Myth of CPM’s Muslim appeasement amid Pinarayi Govt’s unholy nexus with RSS

The political scenario in Kerala is one where the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) runs the government avowedly with secular credentials and claims of defending the minority community from the Hindutva of the RSS. Since this narrative led the Hindutva brigades and the BJP to invoke their community against the CPI-M, they accused the party of appeasing the Muslim community. But this is a myth drilled into the minds of the people concealing a broader political strategy in allegiance with the BJP.

Prominent CPM leader and Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, in an interview given to The Hindu on Sunday, painted the whole of Malappuram district—a Muslim-populated district in Kerala— as the hub of funding terrorism and anti-national activities. He accused that the money from gold smuggling and hawala from Malappuram is being used for terrorist and anti-national activities, without concrete evidence, not even an intelligence report normally used as a cover many allegations, even as he is the one handling the Home Ministry in addition to being the chief minister.

The statement made by the Chief Minister is the same as the Sangh Parivar has been alleging for years against Malappuram - linking the Muslim-populated district to terrorism. The opposition and other parties have slammed the Chief Minister’s indiscreet statement, calling him the voice of the Sangh Parivar. They have also asked the CM to provide evidence for his claims, which would only add grist to the mill of Hindutva forces' propaganda in Kerala.

But the statement has now been disowned by the Chief Minister, and the controversial part where Pinarayi Vijayan was said to have made the claims against Malappuram district has been expunged from The Hindu interview with an apology. The apology reads: '...one of the PR representatives requested the inclusion of details regarding gold smuggling and hawala transactions, which he said were originally made at a press conference by the CM. The representative provided, in writing, the request for inclusion in the CM’s response, of the lines that are now disowned by the CM’s press secretary. Including those lines as the CM’s statements of that day was a lapse in journalistic rigour, and should not have happened. We apologise for this error. Editor."

The allegation against Pinarayi Vijayan that he is compromising with the RSS and BJP erupted after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed cases against his daughter Veena Vijayan, who is accused of receiving illegal payments made by a private mineral firm to her and her company. The case stems from an Income Tax Department investigation that alleged a private company called Cochin Minerals And Rutile Ltd (CMRL) made an illegal payment of Rs 1.72 crore to Veena's company - Exalogic Solutions - during 2018 to 2019, even though the IT firm had not provided any service worth the name to the company. The ED has filed a money laundering case against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter, Veena Vijayan.

Besides, there is an old financial scandal against Pinarayi Vijayan related to a hydroelectric infrastructure contract between the Kerala Government and the Canadian company SNC-Lavalin dating back to 1995, which resulted in an alleged net loss to the Indian exchequer of 3,745,000,000 rupees. Several politicians were involved and eventually charged in the case, including the present Chief Minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, marking the first-ever corruption-related prosecution of a Politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

However, on 5 November 2013, Pinarayi Vijayan and six other accused were temporarily discharged of charges by a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Special Court because "the CBI could not prove any of its charges." The CBI then went on with an appeal in Kerala High Court. On 23 August 2017, the Kerala High Court ruled on the case, and Pinarayi Vijayan was acquitted again. As of July 2020, CBI's petition against the acquittal of Pinarayi Vijayan is pending in the Supreme Court. Now the case is with the Supreme Court, which has been adjourned nearly 35 times.

Amid these allegations, CM Pinarayi Vijayan, who is facing the heat from one of the MLAs in his LDF front, P V Anvar, who has turned against his own government, gave a divisive statement implicating the whole Muslim community in the Malappuram district, which in itself establishes how he is either compromised or caught in the trap of the Sangh Parivar in implicating the Muslim community.

In the wake of P V Anvar blasting the Kerala government’s inaction in several criminal cases and its tardy stand against his complaints regarding the police, he cited cases of the law-enforcers pilfering smuggled gold, charging narcotics cases against innocent victims, who happen to be Muslims, and being involved in killings, kidnappings, and sexual abuses, including rape. To cap his fight against the government, Anvar held a meeting in his constituency which attracted thousands, most of them people from the Muslim community as natural for a Muslim-populated district, which became another reason for Pinarayi Vijayan to link Malappuram district and Anvar's campaign to communal forces.

Since the BJP government ascended to power at the centre, painting Muslims as terrorists has gained momentum. Even secular people have fallen for their narrative. No wonder Pinarayi is also trying to leverage this canard against the Muslim community to appease the majority Hindu community in the state for political reasons. Though Pinarayi Vijayan claims to be one who resisted the RSS, which has also attacked the CPM, they can now be seen complementing each other when it comes to Pinarayi turning against Anvar, a Muslim MLA, corroborating that ideological rivals can find common ground in being anti-Muslim."

Further corroborating the RSS and CPM bond is the statement by CPM's state secretary M V Govindan, who labelled the men attending Anvar's meeting as SDPI and Jamaat-e-Islami, organisations that, without any concrete proof, are implicated in extremism, and mostly used as whipping boys. So far, no case against Jamaat-e-Islami has been found to involve any kind of extremist activity, yet the CPM frequently labels them as extremists to balance against anti-Hindutva stand or to satiate their political quench. At times, this takes the form of CPM trying to paint the whole Muslim community as extremists for opposing their divisive agendas and their unholy nexus with the BJP and RSS, which are actively strategizing to alienate the Muslim community from the mainstream.

The question remains unanswered

P V Anvar MLA has shot many questions to the government. Apart from blaming the police for snatching smuggled gold, killings, and rapes, implicating Muslims in various cases, he also cited the contentious figure in the police, ADGP MR Ajith Kumar, who is alleged to have met top RSS brass, even while being at the helm of the state’s law and order. Subsequent complaints about incidents where Muslims were targeted and implicated in cases with the connivance of a pliant subordinate of his who was directly involved, brought no action by the government against the ADGP, nor was his post changed. Instead, the government stood to protect him. There are also allegations against the Chief Minister’s political secretary, who is accused of protecting the ADGP and taking a chunk of smuggled gold and hatching conspiracies in accordance with the RSS in collusion with the ADGP Ajith Kumar.

The saffronisation of the police

The allegation of RSS elements working within the Kerala police has been a long-standing one, as many activists have called out the Kerala government’s inaction against such forces inside the police. Cases involving Muslims would be expedited, while those involving RSS and their allied men can be seen being out on bail or easily exonerated. In the case of an SDPI leader's killing in Alappuzha, in which RSS men were the accused, all of them were let at large, but in the killing of the BJP leader in Alappuzha, in which SDPI men were the accused, they were sentenced to capital punishment very soon.

Though the first incident was the killing of the SDPI leader, the police completed and finalised the case with unusual speed compared to the second murder that followed whose FIR itself was filed after the other conviction. The case is still lagging in court, and all the accused men aligned with the RSS are out on bail. In other similar cases, the Riyas Moulavi murder in Kasargod, all the accused from the RSS ranks were exonerated due to a lack of concrete evidence; and in the murder of Faisal, in Kodinhi, Malappuram district, which happened in 2016, the case is still under trial. These are cases cited as evidence of the police being lethargic in bringing the culprits before justice when the victims are Muslims. But the Government and the CPI-M accuse the Muslim community of extremism when they do not have a clear answer to the double standards.

There are also cases involving the CPM government’s involvement, including officials of the chief minister's office, in gold smuggling through diplomatic channels via the Thiruvananthapuram airport. But the case appears to have vanished without a trace. Similarly, there is a case involving BJP state chief Surendran, who waded off with crores during the parliamentary elections, but the investigation seems to have got nowhere. Yet the government and the BJP are deliberately creating a false narrative of the CPM government’s Muslim appeasement. These incidents prove it is a myth designed to deceive the Muslim community, at the same time having a secret nexus between the CPM and BJP with an underhand deal to rescue each other from disrepute.

The killings of CPI-M, RSS vs. SDPI

In the history of political murders in Kerala, the CPM has been involved in most killings, followed by the RSS and other political parties. However, the government, along with the RSS, is now trying to terrorise the entire Muslim community, for murders by the SDPI and PFI, which are actually much smaller in number than those caused by the CPI-M and RSS. The CPM is even trying to tie extremists to Jamaat-e-Islami, against whom no single case of murder, inciting communal violence, or even a petty case has been cited. The data of killings by the CPI-M and RSS vis-à-vis SDPI or PFI would tell the truth.

Kerala witnessed 20 political murders since the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front came to power in the state in 2016. While nine people were killed in 2016, five murders were reported in 2017, and four in the following year. This year, two people were killed in political violence in the state. In most of the cases, the accused are activists of the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist).

According to the data, Kerala has recorded 20 political murders since 2016, with the following breakdown: 2016: 9 murders; 2017: 5 murders; 2018: 4 murders; 2019: 2 murders; 2024: 2 murders (up to this point). The majority of these murders involve activists from the ruling CPI(M), with data from the State Crime Record Bureau indicating 36 political murders during the previous United Democratic Front (UDF) regime (2011–2016). The records indicate a disturbing trend of violence, with the CPI(M) frequently implicated in violent acts against rival party members.