Turkey’s Hagia Sophia and Other Key Factors That Propelled CPI(M) to Big Win in Kerala Local Body Elections
When Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced his decision to turn the famous Hagia Sophia museum in Istanbul into a mosque in the second week of July, it coincided with the arrival of central investigative agencies in Kerala, some 6,000 kilometres away from New Delhi, for unearthing a gold smuggling racket conducted through a diplomatic channel.
However, what appears to be a political riddle is that the reconversion of Hagia Sophia – originally founded as a cathedral – had a bigger impact on a section of voters in the local body elections, especially Christians in central Kerala, than the gold smuggling racket.
Despite the racket being linked to some officials of the Chief Minister’s Office, the ruling CPI(M) led by CM Pinarayi Vijayan remained in a comfortable position and out of reach for political rivals, the Congress-led UDF and the BJP. The volley of allegations thrown at CPI(M) in the last five months after the gold smuggling case opened a pandora’s box seemed to have little effect on the party’s political fortunes.
The 1991 Precedent
Those who think it is nothing but political naivety to connect both these developments – Hagia Sophia conversion and the local body elections – must recall the stand taken by CPI(M) on the US attack on Iraq after the latter invaded Kuwait. The party opposed the “imperialist forces” and the result in the 1991 district council election was astonishing.
The CPI(M) led LDF had captured 12 of the 14 districts designed to transfer power to the grassroots while the Congress(I)-led UDF could win just 141 of the 474 seats compared to the LDF’s 328. Malappuram was the only district in which the UDF won. The other district was Kasargode, where no party achieved a majority.
Hagia Sophia Ripples
The 1,500-year-old Orthodox Christian cathedral, the largest Christian church of the eastern Roman Empire, was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1453. It became a museum in 1934 and was a UNESCO World Heritage site (see photos) till July 2020.
A senior leader of Muslim League, the second partner in UDF, Panakkad Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, in an article on Hagia Sophia titled ‘The Friday Prayer at Ayasofya’ on July 24 in party daily ‘Chandrika’, said, “Many European countries, which have opposed Turkey’s decision on Hagia Sophia, have not allowed Muslims the right to offer namaz. When all contemporary Christian religious and political leaders disagree with the conversion, they do not make any stake over its ownership realising that historically there is no ground for such a demand.”
“Turkey President Tayyip Erdogan, who is raising his voice in the international community for the systematically-oppressed Muslims across the world, has been attacked under the guise of pseudo-secularism,” added Sadiq Ali, part of the IUML’s high power committee, who is also a prominent member of the Malappuram-based Panakkad family, which has a considerable stake in Kerala politics.
CPI(M) was quick to respond to this. Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, its politburo member and then state secretary asked in a Facebook post “how the Muslim League can now oppose the BJP government’s move to construct a Ram temple where a mosque once stood.”
“Jamaat-e-Islami is an organisation which supports the Turkey government. With the Muslim League leader hailing the conversion of Sophia Hagia into a mosque, the link between Muslim League and Jamaat-e-Islami has come to the fore. Congress has decided to ally with Welfare Party, the political wing of Jamaat-e-Islami and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political wing of Popular Front of India. What is the stand of Congress towards the Muslim League approach of acknowledging the act of Turkey ruler?” he asked.
Soon, the Catholic Church, which stood behind the Congress and UDF for long, admonished the article, which had used the Turkish name ‘Ayasofya’, instead of ‘Hagia Sophia’. Kerala Catholic Bishops Council, in a statement, said, “Before glorifying the encroachment of Hagia Sophia Church, Muslim League leader Sadiq Ali should have learned history. To justify Erdogan would be a liability of political Islamists in Kerala. That should not be at the cost of endangering the future of Indian secular democracy and peaceful co-existence of religions. There is danger in unilaterally interpreting history.”
Reservation for Economically Weaker sections
Then came the Vijayan government’s decision in October to implement 10 per cent reservation in government jobs for the economically weaker section (EWS) among the forward communities. This created a rift in the UDF as the Muslim League vigorously opposed the move.
Nair Service Society, an organisation of Nair Community that had demanded this reservation for long, kept a studied silence on the issue, the Syrian Christians came up with strong criticism against the UDF leadership.
Changanassery Archbishop Joseph Perunthottam, of Syro Malabar Church, in an article published in their mouthpiece, Deepika, lashed out against UDF. “The Muslim League is opposing reservation for EWS, not on an ideological premises but only to subserve their narrow political ambitions,” he wrote.
“The communal tilt in League’s stand is revealed with the EWS issue. About 27 per cent of the state’s population was out of the purview of reservation and now the government has decided to help the economically weaker sections in this group through the reservation. This measure of government will immensely benefit a massive section of the Kerala population who deserved it, but the measures taken by certain organised communal groups to oppose this progressive step of the government is highly regrettable,” it said.
The article, while praising the BJP and the Communist parties, also asked why the Congress is not able to support “national interest?”
“It seems that the party has no control over its MLAs who hold different opinions on the same issue,” said the long article, which was circulated widely among the community.
Other issues ranging from the alleged ‘Love Jihad’ conspiracy to the growing clout of Muslim League in the UDF administration triggered by the ‘Fifth Minister’ controversy are also part of the ‘fear’ factor among the Christian Community.
Kerala Congress Mani Factor
Following a power struggle, a faction within the Kerala Congress (M) led by Jose K Mani snapped ties with UDF and joined hands with the LDF on October 14. Jose K Mani, a member of Rajya Sabha, is the son of late K M Mani. The late leader was one of the architects of the Congress-led UDF in Kerala and a doyen who made the Church a formidable voice in Kerala Politics.
The Jose faction joining the LDF was interesting, as the CPI(M) had led an agitation against his father in the alleged bar bribery scandal. Mani was forced to quit as Finance Minister after LDF had raised the matter in the Assembly and disrupted his Budget presentation in 2015 and the bar bribery was one of the key issues highlighted by the LDF during the Assembly elections of 2016.
UDF ties with Welfare Party and SDPI
Despite the criticisms raised by the Christian community in two issues in four months, the UDF went for an alliance with Welfare Party and a tacit understanding with the SDPI in the local body elections in December. The welfare party alliance proved good as it came top in nearly 70 panchayats out of 94 in Malappuram district.
However, it appears that the alliance made a dent in the traditional UDF votes in at least three central Kerala districts: Kottayam, Pathanamthitta and Idukki. The entry of Kerala Congress (M) as a partner made it easy for LDF to reap the traditional UDF votes which had some apprehension over voting on the CPI(M) symbol.
UDF lost all the three district panchayats which it held from 2015 and in block panchayats, it could gain only one out of 11 in Kottayam, and two out of nine in Pathanamthitta while in Idukki, both shared four each. Among the number of Panchayats too, the majority of them went with LDF.
