An internal official note of @CPIMKerala under the heading 'minority communalism' says "efforts are on to lure educated young women into extremism in professional colleges in Kerala" In simple words "Islamist radicalization"! Has #Kerala govt finally woken up to an old reality?
For years #Kerala's professional college campuses have been hot-beds of #radicalisation! From Popular Front to off-shoots such as Campus Front & SDPI the narrative has been wonderfully woven around dalit-muslim upliftment which a sure attraction for the educated thinking student!
Students of dental, medical & engineering self financing colleges have been the target! Once a bridge is laid highlighting social issues the more virulent narratives are fed slowly ranging from claims of Islamophobia to alleged persecution of Muslims in India & abroad!
From Gujarat to Ayodhya to Sadam to Osama to the more recent #CAA to #article370 its all a heady concoction of Us versus Them, the persecuted versus the persecutors. Its not that the CPM's student organizations were unaware!
SFI & DYFI simply kept quiet all this while believing in the common enemy doctrine till it started biting them back! Till these #Radicalised infiltrated their rank and file!
The media in Kerala never looked that way. They simply didnt care or didnt understand the issue! @INCKerala & @CPIMKerala remained in denial so as to not topple the vote bank apple-cart! All this inspite of upright senior police officers like @drtpsenkumar kept warning the state!
Watershed moment came in 2007-08 when SIMI & Indian Mujahideen cells were busted across India and some 14 Keralites recruited by Lashkar for training in POK were killed in Kashmir! Camps were busted across Kerala proving the state was a safe haven for terror elements!
Happened to visit a few of their homes as a reporter where shocked families had no knowledge about them radicalized except that a few were medical students! Then came the big expose in 2016 when 21 professionals left Kerala's shores for Afghanistan to join the #IslamicState!
The state, the politicains, the community leaders all slept while all this was happening around them. So much so that when prof TJ Joseph's hand was chopped off by terrorists of the Popular Front not a soul came in support of the professor! It was Kerala's first Talibanic act!
Kerala might be calm on the surface. But scratch it and u will find a very deep & brimming underbelly where Islamist radicalization goes unchecked! That it hasnt taken another dimension till now is a wonder explained perhaps by the state's strong roots in social inclusion!
But that may not be enough to hold the simmering radical elements in place forever! With the #Taliban returning in #Afghanistan there are already talks of the radicalization curve going up! @CPIMKerala's internal note sees this threat especially with pro-Taliban voices heard!
But unless the state intervenes proactively, hardly anything will change and given Kerala's political equation that's hardly expected happen anytime soon. After all who will want to be perceived as the persecutor of a very crucial vote bank!
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