Is Lighting of Lamp, Haram [unethical] to Government of Kerala?

Tradition maintains that this literary assembly was started in 1309 CE by the Zamorin [King] of Calicut. Muneer was the proposed inaugurator of the function which held at Tali Zamorin Guruvayoorappan Hall, Kozhikkode on 9 Novemebr 2011. The universally accepted practice of inaugurating an event/endeavour or beginning of an auspicious occasion in Kerala is by lighting a lamp. It is a symbolic exercise by which the message of “from darkness to light” is transmitted. Even in the oldest Muslim Mosque of Kerala, Kodungalloor Cheraman Mosque still keeps a lighted lamp, nila vilakku. Earlier, several such mosques were there, but now under the fundamentalist pressure, such conventions are muted. Then why Dr. M. K. Muneer staged satire there? Let us examine the hermeneutics of the emerging nila vilakku disagreements.
 
Revathi Pattathanam, a seven day literary assembly which was started by early Zamorins [king] of Calicut during the early decade of the fourteenth century. It was purported because it begins its discussions on the day of Revati asterism in the month of Tulam of Malayalam Era [October –November]. This intellectual colloquium was regularly conducted by the Zamorins in the premise of Tali Temple of Calicut, except during the days of Tipu Sulthan’s invasion/onslaughts over Malabar in the closing decades of the eighteenth century. Distinguished scholars from all over India participated in this colloquium since the days of its inception. At the end of this colloquium, Zamorin honoured the outstanding scholars by presenting the title Bhatta along with cash award.

Dr. M. K. Muneer is an allopathic-cum-politician. Though a member of Indian Union Muslim League, he so far retained an identity as secular and national Muslim. Through this reactionary measure, it is very clear he has surrendered to the ever growing Islamic fundamentalist and terrorist outfits of Kerala.

For more than a decade, the Muslim League leadership fell between the horns dilemma with regarding to the question of extremist versus moderate path.  Dr. M. K. Muneer was then an advocate of moderates; his surrender to fundamentalist elements is a bad omen and shows that the near future of Kerala is disastrous. Dr. M. K. Muneer’s action shows that the moderates and right thinking progressive groups of Muslim League have lost base in communal politics of Kerala. Appeasement of minority led communalism is the fashion of the contemporary coalition politics of Kerala. Thus in the past too, the coalition fronts competed for securing Abdul Nasser Madhani’s favour, an incarnation of Islamic terrorism, the ever growing communalism will stabilize its base in Kerala.  

By declining to light the lamp in the opening ceremony of the prestigious literary assembly, Dr. M. K. Muneer showed cowardice and humiliated our cultural and national symbols. As an MLA, of course he hails from the Muslim League outfit, but at the same time he is a product of the coalition politics of Kerala. Thus, under the glare of fundamentalist elements, he ignores the full glare of secular votes behind his victory in the last election.

This is not new to Keralites. Another ustad of anti-national and anti-cultural tempo amongst fundamentalist Muslim groups of Kerala is Mr. E. Ahamed, now the Minister of State for External Affairs and Human Resource Development in the Government of India. Mr. Ahamed has also declined to light lamps on several occasions. He is, incidentally, the person who forcibly opened the Masjid sealed by the police after the Marad genocide. This masjid was used to store lethal weapons used by the Muslim terrorists. Several vital evidences, including fingerprints of persons who participated in the communal violence related to the Marad genocide was lost to the police. Making him a Union Minister is ratification of his anti-national stand. Those at the apex of affairs are either non-committed Indians or totally ignorant of the price we have paid for independence and national integration.

It is the paradox that once a Muslim comes under the bandwagon of Muslim League/fundamentalist he is getting reluctant to respect national and cultural symbols. Those Muslim leaders of Kerala in the Congress, Communist, BJP, etc [secular and national parties] finding no fault with reciting Vandemathram or lighting lamps. Prof. Hameed Chennamagalloor, a veteran Malayalam writer, vehemently criticized the absurdity behind the taboo of lighting of lamps by Muslim brothers including Dr. M. K. Muneer. More over those cultural magnets from the non-partisan segment of Muslim community of Kerala do not agree with the extremist thinking of fundamentalist/Muslim League.
 
Dr. M. K. Muneer as minister of Kerala took an oath of allegiance to respect national ethos; by declining to light the lamp at an auspicious function he humiliated not only the people of Kerala, but the entire nation and its traditions. The Government in our democratic setup is believed to be an institution of collective responsibility. Thus the act of Muslim League ministers has infringed this noble concept of collective responsibility and the spirit of the oath allegiance.

So far, the government of Kerala   neither justified nor condemned the act of Dr. M. K. Muneer.  Hence it is reasonable to believe that “lighting lamp is haram [unethical] to the Government of Kerala”. Until the forties of the last century fundamentalist elements in the Muslim community believed that the language Malayalam is the language of ibilis [ghost] and forbade members from studying Malayalam. The outcome was disastrous. But the fundamentalist elements failed to study any lesson from it.