Malappuram phobia, a covert yet conspicuous form of Islamophobia in Kerala, has once again taken the centre stage sparked by the following insidious remarks,“When our government acts against Muslim extremist elements, these forces try to project that we are acting against Muslims. For example, 150 kg of gold and hawala money worth 123 crore were seized by the police in the last 5 years from Malappuaram district” from Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan during an interview with The Hindu. .Following uproarfrom various sections and leaders of socio-political spectrum, Chief Minister’s office has come up with unconvincing clarifications and denial of the same and has put blame back on The Hindu newspaper for misattributing those remarks.The whole story started when P.V. Anvar, an MLA from the ruling party, began to expose the Kerala police’s Islamophobic practices, accusing them of inflating crime reports to paint Malappuram as a crime-ridden district. Although the Chief Minister’s office, The Hindu, and the PR agency continue to shift blame, it’s obvious that the toxic content was intentionally added.

The Phobia that goes on and on

“TeII him that, I’m in a confusion.
Does that mean, you’re not
going to demoIish it?
Not that, I’ve to demoIish it.
But I don’t know which
method I shouId use.
I thought of bIasting it
with the bomb.
Now the Iabour charges
are very high.
Bomb bIast will be very easy.
MateriaIs are avaiIabIe in MaIappuram”

This is an excerpt from a verbatim script of a popular Malayalam movie of the1990s, in which the leading protagonist picks Malappuram as a territory where bombs are easily available, implicitly disgorging the venomous notion that malappuram is a land of explosions, riots and chaos and so understandably a terrorist’s haven. In the 1990s, we know, a sane script writer, or a filmmaker would have opted for ‘Kannur’, instead of any other district, since Kannur during those days used to hog the headlines of even the international media such as BBC&CNN, over the gruesome political murders and arsons, along with unremitting ‘country bomb’ explosions when the BJP and CPIM went the whole hog in bloody vendetta politics. It is not an overstatement to assert that the common sense of Kannur was pathetically got accustomed to the bomb cultivation and brutal murders committed by those political parties. Still, the film maker’s ‘not-so-subtle’ selection of Malappuram, as ‘the bomb hub’ over Kannur unfurls the story of the precariously prevalent Malappuram phobia.

As the Malappuram district has completed five decades since its formation the phobia has taken various shapes over the years like the one from Tirur railway station, in Malappuram district , when the railway authorities ordered to erase the newly made mural depicting the wagon massacre, or tragedy in British historians’ euphemistic language, in which 90 Mappilas were forcefully herded and cramped into a windowless bogey that moved to Coimbatore from punalur, leading to the suffocation death of 67. It’s pretty palpable that the Hindutva brigades, who want to create a cherry – picked narrative of 1921, and to demonize it to their advantage, would be desperate to erase the indelible historic signatures of valiant resistance of mappilas against the British. The period of British rule in the region saw many armed uprisings by the Mappilas who were basically farmers, against the British and the Hindu landlords. But the duplicitous British authorities and historians, in order to implement their divide and rule policy, successfully fabricated a story of Hindu versus Muslim riot, an account, SanghParivar, kowtowers of the British rulers then, grabbed with both hands.

Literary Works That Instigated Phobia

Kumaranasan’s poem Duravastha (tragic plight) might be the primary instance of Malappuram phobic element in a Malayalam literary work, although the de facto malappuram was yet to be born.
Kumaranasan wrote: “Eranad,(the locale of the poem), had turned crimson with the blood of Hindus, by the cruel muhammadans.” Uroob, another noted novelist, in his novel SundarimarumSundaranmarum , makes a centre character who exaggeratedly describes the atrocities and violence against Hindus(said to have taken) took place in Kondotty,Pookkottur, both within the geographical boundaries of today’s Malappuram district.

Birth of Malappuram District

The district of Malappuram was formed on 16th June 1969, by carving out the portions of Palakkad and Kozhikode in order to facilitate easier administration and development. Saffron fringe groups like Bharatheeya Jana Sangh and the RSS, made full use of the already existing phobia of the proposed territory, to obstruct its formation. Their propaganda machinations transmitted the news of a “Mini Pakistan in the making”. The elite Brahmanical cream of the national parties and national news papers were also in connivance with the SanghParivar. The Mathrubhumi, a media group now under the pump over their axing of its pro left-liberal editor, probably as a straw in the wind of their inclination, wrote: “Proposed Malappuram district formation is going to be a formation of a mini Pakistan.There are Hindus already under the persecution of Muslims. At Ponnani, there is an organization which forcefully converts thousands of non Muslims to Muslims”(Mathrubhumi daily June 6, 1969).

Malappuram, the other

Since then, there have been several instances of articles that tarnish Malappuram, being published in English and Hindi magazines across India. The probe magazine, in the 1980s, covered a story under the title “a mini Pakistan in India”, about Malappuram highlighting a graffiti that read “liberation of India through Islam “written by activists of SIMI, an organization which had negligible presence in Kerala, painted as their slogan of a proposed conference. However, Hindu right wing extremists went on to accentuate ‘that particular graffiti image’ to conceptualize that a mini Pakistan formation is what is in the store in other parts of India too where the Muslims are majority. Hindutva forces outside Kerala were persistent in spreading canards on Malappuram, with the proliferation of social media as well. The SanghParivar fringe elements began firing all their goebbelsian cylinders that spewed venom on malappuram latching on to the most obnoxious possibility of this uncensored media. Title of a blog written by DrBabu in 2014 July, was “Kerala’s Muslim majority district Malappuram a mini Pakistan strangling Hindu there”. It’s a repetition of a blog published in 2003 by one Yogendra and of another blog under the title “Mini Pakistan in India –why Hindu want secularism” by Sourav Reddy published in 2006. In 2010, a retired IAS officer from Tamilnadu, V Sundaram blogged a spiteful article on Malappuram with the title ‘a cultural Taliban in secular India’, to vent his spleen towards Muslim league leaders who, owing to their belief, refused to light the ceremonial lamp, ‘the Nilavilakku’ in public functions. On 27^th of May 2020, an elephant tragically died after consuming an explosive snare that was kept to ward off wild boars..The outrage against the tragic incident all over India took an ugly turn, when Former Union minister and a BJP leader, Maneka Gandhi started tweeting ‘elephantine’ canards,on the same issue targeting ‘Malappuram’ .Hindutva brigade latched on to the communal colour extracted from the ‘Malappuram’ remark although the incident actually happened in Palakkad district-and not in Malappuram District. Amidst all the instances of mismanagement and indecision regarding lockdown, Migrant workers’ tragic plight and deteriorating economy, nobody in the Sangh family seems to have been bothered about those ‘communally colourless’ elephants in the room.Every Ramadan, a repeated piece of fake news pops up, claiming that non-Muslims are denied food in Malappuram. This baseless propaganda is often spread by the Hindutva media to stoke communal tensions and malign the region, which is known for its harmony and religious coexistence.

The phobia; the epidemic

Although, the SanghParivar was at the forefront of malicious campaign against Malappuram initially, the CPI (M) for the last few years seems to have taken over the baton from them. In 2005, then opposition leader, V S Achuthandan made a horrendous remark on Malappuram that “the reason for educational improvement in Muslim dominated Malappuram District of Kerala is due to malpractices in public examinations conducted in the state”. CPIM leader Vijyaraghavan too has made such vituperative remarks more than one occasion using the racial language against Muslims in malappuram. Last year the CPI (M) Minister KadakampallySurendran took severe flak from the opposition when he stated that the core of Malappuram is communal, immediately after Malappuram by-election result was out. BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on several occasions has referred to Malappuram as communally sensitive Mini Pakistan, and once he had sought for army’s intervention as well. There had been instances of temple desecrations in the district immediately followed by protests by hindutva organizations pointing fingers to Muslim outfits. But those incidents too turned out to be subterfuges by the sanghParivar since the culprits behind were identified as criminals with Hindu names.The student outfit of the CPI(M),SFI has repeatedly made Islamophobic comments targeting Malappuram, particularly focusing on Muslim management colleges in the district. These institutions, where the outfit fails to exert its usual influence, have been condescendingly labeled as ‘madrasas’ by them.

Countering the Phobia, TheMalappuram Model

It’s no brainer that the people of Malappuram , who weathered the storm of colonial governance and persecution for centuries are pretty much capable to stave off the purported effort of communal forces to disrupt the very mellifluous existence of Malappuram. Malappuram, over the years have epitomized harmony and coexistence amidst all name calling it had to put up with, and here are some snippets of Malappuram’s unique history of wonderful coexistence.

1) Following an arrest warrant by the British police , KM Moulavi ,a congress leader then and the founding father of Salafi Movement in Kerala, had to flee from Tirurangadi, the epicenter of Malabar struggles and British rampage, to live in exile in Kodungallur. Once the police officers reached there to arrest him, KC KuttikrishnaMenon, an influential leader of the Hindu community there, shouted at the police saying “you can’t take him unless and until we all Hindus die here”. This exemplified the camaraderie between the leaders of the two communities and the mutual respect they shared.

2) It was at same Thirurangadi, K P Raman, former PSC member was brought up in a Muslim orphanage, by MK Haji, another leader of the same Salafi Movement and Muslim league. Amidst all propaganda of forceful conversion to Hindu torture from Asan to Uroob to Mathrubhumi to Times now , KP Raman’s musings that, he was comfortably brought up in that orphanage, that he was treated with equal consideration, that he was never asked to leave his religion, that he got concession in some rules of orphanage owing to his religion are one among many instances where malappuram go for a ‘bicycle kick’ to the nonsensical common sense established by the media.

3) It was in the same Tirurangadi, where 80% are Muslims, AK Antony, the congress leader was brought in as a candidate by Muslim league and people elected him with a thumping margin, in contrast with the calumnies , that non Muslim candidates are hardly elected there; despite there were political attempts to woo the voters stressing at the community of the candidature by other parties, including the Left.

4) A Decision to conduct a religious function of sermons taken by a Muslim organization to raise fund for a Hindu man has gone viral in social media recently.

5) ShihabThangal’s efforts to maintain peace and harmony is well known and one such story, recently retold and made popular by ShashiTharoor, is that “a coconut tree , leaning towards a Masjid, damages tile roof as the coconut falls down. As the demand for cutting down the tree arises and the owner’s refusal grows tensions and both parties decides to take the matter to ShihabThangal for mediation. Thangals solution was simple. Roof of Masjid has to be demolished instead of cutting down the tree.. When the old mother of that Hindu household came to know about it, she rushed to the thangal to apologise before him and to inform that they are ready to cut the coconut tree. Thangal smiled and said, “coconut tree is the elixir of our life, it should be protected at any cost.”

These pieces of history succinctly summate the incontrovertibly harmonious nature of Malappuram which is very much intertwined with their religion and belief, and so, what the whole malappuram will be keen to tell those Mappila(Malappuram) Phobes, each time they come up with another canard, is, This is Malappuram for you; ‘on your bike, you phobes!

Muhammad INK