A Coloured Scheme Of Things

Kerala’s IUML, known to be moderate, finds itself on the recieving end of fake news and BJP rhetoric

- Preetha Nair

The year is 1962. The IndoChina conflict was at its peak. Muhammad Ismail, the founder of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), received a letter from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. It was in response to Ismail’s offer to send his son Mian Khan to join the armed forces to fight the war against China. Nehru politely declined and instead suggested in the letter that the crisis was going to be prolonged and that his son could instead ‘find some work connected with the war effort in Madras’.

This was a different age in Indian politics. And the answer to why the footnote from history has had to be exhumed lies in the stepping up of election rhetoric in the country to vitriolic levels. The IUML’s ‘secular character’ and ‘nationalism’ is in question after Congress president Rahul Gandhi decided to contest from Wayanad in Kerala, where the Muslim community forms a sizeable population. As the state goes to vote on April 23, the spotlight is on the alliance of the Congress with the IUML.

The reductive rhetoric has picked up on the IUML’s green flags with star and crescent (in pic) to establish a nonexistent connection with Pakistan. It’s a game of dangerous generalities that is by now well-known: the viral pics of IUML flags, fluttering alongside Congress flags in Wayanad, demonised for looking like Pakistani flags. And the usual suspects of national politics have jumped in to vilify the party. That there is no basis to this communal rhetoric or that the Pakistani flag actually looks different is beside the point, it is enough to rile up majoritarian voters who are far away from, and disinterested, in context. After the flag pics went viral, UP CM Yogi Adityanath, whom the Election Commission pulled up recently for a communally laced speech, called the IUML a ‘green virus’ while BJP president Amit Shah drew similarities between Pakistan and Wayanad.