Muslim League will have no truck with CPM on Citizenship Act protests

After spinning around dervish-like without falling on either side, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has finally come to a stop on the UDF side. It will not be part of any joint anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests with the CPM. 

Even after the Congress opted out of a joint agitation with the CPM, the IUML was in two minds. A powerful faction led by the IUML national general secretary, PK Kunhalikutty wanted the party to forge a joint front with the CPM. There was a feeling within the IUML that the UDF was not as aggressive as it should be.

Eventually, the faction led by M K Muneer that was vehemently against such a coming together has won the day. Kunhalikutty himself told a public meeting in Kozhikode on Sunday that the UDF and the LDF had to take forward the anti-CAA agitation separately given the political realities of the state. “You will have to choose your path and we ours,” Kunhalikutty said. Nonetheless, he said all secular parties would stand together at the national level.

Modi's role in League unity

Prime Minister Narendra Modi might have helped the League to stop dithering and take a quick political decision.

In fact, a unified stand emerged in the IUML after Modi employed Pinarayi Vijayan's observation against Muslim extremism to demean the anti-CAA resistance that had sprung up across the country. Pinarayi had repeatedly stated, both in public and inside the Assembly, that extreme Muslim outfits had infiltrated anti-CAA protests in Kerala.

The irony is, it was the Chief Minister's tough stance against allegedly extreme outfits like Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) and Popular Front of India (PFI) that had endeared the League and the Samastha factions (Jifri Thangal's EK and A P Aboobaker's AP) to Pinarayi.

Extremist angle

However, Congress had argued that Pinarayi was using extremism as a  cover to suppress anti-CAA movements in Kerala. The arrest of over 200 people who took part in the anti-CAA demonstration organised by the Angamaly Mosque Committee was a case in point. The Chief Minister justified the arrests saying that the SDPI had sneaked into the protests and sought to create a communal divide.

The police action against Muslim traders in places like Karimannur in Idukki for downing their shutters in protest against the BJP's pro-CAA campaign in these areas had also made IUML leaders a bit uneasy. They were also irked by the presence of serving policemen in certain pro-CAA events. The participation of League's Beypore mandalam vice president K M Bashir in the human chain organised by the CPM had also unsettled the IUML quite badly.

The Chief Minister's extremist argument suffered a jolt when Modi recently employed it to tarnish all anti-CAA agitations. The IUML feels this had caused severe discontent in the Muslim community.

Serfs and feudal lords

By then a vocal section within the League had also concluded that the CPM's call for a joint agitation was nothing but an attempt at political oneupmanship. The refusal of CPM leaders to take part in a hunger strike called by IUML leader M K Muneer was seen as both illogical and arrogant by even those who advised a joint struggle.

“It was a hunger strike called by me as a citizen. I called three CPM MLAs. They told me they cannot come. But when they call for some anti-CAA agitation we are expected to rush there as if we are their slaves and they the feudal lords,” Muneer said.

Just when it seemed Muneer was succeeding in making the party see his point, the Chief Minister began an intense push to exploit the differences in the League on the issue.

Divide and rule

“I can see that there is a slight easing in the stiff stand against a joint agitation,” the Chief Minister told the Assembly on February 5. “I have heard voices supporting such a move from the Muslim League,” he said. Muslim League MLAs Abdu Rabb and K N A Khader, while taking part in the discussion on Governor's address, had spoken about the need for a joint agitation.

Pinarayi asked the League members to convince their “Congress friends” on the need for a joint front. “Till then, we will keep asking,” the Chief Minister had said.

The Chief Minister's perceived attempts to divide the party, too, seems to have galvanised IUML leaders to come together and put on a show of unity.

Earlier, the Congress too had set aside their internal differences and dumped moves to fight the CAA jointly after the CPM singled out KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran for the attack.