Kottayam: Muslim organisations in Kerala had mixed reactions to the Union government banning the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its affiliates.
The Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen (KNM), a part of the Islamic reformist Mujahid Movement, welcomed the ban saying they "asked for it".
"The PFI was banned because of its extremist activities in societies. They asked for it," said KNM president T P Abdulla Koya Madani.
The RSS and the PFI indulge in the same communal politics and polarisation, he alleged. "The authorities should be able to see the problem without bias," he said. The government should crack down on all social media groups where communal and polarising messages are posted, he said. "Else, there will be no use of the ban," Abdulla Koya Madani said.
The Union Home Ministry banned PFI and its affiliates such as Rehab India Foundation (RIF), Campus Front of India (CF), All India Imams Council (AIIC), National Confederation of Human Rights Organisation (NCHRO), National Women's Front, Junior Front, Empower India Foundation and Rehab Foundation, Kerala, Wednesday. It declared them "unlawful associations" under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
NCHRO Kerala president K Sudhakaran and general secretary K P O Rahmathulla put out a statement asking its members to cease work. "The organisation will not function till the government lifts the ban," they said in the statement.
The Jamaat-e-Islami Hind condemned the ban saying it did not fit well in a democratic society. "We are in principle against banning any social or political organisation. And it will not be effective, either. There is no justification in targetting only Muslim organisations," said Sheikh Muhammed, Kerala state secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami.
The PFI should have been countered legally and ideologically, he said.
The Union Home Ministry said the state governments of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Karnataka had recommended a ban on PFI. However, the decision was taken based on the evidence gathered by central agencies during the investigation, said minister of state for home Ajay Mishra Teni.
In coordinated raids conducted across the country on September 22 and 27, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested 247 leaders and members of PFI and its affiliates.
Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader and staunch critic of the PFI K M Shaji said the ban would drive the members of the organisations underground making it difficult to counter their ideology and misinformation campaigns. "A ban can only dismantle the organisation's structure and not its ideology. The majority of the leaders arrested by NIA now were members of SIMI," he said.
The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), was founded in Aligarh in 1977 as the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, but later parted ways over differences over Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat’s visit to India in 1981. SIMI believed Arafat was an agent of the US and worked towards the restoration of the caliphate.
Shaji said the PFI was an extremist organisation and the RSS was a fascist organisation. "We could have defeated them ideologically but their rise exposed the failure of political parties who seek their help during elections," he said.
Social commentator A M Shinas, who teaches history at the Maharaja's College in Kochi said the ban on PFI would not work if the Union government overlooked the fringe organisations in the Sangh Parivar. "There is no doubt democracy and secularism are alien to the PFI. If we look back at the organisations which changed forms to become PFI, it is clear that they use issues such as environment, caste politics, and CAA only to gain acceptance," said Shinas.
But the ban will be counterproductive if the government ignores the saffron outfits indulging in extremism. "They feed on each other," he said.
Already, the CPM state secretary M V Govindan has said bans on organisations cannot eliminate their ideologies.
"Such statements from mainstream secular parties may ironically tend to trivialise the virulent nature of the ideology of such outfits. This line of argument applies equally to Hindu supremacist organisations. The question is how can we combat such obscurantist and bigoted ideologies of such outfits of all hues?" said the assistant professor at Maharaja's College.