KASARGOD: When five young Muslim families, advocating social and religious isolation, left home in Padna village to the land of the Islamic State, the story sat pretty with the larger narrative of Kasargod being a communal cauldron.
The reported death of Hafeesudeen T K, 23, one of the group members, in a drone attack at an unidentified location in Afghanistan may rekindle the perception. But residents of the middle-class village, sitting on the edge of Ori lake, say the migration by the families was an anomaly. “There is no effort in Padna to put on a show of communal harmony and that is because, unlike Kasargod, the social interactions between different communities are very high here,” said K V Chandran, a committee member of Sree Padna Mundya Temple.
The temple, perched in the middle of the Muslim-majority town, recently razed its compound wall to help Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a Muslim organisation, to host its district convention.
“They asked for space and we offered it to them. There is nothing more to it,” said Chandran.
One of the stages and several bookstalls for the two-day convention, held on February 18 and 19, was set up in the temple compound, said Basheer Shivapuram, local secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami. Asked why the temple committee agreed to bring down the wall, he said the Muslims of Padna were always on the forefront of the temple activities.
“The temple festival is spearheaded by them. So when they asked for a little space, neither the devotees nor the temple committee members had second thoughts on what had to be done,” he said.
Muslims are in the majority in Padna village and the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) is the dominant party. But Padna grama panchayat, which includes Udinoor village, is controlled by the CPM-led LDF. But unlike communally sensitive Kasargod or politically volatile Kannur, Padna has not witnessed violence. “There were political clashes before, but in the past six years, even that is missing,” said businessman Thasleem M K.
Land of immigrants
Compared to culturally rich Cheruvatur and Trikaripur, Padna is a new settlement with a history of not more than 200 years. “Most of the early settlers were very poor and because of that, feudalism did not creep into the village,” Thasleem said.
In the early days, men of Padna left home for a better living. “They worked as headload workers in Mangaluru port and many more found their way to Rangoon (Myanmar). But the World War II ended the Rangoon dreams,” he said. Many went to Singapore and Ceylon. In the early 1960s, Padna found Mumbai. “Boys found jobs in restaurants and workshops. They returned and took their siblings along. They started off with lowly jobs, but today most of them own restaurants and automobile workshops in the city,” he said.
Though, not highly educated, the people of Padna were cosmopolitan because of their global exposure. “The community started focusing on education recently, when they became middle class,” he said. Those who left home to join the IS were the early beneficiaries of higher education in Padna.
With education and wealth came the mushrooming of community-based institutions and places of worship. “All the sects of Muslims have their institutions and mosques in Padna,” said Shivapuram.
However, he said those “missing” youths were not educated here. “They were internet-schooled and had contempt for the institutions in Padna,” he said. Locally, the thrust of most of the institutions is on interdependence and coexistence, he said.
Thasleem said if there were 10 religious institutions, Padna also has 12 sports and arts clubs, which had a mix of people. “The people and the youth are socially committed because of their gruelling past,” he said. The clubs and communities often pool in money for accident victims, and build houses for the poor from the village, irrespective of their religions, said Chandran.