The appointment of a Jamaat-e-Islami-linked Welfare Party functionary to the personal staff of Kerala General Education Minister N. Shamsudheen has triggered controversy, with critics seeing it as part of a wider attempt by Islamic religious forces to gain influence in the Education Department. The appointment has come at a time when the department is facing criticism over action taken against a teacher in Kasaragod over a question related to Veer Savarkar.
The minister N. Shamsudheen has hired K.K. Mohammed Ashraff, state committee member of the Welfare Party, the political arm of the Jamaat-e-Islami, as an office attendant in his personal staff team.
The appointment was reportedly duly approved by the Deputy Secretary of the department on August 6. It has become controversial because of the political affiliation of the appointee.
K.K. Mohammed Ashraff is reported to be the former Malappuram district president of the Student Islamic Organisation (SIO), the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami. He is also a former state secretary of the Fraternity Movement. The Fraternity Movement is known as the student wing of the Welfare Party of India, launched in April 2017.
The controversy further deepened when the appointment emerged amid complaints being raised by the Muslim Student Federation (MSF) and Muslim Youth League (MYL) men about the non-appointment of their workers in the personal staff of the Muslim League ministers. MSF and MYL are the student and youth wings respectively of the Muslim League.
Dissatisfaction has been mounting since the swearing-in of the V.D. Satheeshan ministry. But now, the appointment of the Welfare Party man has been implemented in one of the most important ministries handled by the Muslim League. It is reportedly despite the list given by MSF for the appointment in the Education Department.
The MSF and MYL workers believe that they led the agitations against the former CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government and several of them are still involved in several police cases in this connection. Many of them suffered lathi charges during the agitations. Several workers were imprisoned. Even after the change of government, the police still search for their workers.
The appointment has also come in the midst of another controversy involving the Education Department, after an upper primary school teacher, Guru Prasad Master, of Pallathadukka in Kasaragod, was suspended from service by Ministry over a question he prepared for a Freedom Quiz asking for the name of the person who underwent the lengthiest jail term under British rule in connection with the freedom struggle. Veer Savarkar was among the objective answers to the question.
Citing this question in the quiz, DYFI and Muslim Students Federation (MSF) in Kasaragod, Kerala, staged protests and demanded explanation, thus forcing the State Education Minister N. Shamsudheen to order action.
As soon as the protests came out, N. Shamsudheen, the State Education Minister and the leader of the Indian Union Muslim League, reportedly sought an explanation from the Kasaragod District Education Officer (DEO). The Indian Union Muslim League is the second-largest party in the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).
The minister said the competition, organised in these areas under the name ‘Freedom Quiz’ on August 6, was not included in the official activity calendar (Club Activity) of the Education Department or the Social Science Club. Neither the Education Department nor the Social Science Club had instructed anyone to conduct such competitions locally using unofficial questions.
The linking of the two developments has now raised questions over the direction of the Education Department. Critics argue that the Left groups always cry about the saffronisation of education, but the same forces go silent when the real heroes of the freedom struggle are moved from the syllabus.
With this development, BJP and other Hindu organisations argue that the Education Ministry in Kerala has become a tool in the hands of Islamic religious forces who want to dictate the terms of the Education Department and curriculum and what is to be taught and the severe punishments for crossing their predetermined lines.
It is a known fact that the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind student wing SIO has student state units, and they involve themselves in bringing the Islamic religious issues into the education system. This time, it appears that Jamaat-e-Islami Hind is successful in pushing its cadre into the Keralam government system through their favourite Congress government.
Not only over the Savarkar episode, critics, along with BJP and Hindu organisations, fear that these elements will destroy the Kerala Education system, which has been infested with Left-oriented politics and their narratives.
