Leaders of twelve Muslim organisations met in Kozhikode and resolved to lead anti-Uniform Civil Code (UCC) bill together. They will oppose the bill legally and politically. They maintain that the bill is not affecting Muslims alone. They view it as a BJP agenda for religious polarisation.
Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) state president Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal said, union government tries to make UCC a Hindu-Muslim issue. He added that some vested interests in the state do the same. Obviously, he appears to be referring to CPM. He was briefing the decisions, taken by the meeting, to the media.
The statement of P.K. Kunjalikkuty, national general secretary IUML, buttresses the state president’s reference to the vested interests. He said that the meeting did not discuss the CPM’s invitation to the anti-UCC seminar. He said that UCC is a national issue; therefore, the meeting discussed it; state politics was not at all discussed. If any organization gets the invitation to such seminars, they can rate the significance and character of the programme and individual decision can be taken. The intention of such seminars and agitations should not be the exploitation of the contemporary situation. Muslim bodies should not fall easy preys to it.
In view of the CPM’s statement that IUML can participate in its (CPM’s) agitation and they (CPM) would invite Muslim organisations including Samastha Kerala Jem-Iyyathul Ulama, Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal has interacted with IUML leaders and leaders of various Muslim bodies. It was a PR exercise to convince that Congress is with them and do share their anxieties. Venugopal spoke to them in compliance with the Congress high command’s decision. He spoke to Panakkad Thangal, Samastha’s president Jifri Muthukkoya Thangal and All India Sunni Jem-Iyyathul Ulama General Secretary Kanthapuram A.P. Abubaker Musliar.
The latest episode establishes that despite tall claims, Opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) and ruling CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) cannot move hand-in-glove to oppose UCC. It is like the futile attempts of opposition parties to forge a national alliance to fight BJP-led NDA in the 2014 parliamentary elections. Kerala witnesses a peculiar sort of scenario: Both UDF and LDF are in cut-throat competition to bag minority vote bank.
Therefore, they are always in a minority appeasement spree. In this regard, they leave no stones unturned. They pick up any straw they come across if it serves their purpose, be it UCC, be it Manipur riots, and what not! All BJP-baiters, these days, propagate that Manipur riots mean Hindu attack against Christians and the record of attacks against churches. Even the media, in the state, do not give an impartial account of Manipur riots. In another words, both LDF and UDF consider the UCC as a windfall for the materialisation of their political dreams.
The same time, BJP and other supporters of UCC keep on propagating that CPM and its late ideologue E.M. Sankaran Namboothiripad (EMS) stood for UCC in 1987 and 1988. It has pushed CPM into a Catch-22 situation. Pro UCC people utilise cyber platforms for their propaganda. EMS’s speeches of those days are spread carefully to educate the people that CPM’s current anti-UCC stand is a U-turn and carefully orchestrated design for grabbing the minority votes. They keep on spreading the slogans Muslim organisations raised those days. Old timers say that one of the most popular slogans was abusing EMS and even his family members.
