It is 6:15 in the morning. The Nehru Stadium at Perinthalmanna, Malappuram is teeming with people who are into brisk walking, jogging, running, and Yoga.
In one corner, a group of middle-aged people sporting white T-shirts with blue stripes gradually troop in. Soon, they line up in four separate formations—two each for men and women. The group starts off with stretching and knee rotations, with an instructor leading them, and concludes the session after a brisk 25 minutes of assorted workouts. The people greet each other and soon disperse.
The group is part of over 1,000 Multi-Exercise Combination 7 (MEC 7) units across the Malabar region of northern Kerala, a fad that has recently become the subject of an intense political debate.
Genesis of controversy
The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Kozhikode district secretary P Mohanan was the first to raise an alarm about MEC 7. At the Thaliparamba CPI-M area conference in November, he linked the outlawed Popular Front of India (PFI) and Jamaat-e-Islami with it. This didn’t make it to the headlines.
It was only when Muhammadali Kinalur, Kozhikode secretary of the Sunni Yuvajana Sangham (SYS), raised serious allegations against MEC 7, that people came to know about its existence.
The SYS is the youth outfit of the AP faction of the Samastha Kerala Jem–iyyathul Ulama—mononymously referred to as the Samastha. The Samastha is divided into the AP and EK factions, named after Kanthapuram AP Abbobacker Musliyar and EK Aboobacker Musliyar.
Over 90 per cent of Kerala Muslims are Sunnis and identify with either of these outfits, with the EK faction twice outnumbering the splinter AP faction.
Kinalur, who also works as a journalist with Siraj—an organ of the AP Samastha faction—is an ‘influencer’ on Facebook, where he bats for his organisation. In a series of social media posts, Kilanur compared the MEC 7 and the origins of the National Development Front (NDF), the precursor to PFI. He sought to establish that the organised nature of the activity in the absence of a clear leadership structure was suspect.
When Perod Abdurahman Saqafi, an influential cleric and secretary of the Samastha AP faction, also joined in, the matter got traction in Kerala news channels. This also followed SYS general secretary (and son of Musliyar) Abdul Hakkim Azhari taking the issue up from a different angle at Thrissur, where he called the exercise “an affront on the modesty of women”.
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Making national headlines
Mohanan’s comments from November were soon rehashed and the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) waded in. 24 News, a Kerala-based news channel, reported on 14 December that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had begun a formal inquiry into MEC 7. In no time, the matter became national news, with BJP leaders such as V Muraleedharan demanding to know why it wasn’t reported to enforcement agencies by the state government.
As MEC 7 began to make headlines across the nation, the coverage around it soon took an Islamophobic turn. It later turned out that many Left leaders including Mohammed Riyas—state minister and son-in-law of chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan—had associated themselves with MEC 7. Left ally Indian National League also backed the exercise programme and, under pressure to substantiate his claims, Mohanan diluted his allegations.
The Samastha AP faction did not give up yet. On 19 December, prominent cleric Rahmathulla Saqafi Elamaram wrote in the editorial page of Siraj buttressing the organisation’s opposition to MEC 7. He also tried to shift the blame for the Islamophobic campaign in the national media.
The politics around MEC 7 subsided after Mohanan’s U-Turn and the refusal of other Muslim organisations (notably, the Samastha EK faction) to take it up. Nevertheless, it would make for an interesting analysis to deduce the root cause of the controversy. Before that, however, it is important to trace the origins of the MEC 7.
Genesis of MEC 7
MEC 7 was conceptualised by P Salahudeen, 55, who hails from Thurakkal in Malappuram district. He started out as a Yoga trainer in 2010 with a group of 20 people, with limited success.
A retired paramilitary (CISF) officer, Salahudeen said that he developed this unique exercise module in 2012. He incorporated three courses of seven different streams, including simple warm-up exercises, aerobics, deep breathing, meditation, and acupressure. The module offers 21 minutes of rigorous workout, with 1 minute devoted to each activity.
Despite slow-and-steady growth in the initial days, the onset of Covid-19 propelled MEC 7 to reach the farthest corners of North Kerala, with over 1 lakh people having signed up today. Still, doubts persisted about MEC 7 not gaining popularity in the Travancore and Kochi regions—it was mostly limited to Muslim pockets in Malabar.
Hameed Chennamangaloor, Kerala’s foremost authority on the Jamaat-e-Islami and minority communalism in general, told me that he remains sceptical about MEC 7 on this count. Malayalam writer and social commentator MN Karassery, who hails from Chennamangaloor’s neighbourhood, does not share the suspicion. He argued that his own younger brother and friends had signed up for it.
According to veteran journalist NP Chekkutty, however, Salahudeen himself being a Muslim might be one reason for its appeal among the community, as identity is a big unifier for Malabar Muslims. Mohammed Shaheed, who broke the MEC 7 story first on Mathrubhumi News, weighed in: “Malabar Muslims are renowned to be foodies and lifestyle diseases are increasingly becoming a concern among the community.”
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Status update on MEC 7
Even after Mohanan’s somersault, ‘national media’ invoked charges of terrorism. This, along with the 24 News flash, drove me to find out whether the NIA or the Intelligence Bureau (IB) was carrying out an investigation into MEC 7.
According to intelligence officials posted in Kerala, beyond “preliminary data collection”, nothing more was inquired upon by either agency. No case has been made against MEC 7 yet.
Salahudeen stated that he had submitted a proposal to Kerala chief minister Vijayan during the Nava Kerala Sadas that the state government could take over the programme and convert it into a public movement.
Moreover, he had also reached out to the Samastha AP faction and visited the SYS camp recently at Amballoor, near Thrissur, to make a case for MEC 7.
Dubious role of Samastha AP
Although Kerala’s Muslim community and even the media have ganged up to blame the Communists for the controversy—and the resulting Islamophobia on national news channels—it would only be partially true. The CPI-M Kozhikode district secretary may have floated a trial balloon, but it is abundantly clear that it got traction only after the Samastha AP faction doubled down on it.
Kinalur, whose social media posts targeting MEC 7 were widely circulated, has now either taken them down or hidden them from public view. No wonder my calls to him also went unanswered. The Samastha AP faction is among the most orthodox Muslim outfits in Kerala, something Karassery sought to underline in the light of the controversy.
The AP faction has stridently held on to its principle of gender segregation, despite running many educational institutions. On the face of it, the primary objection of the AP Sunnis to MEC 7 is the mingling of genders and the exercise being held in public view, with women partaking in sizeable numbers.
This was abundantly clear in Elamaram’s Siraj article where he spoke of “cultural invasion” and “protecting family values”. There is also a deeper fear of protecting the Sunni identity from Mujahid/Salafi and Jamaat-e-Islami influences.
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What gets AP Sunnis worked up
The Kerala Sunnis have existed on the shores of Malabar since the days of Prophet Muhammad. Although they are generally secular toward non-Muslims, they take their native traditions very seriously. On the other hand, the Mujahids, who once bore the Kerala renaissance values championed by Vakkom Moulavi, have come under the grip of Salafism since the ’80s.
The Salafis and the Jamaat-e-Islami bear a superiority complex over the Kerala Sunnis, who follow indigenous traditions, much like the Kerala Nasranis (Syrian Christians) or the Barelvi Muslims in North India—regarded as ‘pagan’ by puritans. To that extent, it is natural for the Samastha factions to get worked up on protecting its identity within the broader Muslim identity.
AP Samastha spokesperson KB Basheer stated that there are legitimate concerns about Sunni women being influenced by other strands of Islam, especially with members of MEC 7 units forging friendships beyond the grounds.
According to Karassery, however, the scepticism of the AP Sunnis may be more political than anything else. “They fear their cadres giving precedence to MEC 7 than political activities or cultural affinity with the Samastha,” he said.
Who is stoking ‘Islamophobia’?
There is an effort by the AP Sunnis and the Jamaat-e-Islami to pin the blame for stoking the controversy on the media and the CPI-M, which is not really borne out by facts. It can be seen in Elamaram’s strange claim in Siraj as well as MediaOne’s editorial show, ‘Out of Focus’, promoted by Jamaat-e-Islami.
The MEC 7 controversy was a creation of the Samastha AP, stemming from its fears of gender mingling and cultural amalgamation. It is the AP Sunnis who stoked Islamophobia.
It is possible that even Mohanan’s initial comment on MEC 7 was a result of the CPI-M’s association with the Samastha AP faction in Kozhikode, where the latter has a sizeable presence. (Samastha’s EK faction is the backbone of the Indian Union Muslim League, and hence, backs the Congress-led United Democratic Front.)
AP Samastha’s gory past
It would be instructive to examine one more facet of the Samastha AP faction in light of the MEC 7 controversy.
Today, most people take the names of the EK and the AP factions synonymously, forgetting that the AP faction had a gory past. For a decade between 1989 to 1999, Samastha AP ran a militia named Sunni Tiger Force—ostensibly for self-defense—which later metamorphosed into the splinter outfit, Jamiyyathul Ishania.
According to Karassery, who was at the face of the protests after the disappearance of modern Islamic preacher Chekannur Maulavi, the role of Kanthapuram AP Aboobacker Musliyar was subject of intense speculation back then, although the latter was acquitted for want of evidence. Karassery recalled that all the accused in the case had connections to the Samastha AP faction.
The AP faction’s dalliance with violence may be a forgotten chapter in the annals of Kerala politics, but its dubious role in the floating of the MEC 7 controversy might be a good time to recall it.
Anand Kochukudy is a Kerala-based journalist and columnist. He tweets @AnandKochukudy. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)