'Health, social bonds, happiness': Participants list benefits of 'disputed' Kerala exercise programme

Around 5.45 am, men and women wearing white T-shirts start trickling into the spacious compound of the Narikkuni English Medium School at Chembakkunnu village, located 18 km from Kozhikode in Kerala. Fifteen minutes later, as some in the group, between the ages of 40 and 60, start with their morning walk, a trainer instructs, “Line up.

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Soon, men and women take their positions in separate formations, marking the beginning of another day of the multi-exercise combination (MEC-7) programme, which has become the subject of a political row lately, after the ruling CPI(M) alleged that the Jamaat-e-Islami and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political wing of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI), were using the platform to further their political agendas.

Raising alarm over the fitness programme, CPI(M) Kozhikode district secretary P Mohahan recently said, “Lifestyle diseases should be fought and remaining physically fit is important for everyone. However, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the SDPI are using MEC-7 for their narrow politics. The Jamaat is using it as a shield for its campaign for Islamic nation. Secular society should be vigilant against such attempts.”Mohanan was forced to soften his stance — which was seen by some as continuation of the CPI(M)’s attacks on “radical” Muslim oufits — after it emerged that CPI(M) leaders in Kozhikode district supported the programme. CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan also stepped in, saying the party did not consider MEC-7 a tool for communal activities.While a section of Muslim clerics also came out against MEC-7, their stand did not get any support from the larger community.Even as the controversy was in the limelight, Congress Palakkad MP V K Sreekandan inaugurated a new session of the fitness programme in Pattambi, saying he wanted MEC-7 to be expanded across India, and underlined that there were “no religion elements’ in it.