KOZHIKODE: CPM state committee member P Jayarajan’s new book on Muslim politics in Kerala has evoked strong reactions from different corners with the Congress branding it as a ploy to win BJP votes while the Deepika daily said it was a sincere effort to ‘expose the extremists.’
Addressing a public programme in Kozhikode, Congress leader K Muraleedharan said the CPM has started wooing the Hindu votes. “There is a clear understanding between CPM and BJP. There is a report in the media about the document which will be placed before the party congress. It says both the minority and majority communalism should be countered,” he said.
Muraleedharan said Jayarajan’s book was discussing minority communalism. “The party that talked about issues like the Citizenship Amendment Act is now discussing minority communalism. Speaker A N Shameer’s statement that the RSS is an important organisation in India should be read along with these developments,” he said.
Meanwhile, Deepika said it remained to be seen whether the CPM would endorse what Jayarajan said on Muslim fundamentalism. In the editorial that appeared on Wednesday, the daily said it was not certain whether the leader would stick to what he said and whether the political parties, including the CPM, would reject political Islam that has sneaked into the political discourse.
There is nothing new in what Jayarajan said in the book, but the content of the book is relevant in the context of the fact that both the CPM and the Congress have been nurturing political Islam, the daily said. “Many times, we have seen the letting loose of the extremists in Kerala. But no parties that ruled the state could resist the Popular Front. When did they (the political parties) realise that outfits like Al Qaeda, Taliban, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hizbullah, Popular Front and Jama’at-e-Islami envisage a system that is solely based on Islam,” the editorial asked.
However, another CPM leader E P Jayarajan said that Kerala was a state that successfully resisted the infiltration of extremist organisations. There is a government that ensures the safety and security of the people. “People of all faiths live amicably in Kerala and the government will not allow any disruptive activities,” he said.
Jayarajan’s book ‘Keralam, Muslim Rashtreeyam-Rashtreeya Islam,’ to be released next month, contains discussions on the ideology of political Islam and activities of organisations like Popular Front of India and Jama’at-e-Islami. It also contains details of controversial issues such as Islamic State (IS) modules in Kerala that were busted a few years ago and the ‘Kashmir recruitment case’ which led to the death of four Kerala youths in an encounter with the Indian army in Kupwara.
