The demand to divide Malappuram district has resurfaced once again, this time with renewed political and organisational backing. After the Muslim League revived the long-standing proposal, the Kerala Muslim Jamaat has now formally joined the campaign, lending fresh momentum to an issue that has historically been fraught with political and communal overtones.
The Jamaat’s Malappuram district president, Koottampara Abdurahman, has argued that the existing administrative machinery is inadequate for a district with a population of around 47 lakh. According to him, development and access to public services can be ensured equitably only if Malappuram is split into smaller administrative units. Proponents of division repeatedly underline that Malappuram alone accounts for nearly 14 per cent of Kerala’s population, roughly one-seventh of the state, while many other districts manage with populations ranging between eight and twelve lakh.
Supporters further claim that the demographic pressure is likely to intensify when the large expatriate population linked to Malappuram is taken into account. In their narrative, the present administrative structure is unable to efficiently channel funds and welfare schemes to such a vast population. This argument is being aggressively foregrounded to portray the division as an issue of governance and development rather than politics.
However, the renewed push has to be viewed in a broader context. Demands for new districts have periodically surfaced in Kerala, including proposals centred on Muvattupuzha and rural regions of Thiruvananthapuram. What distinguishes Malappuram is the longevity and persistence of the demand, and the fact that it has repeatedly been spearheaded by organisations with explicit communal identities. Kurukoli Moideen, MLA of the Muslim League, has once again raised the proposal for a new district with Tirur as its headquarters, and it is expected that ex-MLA P.V. Anvar will attempt to politically energise the issue further as part of the Congress-Muslim League-led UDF.
The issue is not without precedent. Earlier, the Malappuram District Panchayat passed a resolution in favour of division. More controversially, the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) has organised protests, including a district-wide hartal, to press the demand. SDPI is widely known as the political front of the banned extremist outfit Popular Front of India, a fact that raises serious concerns about the ideological motivations behind the agitation.
The timing of the renewed campaign has also drawn attention. The debate has gained traction just as the Kerala Muslim Jamaat prepares to launch its ‘Kerala Yatra’, suggesting a calculated attempt to convert an administrative issue into a mass mobilisation platform. Proponents point to the presence of key administrative offices, such as the district hospital, sub-collector’s office, RDO office, and education office, in Tirur as evidence that the groundwork for a new district already exists.
Origins of Malappuram: Administrative reorganisation rooted in communal politics
Malappuram district itself was officially formed on June 16, 1969, after carving out areas from the then Palakkad and Kozhikode districts. Initially, it comprised four taluks: Ernad, Perinthalmanna, Tirur, and Ponnani. While it is often presented as a neutral administrative reorganisation, critics have long argued that the district’s formation was the outcome of political bargaining rather than objective governance needs. The move was closely linked to the demands by the Muslim League in Kerala and, as a political concession for its support to the United Front, also known as the ‘Saptakakshi Munnani’ (Seven-Party Front). Under the leadership of E M S Namboodiripad, the CPI(M)-led government redrew the boundaries of the erstwhile Kozhikode and Palakkad districts to carve out Malappuram as a new district with a predominantly Muslim population.
Even today, Malappuram remains the most populous district in Kerala, housing about 13 per cent of the state’s population according to the 2011 Census. For representation in the 140-member Kerala Legislative Assembly, the district sends 16 MLAs, the highest from any single district, spread across three Lok Sabha constituencies. In the 2021 Assembly elections, the Congress–Muslim League-led United Democratic Front won 12 of these seats, while the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front secured the rest, underlining Malappuram’s considerable electoral weight. According to the Annual Vital Statistics Report 2018 published by the Kerala government, the district’s population stood at 4,494,998, equal to the US states like Kentucky, with a growth rate of 13.39 per cent. Yet, population size alone cannot justify perpetual redrawing of administrative boundaries, especially when similar pressures exist elsewhere in the state without triggering communal campaigns.
In 2021, the Samasta Kerala Sunni Students’ Federation (SKSSF), a student organisation affiliated with the radical Islamist group Samastha, put forward a controversial demand for the creation of a separate Muslim-majority “Malabar state” carved out of Kerala.
The issue triggered widespread outrage after Anwar Sadiq Faizi, editor of SKSSF’s mouthpiece Satyadhara, openly called for the formation of a new state by separating Muslim-dominated regions of Malabar from Kerala. He went a step further by warning that a “Telangana-style” mass agitation would be launched if the demand was not accepted. The demand was reiterated in 2024 by the SKSSF, indicating that the call for a separate Malabar state remains an active and continuing agenda rather than a one-time provocation.
In 2013, the Youth League, the youth wing of the Muslim League, put forward a far-reaching demand for the creation of a new state comprising seven districts from Kerala, extending from Thrissur, along with the inclusion of Mahe and the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu.
This was not the Youth League’s first foray into territorial reorganisation demands. Earlier, it had advocated the division of Malappuram district and the formation of a new district with Tirur as its headquarters. Following the renewed call for a separate state, the Youth League indicated its intention to formally place the proposal before senior leaders of the Indian Union Muslim League, signalling an effort to push the agenda further up the party’s political hierarchy.
The Youth League’s articulation of a separate state demand was widely seen as being influenced by the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh and the subsequent creation of Telangana.
The current demand is the renewed call for division is less about administrative efficiency and more about reviving a communal agenda under the garb of development. The very history of Malappuram’s formation, denounced by critics at the time as politically motivated and even labelled “Mopalastan” by detractors, continues to cast a long shadow. The fact that the district united areas associated with the 1921 Hindu massacre under the ‘ Moplah rebellion’ has often been invoked by critics to underline the dangers of identity-based territorial politics. The latest push to divide Malappuram once again risks reopening these old fault lines. By foregrounding communal mobilisation and involving organisations with extremist linkages, the campaign threatens to undermine Kerala’s long-standing emphasis on social cohesion and governance.
