Kerala : Muslim Cleric Aliyar Khasimi says Kerala is a Muslim-majority state, having 26 per cent Muslims of the total population. He says the (Hindu) Ezhava population is 22 per cent, and the (Hindu) Nair population is 12 per cent. The Christian population is 19 per cent. He adds Nair and Ezhava are two different religions and would not marry each other.
Interestingly, Muslim intellectuals claim they are a minority community whenever matters like Reservation and Uniform Civil Code (UCC) are discussed. Independent thinkers like C Ravichandran have pointed out in the past that Muslims in Kerala get the reservation benefits as a single religion instead of a caste-based reservation. And, when they get an additional advantage of ‘minority status’, they get an added advantage of “double reservation”. Muslim leaders raise this ‘minority status’ to shield the arguments in favour of UCC, Triple Talaq, etc.
But, here, an Islamic cleric comes up with an argument, first time in history, that Muslims are the majority community in the state. Aliyar Khasimi is an active social media man. The controversial part of the YouTube discussion between him and YouTuber and Islamist Dr Ail Mohammed is viral on social media these days. Khasimi quotes the figures from the survey conducted by Sasthra Sahitya Parishad in 2011. But, he says, the situation is different at the national level. Parishad is known as an outfit having allegiance to CPM.
As Aliyar Khasimi’s statement turned viral, heated discussions are taking place on social media in this matter. Freethinkers ask if this is the situation, why does Muslim Community avail the ‘minority status’ and possesses many medical colleges and engineering colleges? They utilise OBC reservations and Muslim girls’ scholarship and still claim their ‘majority status’, alleging they are freethinkers. They wonder if Khasimi is not ashamed to shout this contradiction at the top of his voice. Then some Islamists maintain that the reservation eradicates the centuries-old backwardness; hence the numerical strength is irrelevant! At the same time, Islamists argue that Khasimi is wrong and that Nairs and Ezhavas constitute the Hindu religion.
Earlier, freethinker C Ravichandran had invited the wrath of pro-Hindu thinkers for stating that there would not be a genocide against Muslims in Bharat as it happened in Germany against Jews during the Nazi regime; because they are not a microscopic minority in our country. His statement was propagated as Islamophobia. But, now, ironically, Khasimi raises the same version.
This is C Ravichandran’s reaction to the issue, “Jews were a minority in Germany, below 1 per cent. And they were alleged as the assassins of Jesus Christ hence untrustworthy as well as unreliable and they underwent religious persecution in other European countries also. They are less than a quarter per cent of the world population. Israel is the only Jew-majority country. The population of Jews is 80 lakhs there. But what is the condition of Muslims in Bharat? Three countries took birth from this subcontinent – Pakistan, Bharat and Bangladesh. Two of them are Islamic states”.
Ravichandran continues, “Muslim kings ruled Bharat. Aurangzeb’s kingdom was, once upon a time, larger than British India. Several Islamic states are around our country. The Muslim population in Bharat is 20 crores, a huge number. It is almost equal to the total population of 20 European counties. Islam is the second largest religion in the entire world, said to be 180 crores. In future, Bharat is likely to be the country with the largest Muslim population. Kashmir is a Muslim majority state. Muslims constitute more than 30 per cent of the population in several states in Bharat. Hindus, said to be the majority community, is a divided lot. It is a conglomeration of several castes, rather than a single religion. Fair enough if you call German Jews a minority, but it is less than 1 per cent of the total population. They were that much sidelined and tortured. If a community is more than 5 per cent strong, how do one calls them a minority? It is like feeding a teen ager with baby food. Those who pretend to be the advocates of minorities are tight-lipped about Buddhists, Jainists, Parsis and even atheists. How do you call one Pro Minority if he is least bothered about the plight of the minorities in Islamic countries”.
Aliyar Khasimi appears to be a typical representative of the advocates of the opportunistic minority. When they want to flaunt their clout and influence, they are the “majority”, but when they need favours and reservations, they pretend to be “minorities”.
