Hindu group forces Muslim writer in Kerala to stop Ramayana column
At the age of 75, I
was being reduced to just a Muslim, I couldn’t take it, says Malayalam critic M
M Basheer on the hate calls he received
As it has been his wont for the past few
years, literary critic M M Basheer was set to write a series of newspaper columns
on the Ramayana in the Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi this August. But after
promising the editor six columns, he had to stop at five because of a sustained
campaign on the telephone by unnamed persons who upbraided him for writing on
Rama when he was a Muslim.
Even
the newspaper’s editors received a torrent of abusive calls every day after
Basheer’s first column, titled ‘Sri Rama’s Anger’, appeared on August 3. Four
days later, after the fifth column was published, Basheer called off the
series. “Every day, I would get repeated calls abusing me for writing on the
Ramayana. At the age of 75, I was being reduced to just a Muslim. I couldn’t
take it and I stopped writing,” Basheer told The Indian Express over phone from
his Kozhikode residence.
“The
callers would ask me what right I had to criticise Lord Rama,” said Basheer, a
former professor of Malayalam at the University of Calicut. “My series was on
Valmiki Ramayana. Valmiki depicts Rama with human characteristics and does not
shy away from criticising his actions. The callers were taking exception to the
poet’s criticism of Rama, which was given in quotes. Most of the callers would
not hear out my explanation but just abuse me,” he said. “
To
the few who showed patience, I explained that the previous year I had written
on Adhyatma Ramayana (the popular foundational text of Malayalam by Thunchathu
Ezhuthachhan) and I spoke about Rama the God… But few among the callers knew
the difference between the two texts and very few cared. Most callers kept
insisting that I tried to attribute human qualities to Rama because I was a
Muslim,” said Basheer.
A
critic of repute — his doctoral work on the manuscripts of Malayalam poet
Kumaran Asan is considered pathbreaking — Basheer is a practising Muslim but
has never been associated with any religious group or platform. He is widely
respected as a teacher, an Asan scholar, and an associate of the modernist
movement in Malayalam literature. The five Ramayana pieces he wrote for
Mathrubhumi this year looked at Valmiki’s critique of Rama’s call to Sita to
undertake the “agnipariksha”.
The
articles were more about the brilliance of Valmiki, the poet, and the
insights he offers while writing about the human condition. A source in
Mathrubhumi confirmed that many abusive calls came to the newspaper’s editorial
desk asking why the newspaper “got a Muslim to write on the Ramayana”. The
callers didn’t disclose their names, nor did they take the name of any
organisation, the source said.
However,
a fringe Hindutva outfit, Hanuman Sena, repeated the charges in posters it put
up near the newspaper’s head office in Kozhikode. This Hindutva outfit had
earlier resorted to vandalism in the city when the ‘Kiss of Love’ protests were
held a few months ago against moral policing in the state. This is the first
time a concerted campaign has been undertaken against a writer in Malayalam, on
the basis of his religious identity, for writing on the Ramayana.
In
the past, sections of the Church and Islamists have accused writers and theatre
activists of hurting religious beliefs and called for banning their works.
Local newspapers run popular columns on the Ramayana through the Malayalam
month of Karkkidakam, which usually falls in July-August and is observed as the
“Ramayana month”.
Apart from Basheer, well-known writers such as the critic,
Thomas Mathew, poet and popular lyricist, the late Yusuf Ali Kecheri, and poet
and teacher, Veerankutty, have contributed to such columns in the past.
Malayalam, as most other Indian languages, has a vibrant Ramayana tradition
spread across genres, including even a Muslim version called “Mappilah
Ramayanam”.
So
does the campaign against Basheer hint at the emergence of a new trend of
intolerance in Kerala that wants to communalise a pan-Indian cultural heritage?
M Kesava Menon, editor of Mathrubhumi, said there has been an obvious
sharpening of the communal divide in Kerala because of which there is growing
intolerance towards news and views. “Those who rake up trouble in the name of
religious beliefs are fringe groups from within the community. But then the
mainstream organisations across communities seem unwilling to criticise them,”
Menon said.
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