the IUML secular.
Similar views were expressed by other BJP grandees, including its national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath. They insisted that the IUML was the same old League under a new management. In other words, communal.
Question of ideology
It’s an illustration of how much the ideological pendulum in the BJP has swung to the Right in recent years that not too long ago the BJP was mates with the same “communal” IUML.
In the 2012 Nagpur Municipal Corporation election, it took the support of two IUML corporators to retain power after falling short of the majority.
Earlier, in 2004, Atal Bihari Vajpayee as prime minister famously sent the IUML’s Lok Sabha member, late E Ahamed, to Geneva to represent India at the United Nations.
Many will be curious to know what the BJP thinks of the IUML now — after Thangal’s pro-mandir remarks.
But, what really is the IUML’s ideology? Is it really communal as widely perceived?
Close observers see it as a “communitarian” rather than a communal party in that while it strives to protect and promote Muslim interests, it does so without confronting or alienating other communities.
According to well-known commentator Shajahan Madampat, who has written extensively about it, the IUML has been “often illiberal, sometimes corrupt and opportunistic, but never communal”.
“The IUML has never mobilized its cadre nor used its political clout to create religious divides,” he has written, pointing out that it is bitterly opposed to identity-centered Muslim groups.
Krishna Ananth, professor of history at Sikkim University, said that the IUML has “in the past, taken some regressive positions with regard to the Uniform Civil Code and the Shah Bano case” but has largely operated within the “secular and constitutional framework”.
The Left has accused the IUML of “flirting with communalism” but avoided calling it communal. According to Kerala RSS leader PN Easwaran, “while the League is a communal party it does not toe an extremist line”.
To tell the truth, the focus on the IUML is way out of proportion with its size and political significance. It’s a small party with just three Lok Sabha members and basically confined to the Malabar region.
Arguably, the IUML is no epitome of secularism but it’s a lesser of the other “evils” on offer in Muslim politics. This is what Hobson’s choice must feel like.
The article originally appeared on Times of India.