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The ‘Real’ Kerala Story: Tales of Communal Harmony From Ground Zero

P. Raman

In Karnataka and North India’s communal hotbeds, government authorities have systematically used every religious occasion for shifting punishment onto minorities. But, in Kerala, the gods, the devotees, and their places of worship happily coexist.

On a month-long holiday to the state, this writer found no one talking about stopping the azaan. In some places, mosque authorities voluntarily decided to lower the volume of the loudspeaker.

There were no cow vigilantes on the streets, no bulldozers razing minority properties, no attacks on mosques, madrasas and churches, no disruption of namaz prayers, and no cries to ban hijab, halal, and beef. This was in sharp contrast to the states like Uttar Pradesh where chief minister Yogi Adityananth had ordered the removal of loudspeakers from all religious places.

Consider The Kerala Story, the fictional film which left a trail of death and destruction, including in places like Akola, Ahmednagar, and Jammu. But Kerala remained calm. No one here found any need for protests, for or against the screening of the film. They seemed to have dismissed it as fiction.

During our Kerala visit, the local media narrated an incident where the azaan from the local mosque blended with temple bells at the Shanthigiri Ashram in Kozhikode. This happened when leaders of the Congress, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Muslim League were attending a function along with the ashram monk, Gururethnam.

Such incidents, we were told, are not uncommon in Kerala.

This news story was published on April 12. During the same month, the Hindi belt was in the grip of Ram Navami clashes. The violence also spread to Bihar and West Bengal.

Social harmony

What happened in Kozhikode was not an isolated incident. In Kerala, religious festivals are increasingly becoming occasions for enhancing social harmony and kinship and celebrating diversity.

For instance, Miladi un-Nabi or Nabi Dinam in Kerala has become an occasion for great bonhomie. Last year, many temple management committees in the state celebrated the day by holding receptions for the rallies organised by the local Muslims. As per media reports, leaders from churches in many places went to the local juma masjids to greet Muslims.

There’s another similar instance of communal harmony when the mohalla committee in Kottakkal in old Malabar celebrated Nabi Dinam. They donated Rs 1 lakh to a differently abled Hindu woman. However, local RSS leaders described it as a trap for conversion. To disprove this, Lakshmi Kutty’s Hindu friends were also present at the function in large numbers on October 9, 2022.

In Thrissur’s Olarikkara, the local Bhagavati temple committee organised a reception for the Nabi Dinam rally at the temple maidan. The committee president and others welcomed the procession.

At Valappad, the vicar of St. Sebastian Church, Father Babu Appadan, went to the new juma masjid to greet fellow Muslims with sweets.

The Bhagvati temple club office bearers at Cherpu in Thrissur district distributed sweets to the participants of the Nabi Dinam procession at the temple premises. A reception held at Vandur near Trissur was addressed by leaders of different communities. Students of a local madrasa performed a deffmut (Moppila folk dance) in front of the Kacheri Kundur Shiva temple in Vengara.

Malayalam dailies widely covered such gestures of harmony.

In Manalaya near Perinthalmanna, local Muslim League MLA Najeeb Kanthapuram inaugurated the centuries-old temple’s new building. The chief priest, Narayan Nambudiri, led the puja ceremony. The trustee of the temple, M. Shasidharan, said people of the village cutting across religious divides were living in peace and harmony.

In Malappuram’s Edakkara, Sabarimala pilgrims prepared kheer on the occasion of the inauguration of a new building of the Karapuram Shamsuddin madrasa. Last year, Punnassery Bhagavati temple near Tirur cancelled its annual festival to condole the death of a local Muslim Cherathil Haider.

In January 2022, the Islamic Institute at Thrissur introduced Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads in its syllabus from this year. The gesture was widely welcomed.

Temples and churches in the state organise iftar parties during Ramzan.

The Lakshmi Narasimhamurthi temple began hosting the Iftar party from 2017 onwards. It began after the temple festival coincided with Ramzan that year.

Iftars were also held by the temple management committees of Vaniyannur Chathangadu Maha Vishnu temple near Tirur and Sree Puthuveppu Manaliyarkavu Bhagavsthi temple at Othalur.

On the other hand, Hindutva groups, who have a domineering presence in many such local temple committees, fiercely resent such societal interaction. Two months ago, a shade of a renovated hall at the famous Thirumanthamkunnu Bhagawati temple had to be changed due to objections raised by the Hindutva groups.

Last month, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) opposed the naming of the refurbished Jubilee Hall at Kozhikode after the renowned patriot Mohammad Abdul Rahman. Other parties like the Left and Congress supported the move.

A sweeping transformation

The Muslim community has undergone a sweeping transformation during the past six decades. When this writer, born and brought up in what is called the Muslim majority Malappuram district, left the state in 1960, Muslim men were identified by their clean-shaven head – some attribute it to their Buddhist past – stitched lungi, often fastened with a three-inch wide cloth belt and a bare upper. Now on the streets, you cannot differentiate Muslims from others.

Similarly, it is hard to spot the old kind of archetypal ‘Umma’ – a Muslim woman – in a full sleeve kurta with a stitched lungi. The old dress has been replaced by a variety of outfits like skirts and salwar kameez. However, the hijab has survived the sartorial onslaught. There are shops exclusively catering to Muslim women in almost every town in the Muslim heartland of Malappuram.

In those days, Muslims in Malabar invariably spoke the ‘Mappila’ dialect. Now even Muslim girls speak Malayalam. In madrasas, trained Maulavis have replaced the semi-literate ‘Mullaka’.

In Pattambi, a group of skull-capped boys in white kurtas and pyjamas got into the crowded bus we were travelling in. We asked them where we could get a bus to Valapuram. We were surprised when they themselves carried our baggage and put us on the right bus. Another ‘jihad’ to trap an octogenarian couple?

In Beppur, a minor port near Kozhikode, we decided to drop in at a relative’s house in a local modern colony. As we pressed the bell, two girls in hijab opened the door. Are we at the wrong address?

“Aunty will be back home any moment. Please come in,” they said. They went in and out of the kitchen and prepared cool drinks – as if they were part of their aunt’s family. The aunt later explained that the Muslim girls were friends of her daughter who now lives in Canada.

In a crowded bus, we found some Hindu and Muslim girl students in uniform. They were studying at a local medical college. They all spoke Malayalam. The only Muslim identity was the hijab. So clearly, the language barrier is cracking.

And suddenly, we found the Muslim girls pulling up their hijabs in place. An old Muslim man in a skull cap boarded the bus. A Gulf-returned relative, who is now a director of the Ayurvedic college near Kuttanad, said most of its students were Muslim with girls taking the lead.

Muslims of Malabar were the early beneficiaries of the Gulf jobs and the remittances boom. This benefited two generations and has greatly enhanced the economic, social and educational profile of the Muslims. Simultaneously, there were community efforts to encourage education among the mostly backward Muslims. They opened a string of schools and colleges, including professional ones, in backward areas. The result was the birth of an aspirational generation.

(Courtesy: The Wire.)

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The Real Story Versus Fake ‘The Kerala Story’

Mahesh Kumar

There is a lot of debate in the media about the recently released feature film ‘The Kerala Story‘, which falsely claims that 32,000 women from Kerala were converted from Hinduism to Islam and are buried in Syria and Yemen. The 138-minute film weaponises every available shred of reality to explain why a handful of Indian Muslims joined the Islamic faith or why people embraced Islam. Kasargod and Malappuram in Kerala have been shown as dangerous recruitment places for Islamic faith. The word “Allah” appears in the ringtone of the film’s main character, Asifa’s phone, and it is depicted as if having a ringtone with the name of Allah is in itself a suspicious thing or a crime. The film is all about Islamophobia.

In contrast, the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) and Jansanskriti recently organised the screening of a film Innu Swantham Sreedharan (Yours Truly, Sreedharan), directed by Siddik Paravoor, at Jawahar Bhawan, New Delhi. Hundreds of people came to watch it. The film spreads the message of love and brotherhood. It revolves around three Hindu children who grew up in a Muslim family after their mother’s untimely death. This article compares this with the misinformed The Kerala Story.

The ‘Real Kerala Story’

While the debate over the fake The Kerala Story was raging, here is a beautiful feature film based on a real story from Malappuram of Zubeidaa and Abdul Aziz Haji, a Muslim couple from Kalikavu village of Neelambur in the Malappuram district of Kerala, who care for three children of their Hindu domestic help Chakki, without converting them.

Zubeidaa passed away in July 2019 due to kidney ailment, and two years later, her husband, Aziz Haji also passed away. This heart-warming tale of a family has now been brought to the silver screen by filmmaker Siddique Paravoor. Innu Swantham Sreedharan (Yours Truly, Sreedharan, is based on the youngest child, Sreedharan, and premiered on January 9 at Edapalli’s Vanitha Theatre.

During an interview with the media, Paravoor shared how he first learned of this story in July 2019 when Sreedharan posted on Facebook about the unfortunate demise of his ‘umma‘ (mother in Malayalam). The revelation sparked curiosity and doubts about how a Hindu individual could refer to his mother as ‘umma.’ In response, Sreedharan eloquently explained that his bond with his adoptive Muslim parents transcended religious labels. He emphasised that love and togetherness should prevail over religious divisions and that this heart-warming story of unity was the “true essence” of Kerala.

Sreedharan told the film’s writer, “Umma and Uppa (mother and father) had three children, including Joshina, born a few years after we took refuge in their home. But we never felt that we are different or belong to any other religion. It is the only house that felt like it was my own house. I had also heard from elders that umma used to breastfeed me and Jafar together.”

Sreedharan’s life story in his Facebook post was aimed to inform people that the story of love and togetherness is the “real story of Kerala”. Such instances of communal harmony occur every day in the state.

Sreedharan once asked his Umma and Uppa why they did not convert him and his sisters to Islam. Hearing this, they became a little concerned. “She and Uppa asked me if anyone had said anything wrong to me. When I told them there was nothing like that, they explained that we should not let religion define anyone. He said that all religions preach the same thing, that is, to love and help people, and pointed out that human beings misinterpret religion or its teachings.”

“Umma also taught us that it doesn’t matter what one’s religion is. My sisters and I used to go to the temple and apply sandalwood paste on our foreheads. It didn’t matter to Umma. They just wanted us not to lie, steal or hurt others. And we also made it a point that we never do anything that would hurt her reputation,” he said.

Sreedharan also knows that if Zubeidaa had not adopted him and his sisters, their lives would have been very different, especially considering their family’s caste background. “We belong to the lower caste. When we were growing up, people expected us to be subservient to them. This was the culture of that time. But Uppa and Umma taught us against this and allowed us to live in a harmonious family. She told us that we should not bow down to anyone unnecessarily,” he said.

Film director Siddiq remembers being taken aback when he heard Zubeidaa’s heartwarming story after reaching her village. Everyone in her village, Kalikavu, knew and loved her. She spent her ancestral wealth not on herself but on helping the underprivileged community. Zubeidaa used to buy clothes and jewellery for him and his sisters. She had around 12 acres of land, which she donated to the needy people. She even took a loan to help the poor people. When she died, she was in debt of around Rs 28 lakh. Later his elder son repaid this loan.

Siddiq explains, “It was Aziz Haji himself who took the first shot of the camera. They were all happy that more and more people would now know about Zubeidaa and the philanthropist that she was. Unfortunately, Aziz Haji died a year later during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Director Siddique says, “People are inherently good. But sometimes, we need stories like these to remind us of their goodness. In this climate of hate and misinformation, Zubeidaa deserves to be remembered, and her story must be repeated.”

The Fake Kerala Story

Contrary to the true spirit of Kerala, The Kerala Story perpetuates misinformation and unfounded propaganda against the Muslim community. This film has faced widespread condemnation, particularly in Kerala, for distorting facts and inflating figures to fuel anti-Muslim sentiments. Even senior advocate Harish Salve, representing the filmmaker in the ongoing Supreme Court hearing regarding the film’s ban in West Bengal, acknowledged the lack of authentic data supporting the claim of 32,000 conversions. He admitted that the film was a fictionalised version of events and proposed adding a disclaimer to that effect. “There is no authentic data to back up the suggestion that the figure of conversions is 32,000 or any other established figure” & “the film represents the fictionalised version” of the issue shall be added.

The film’s promotion by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the granting of tax exemptions by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state governments raise concerns about the government’s involvement in spreading divisive narratives. The dangerous aspect of this propaganda is that the Modi government and BJP-ruled state governments are involved in this kind of propaganda against the Muslim community.

However, Kerala is a shining example of peaceful coexistence among communities.

Several activists and media personnel have come forward to respond to the film’s misinformation. YouTuber Dhruv Rathee elaborated that the picture of Kerala shown in the film is false and baseless. He explained by giving figures that even the National Investigation Agency (NIA) figures do not prove that Kerala is a prominent place of recruitment for Islam. According to the NIA, six women became part of the Islamic faith in Kerala, of which three were Muslims, and three have converted to Islam and out of these three, two were Christians and one Hindu. So, where has this alarming figure of 32,000 women joining the Muslim faith come from? This figure shows that the film is criminally against the Muslim community and Kerala, which is achieving growth in every aspect of public life.

Film actor John Abraham was asked by the media three years ago why Kerala is not ‘Modi-fied’. Abraham replied that Kerala is a place where temples, mosques and churches are found at a distance of 10 meters, and people of all religions live together peacefully. Therefore, there is no hatred in the name of religion in Kerala.

Thousands of stories and anecdotes reflect the secular fabric of Kerala. No misinformation or campaign of hatred can tarnish the image of Kerala, built brick by brick by the people of Kerala through social, political and freedom struggle movements.

(The writer is an independent journalist based in Delhi. Courtesy: Newsclick.)