From Kerala to Islamabad (A Journey of Nine Decades)

tariq, a real nice article. im from kerala, im from cochin, and i have friends who live near the periyar river. im a hindu, who fasts, during ramzan, because most of my friends are muslims. in fact muslims in kerala are far better off than muslims anuwhere in india. maybe northindians should learn from us. i have 2 muslim rakhi sisters, who tie rakhi on rakshabhandan, a north indian festival(it means im their brother and its my obligation to protect them- im at times naughty thatsperhaps the reason). we respect each others, religion, and we have peace. shared culture , language and racial stock, are also required to fasten identity, not religion alone. maybe the makers of pakistan forgot that thing. i have muslim friends who come back from the middle east and say harsh things about arab culture, and acknowledge the fact that arabs are at times lacking in brains, compared to us indians. i then fail tounderstand why most pakistani`s feel they require a pan-arabic identity. if i recollect iqbal, he wanted to create pakistan, as a muslim state devoid of arab influence, because he felt that islams true nature and intentwas revealed not in arabia but in the subcontinent. my friends mother is the most devoted muslim i have ever met, clad in a white muslin sari, with holykoran in front, she prays for evryone who is ill or has a problem irrespective of their faith, there is a glow in her eyes having led a life full of godliness, we call her umma, mother in malayalam. umma is my image of islam. peace, compassion and godliness its true pilliars of faith. we are examples of a culture where both religions can survive with mutual respect- afterall secularism means morality has no religion, its about being humane. welcome to kerala, gods own country.

#31
Dear sir, is that what they call it now (``gated compound``)? We used to call it a mental asylum..

I was quite late to notice this excellent piece of writing in chowk. It is very different reading experience for me. Since I also hail from kerala and that too from a family, which can claim a modest role in the history of the Muslims in kerala. Idid know about few people who migrated to paksitan , but the reason I feel had more to do with finding a useful vocation rather than religion. 1921 rebellion many Muslims from malabar moved to different parts of India and neighboring countries like srilanaka and malasia, partly to escape hostile British rule , and partly to find new pastures for business. Unlike migration from other communities, mappilas differed in one way, in most cases it was only able bodied male members of the family who migrated and left their women and children back in kerala thus they managed to retain their cultural and linguistic identitity. right now there is big issue in kerala about permitting pakistani malabari Muslims to stay back in kerala. And public opinion in kerala is in favor of such a move. History of kerala Muslims is in a way very different from the history of other Muslim communities in Indian subcontinent.to me ,it is a vindication of the fact that harmonious coexistence is possible for muslims other communities, if one is willing to accept the pluralism and cultural diversity. Contrary to what jihadees and fanatics in Pakistan like us to believe, India is not a hostile to Islam and its followers. Hindus are tolerant even to the date and allowed Islam and Christianity take root and flourish. A trip to kerala would be a positive experience for those who believe in unity in diversity

The writer can be taken for his word, but there are so many malabaris from Pakistan who after visiting Kerala are refusing to go back. We are sure there are solid reasons for them to believe that they belong here. One would recollect about ten years back there was quite a bruhaha about such Malyali myslims claiming that Kerala is their real home. So for a malabari what is home, God`s Own Country or Pakistan? Malyali speaking muslims must feel quite alienated in a country where the majority population is of North Indian extraction and obviously missing their ancestors` land

Re: # 38
The contensions of the reader might be right, but it is not objective to make sweeping generalisations based on a particular cases. Experiences of the malyali community varied from person to person, and place to place. The educated malyalis found themselves playing a useful role in the new state after they migrated to it, and thus had no reason to feel disenchanted or estranged. The malyali communities in various cities found comfort in one another`s company. In fact in Karachi there still is a malyali jamaatkhan, and there was once an active sothern cooperative society. The second and third generations intermarried within the malyali community, the other immigrant communities, or the locals, and have estabished roots here. To say that malyalis in Pakistan are unhappy because they were unable to mix with the people of north indian extraction is just wishful thinking. people might be from north or south, they are all human beings, trying to find comfort in one another`s company, trying to lessen the burdens of life
tariq

PS: You also need to check with chowk staff why they are so insecure that they do not want you to see a map of Kunjathai and pictures of the fort and church which you named in your article.

Dear Author,

I had posted a map of Kunjathai and pictures of a fort and church but chowk staff removed it. You can view them here:
http://www.chowk.com/show_user_replies.cgi?membername=sadna&start=0&end=9&page=1&chapter=1

Your comments were very informative. My father had told me the story about Chereman Perumal, but the bit about pickles was new to me. I think that the feedback I am getting has made my writing this article worthwhile
tariq

Re: # 33


A few quotes from various web sites..

In two of the oldest books of Kerala which refer to its history -Keralotpatti (Malayalam) and Tuhfattul Mujahiddin (Arabic) - there is a reference to a king by name Cheraman Perumal, who went to Mecca from Kerala and embraced Islam. This, according to Allam Maqhoom Jainuddin, took place in the 8th century AD. However, as per the records available at the Arrakal royal family, which was Cannanore`s Muslim royalty, this incident occurred in 645 AD.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/4346/beary.htm



About the story of pickles..

http://jaihoon.com/watan/perumalgift.htm

and this site also has a picture of the interior of Chermen Mosque.

and here is an article on Wikipedia about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheraman_Perumal


...Also it mentions about some OLD Manuscripts ...from the India Office liabrary.....
which can be verified if you contact Dr Colin Baker of British Liabrary....
....and you can obtain those from there..

Ref Sangilikkaruppan #30

[harimau iyer,
So now it`s someone else`s opinion that i should chew on?]

Well, you have been chewing on and swallowing Father Big Man`s opinions all along, so it should not be too hard.

[I know about the moplah rebellion. There are extremist, revisionist points of view on both sides - surprise, surprise.]

Is Annie Besant an extremist Hindutva-wadi?

[What is interesting tho is how you generalize and damn a whole lot of people - a typical day in the life of a bigot.]

Well, if the whole population of Malabar rose up in rebellion and killed Hindus, then one has the right to condemn the whole frikking group, don`t you think?

Oh, I am sorry. You have no thoughts of your own and are waiting for inspiration from Father Big Man.

[Sorry you missed me on your board. I do have a life.]

Nope, you just couldn`t refute any argument I presented there. Your buddy Masanamthu tried valiantly though.

[I`m off to madras - hope i don`t run into you there - hard ;)]

Not likely. I live in a gated compund to keep out the riff-raff.

harimau iyer,
So now it`s someone else`s opinion that i should chew on? I know about the moplah rebellion. There are extremist, revisionist points of view on both sides - surprise, surprise. What is interesting tho is how you generalize and damn a whole lot of people - a typical day in the life of a bigot.
Sorry you missed me on your board. I do have a life.
I`m off to madras - hope i don`t run into you there - hard ;)

harimau
There are Muslims in Kerala who oppose Muslim communalism- please don`t undermine them.

Ref Sangilikkaruppan #27

You can`t even google, can you?

Here is something for you to chew on:

[The Report of the Enquiry Committee of the Servants of India Society stated that about 1,500 Hindus were murdered and over 20,000 were forcibly converted to Islam. The molestation and abduction of Hindu women was seemingly endless.

Dr. Annie Besant, a widely respected thinker, stated: ``They [Moplahs] murdered and plundered abundantly, and killed or drove away all Hindus who would not apostatise. Somewhere about a lakh (100,000) of people were driven from their homes with nothing but their clothes they had on, stripped of everything...Malabar has taught us what Islamic rule still means, and we do not want to see another specimen of the Khilafat Raj in India. `` ]

Here is what happened some 80 years after the original Moplah revolt.

From Rediff:


[Moplah Rebellion, Part II: Hindus massacred on Maraad Beach

May 09, 2003


The reported facts about the incident in Maraad, Kozhikode, Kerala, are as follows.

A group of Hindu fishermen sitting on the beach near a temple is attacked suddenly, without provocation or warning, by a mob of Muslims armed with swords. After a chaotic ten minutes, nine people are dead or bleeding to death on the beach. Many are seriously wounded. The attackers vanish into the night.
A cache of swords and other sharp weapons, including blood-stained ones, as well as powerful country bombs is recovered from a mosque in the vicinity.
Various politicians make soothing noises, 66 persons have been arrested in connection with the crime. A judicial inquiry has been instituted.
The dead are: Gopalan, Chandran, Santosh, Madhavan, Asghar, Dasan, Pushparaj, Krishnan, and Prajeesh. One of them had been married for just five days.
I am basing this analysis on reports in the Malayalam media (eg: www.keralakaumudi.com). I find the local media to be far more accurate and less prejudiced than the English language media in most cases.

Consider the circumstances: the attack happened on a Friday, and it was directed at those sitting near a Hindu temple. First, almost all Muslim-initiated riots in India take place on Fridays, after the faithful have heard sermons in the local mosque.

Second, killing Hindus near a Hindu temple is guaranteed to be offensive; if there is any chance of a communal riot developing, this is an excellent way of triggering it.

This was a mini-Godhra: a murderous attack on Hindus. I have no idea who was behind it, perhaps Pakistanis, or perhaps it was merely local Moplah Muslims. After all, the Moplahs of Malabar did not need any Pakistani inspiration when they launched into the terrible riots of 1921 (the Moplah Rebellion) when they, without provocation, murdered, raped, and forcibly converted thousands of Hindus, just because distant Turkey had abolished the Caliphate.

What was the objective this time? Possibly to create a communal riot along the lines of what happened in Gujarat in the wake of the Godhra massacre. Perhaps to emphasise that in Muslim-dominated Malabar, as in Bangladesh and Kashmir, it is just fine to murder Hindus. The perpetrators -- whoever they are -- are confident that there will be no consequences.

What is likely to happen? Not much. Frightened Hindus will move some place safer, and one more piece of real estate will become dar-ul Islam, land of Muslims. This has been happening in other parts of Malabar, for example Muslim-majority Malappuram district, where Hindus are leaving for less dangerous places. Yes, the famed Nehruvian Stalinist `secularism` in action, yet again.

Hindus in Kerala have declined in numbers, and this is what happens to non-Muslims when the Muslim population reaches a critical mass: decimation. When Semitic religions hold sway, they brutalise minorities. We have the examples of Muslim intolerance in Jammu & Kashmir and Christian intolerance in the Northeast. Hindus have a simple choice: convert, die or flee. And Kerala`s Hindus are running out of places to flee to. We may end up in squalid refugee camps like the Pandits.

I have observed over the years the changes in Islam in Kerala. When I was a child, the Muslims I knew were relatively non-observant; the men sported no beards or skullcaps, the women wore saris and they merely drew the pallu demurely over their heads. Today, in Malabar there are large numbers of bearded men with skullcaps and women in all-enveloping black burqas. Astonishingly, even in southern Kerala, I have seen billboards advertising `burqa fashions.`

I have also watched the growth of mosques in Kerala. In one stretch of the national highway between Kollam and Trivandrum, there are five huge mosques within the space of just one mile, and all but one have come up in the recent past, maybe ten years. You see scores of young boys with skullcaps and scores of little girls with headscarves going to the local madrassa, I imagine.

Much has happened in Kerala to bring these changes about. One is that the fragmented politics of Kerala has enabled smallish groups to wield disproportionate influence. As an example, various governments in Kerala, dependent on the support of the Muslim League, have allocated tracts of public land to it: startlingly, right in the middle of the famous Kovalam beach, there is now a large mosque on what was public property.

Furthermore, enormous amounts of Saudi and other Muslim fundamentalist money have apparently come into Kerala. A banker I know told me of crores of rupees in transfers for instance to the Guruvayoor area (which, despite the Krishna temple, is heavily Muslim). He told me that nationalised banks in India are willing to provide Islamic banking to large customers: that is, they happily pay them no interest according to Islamic law, and are therefore quite content to ask no inconvenient questions.

These inward flows have resulted in all these real-estate acquisitions and the radicalisation of Kerala`s Muslims. They otherwise have no particular reason to feel discriminated against or oppressed, for they have had more than their fair share of jobs, opportunities and other entitlements. Kerala`s Muslims certainly live better than Muslims in Pakistan, and they have done well for themselves. There are plenty of well-educated and well-employed Muslim doctors, engineers, IAS officers, lawyers, writers, teachers, etc.

If these educated and privileged Muslims turn so violently against their Hindu neighbours, there is no hope for Hindu-Muslim amity anywhere else in India. The two-nation theory has won, and Jinnah was right.

For Kerala has always treated Muslims well, and it is indeed God`s own country for them. From pre-Islamic times, Arabs came to Kerala to trade, their dhows following the monsoon winds across the Arabian Sea. Islam first came to India -- and that too, peacefully -- to Kerala, where the first mosque in India, the Cheraman mosque, apparently built in the 7th or 8th century CE, stands at the great old port of Kodungalloor (the Roman Muziris).

Muslims came as sailors, married local women and stayed on: the very word `Moplah` means `son-in-law.` The Zamorin of Calicut had Muslims in his navy, including the famous commander Kunjali Marikkar. But most Muslims in Kerala have no Arab blood, and they are the descendents of Hindus forcibly converted during Tipu Sultan`s invasion of Malabar. This alleged freedom-fighter was a fearsome jihadi: relatives of mine have family histories of fleeing from Malabar to the princely state of Cochin to avoid him. Even today `Tipu`s padayottam` (march) is remembered in the racial memory of Kerala Hindus as a catastrophe spoken of in hushed tones.

Yet, relations have generally been good between Hindus and Muslims in Kerala. So much so that at what might be the most important temple in Kerala, Sabarimala, pilgrims visit the patron deity Lord Ayyappan after paying obeisance at the shrine of his friend, the Muslim Vavar. On one of my pilgrimages to Sabarimala, I met a Muslim who was making the pilgrimage up that steep hill with his Hindu friends.

And Vaikom Mohammed Basheer was one of the most beloved Malayalam writers of the last one hundred years.

With all this, a Maraad happens. The only plausible reason for Muslim violence is sheer religious bigotry, an unreasoning jihad. It is difficult to deal with this through reason.

I wonder what the world`s reaction would have been if the situation were reversed and a Hindu mob had killed nine Muslims in front of a mosque. Surely Kuldip Nayar and Praful Bidwai would not have been thunderously silent: they would have badgered the National Human Rights Commission. The Washington Post and The New York Times, not to mention The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The Indian Express and the Hindu, would have indulged in en masse breastbeating about the end of civilisation in India.

But I bet, gentle reader, that this is the first time you have heard of the Maraad massacre. This I call blatant prejudice and double-standards on the part of the media. Where is the outrage? Where are the cries for justice?

Furthermore, if by some miracle, Muslim perpetrators in Maraad are brought to book, Nayar and Bidwai will bestir themselves to defend them, along with SAHMAT, Teesta Setalvad, and Shabana Azmi. I wonder why it isn`t clear to them that the human rights of the outlaw and the terrorist are not greater than the human rights of the ordinary citizen.

But I forget, Hindus are expendable. Hindus were expendable in Malabar during the Moplah Rebellion, part I; they were expendable in Hyderabad when Razakars (armed Muslim men) went on the warpath around the time of Partition. The Razakars were quelled with overwhelming force by the Indian Army.

It appears that Muslim terrorism can only be averted by brute force: appeasement and turning the other cheek do not work. The only way to prevent more Godhras is to keep Muslim terrorists in check. The question is, who dares bell the cat? If not the government, then vigilantes will take over; which is what happened in Gujarat, after all.

India needs to put down its home-grown terrorists with force, and it needs to help Pakistanis feel some pain through substantial covert action. If Indian counter-terrorism blows up a few important Pakistanis, or engineers riots against the imperial Punjabis, their taste for adventurism will diminish. Otherwise, these poor Hindus of Maraad would have died in vain, butchered in front of their place of worship.]

As to casteism, I noticed your complete absence on my board ``A Rant Against Reservations``. I knew that would happen because you have no way of refuting facts that are listed there.

The only ones who have to be ashamed of their castes are those individuals who cannot name who their father is. And frauds like you.

By the way, what is your stand on ``Silappathikaram`` that grants blanket amnesty to brahmins? Should we burn the ``Silappathikaram`` or should we put up a statue to Kannagi who demanded such blanket amnesty?

That ought to shut you up for a while.

#25
Add stupid castist to that description. He was quoting wikipedia so he could sound a little more authoritative than if he simply cited a google search.
The man is a bit deranged but does provide some entertainment.

We have a very strong esprit-de-corps among the Ordnance personnel in India. Every Corps day we have several old veterans from different lands meeting in a spirit of bonhomie. If the writer`s father were to decide that moving to Pakistan was a mistake(like most malabaris feel) and were to return to the God`s Own Country, he would yet find many of his comrades-in-arms welcoming him with open arms to the brotherhood.

Re: # 26
The writer`s father at ninety is quite happy and content living surrounded with his children and grandchildren, and so are most of the other malyalis from his generation who opted to migrate to Pakistan at or about partition. Childhood memories and nostalgia are phenomena no normal human being can escape from. Emigration one must realize is a traumatic experience, and even those who migrate to affluent western societies cannot escape from its psychological effects
tariq