Islamophobia in Kerala: Beyond the myth of exception
In January 2026, a routine media interaction in Kerala drew attention to the language increasingly used in public discussion about Muslims. Speaking to reporters after a public programme linked to the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam, its general secretary Vellappalli Natesan was questioned by Reporter TV journalist Rahees Rasheed about his earlier claim that SNDP institutions were not being granted permission to start schools in Malappuram district, only Muslim majority district in Kerala. As Rasheed continued with follow-up questions, Natesan disengaged from the interaction, pulled away the microphones angrily and left.
The following day, Natesan escalated the attack while addressing the media. He named Rasheed, referred to his hometown of Eerattupetta and accused that he was associated with the Muslim Students Federation (MSF), the student wing of the Indian Union Muslim League. “I know the reporter. He is from Eerattupetta and a leader of MSF. He is a terrorist and a spokesperson of Muslims. Someone sent him there,” he said. When other journalists asked him to explain the allegation, Natesan cited only his “experience” and offered no specific basis for the charge. He later stated that he had not called Rasheed a “religious terrorist” (മതതീവ്രവാദി) but only a “terrorist,” while adding that not using the term “religious terrorist” had been a mistake.
The incident reveals several layers of Islamophobia within a space often described as progressive. One layer is the routine association of Muslim identity with terrorism, where a Muslim name alone can trigger suspicion without evidence. Another is the framing of organised Muslim student politics through a security lens, where references to the Muslim Students Federation cast legitimate political participation as suspect. A more subtle layer is the persistence of geographical profiling, in which places like Eerattupetta are repeatedly invoked in public discourse as sites of extremism.
The exchange circulated widely across Malayalam television and social media and drew criticism from journalist unions, political leaders and civil society voices. A complaint was later submitted to the state police chief by the Youth Congress, arguing that branding a journalist a terrorist for asking questions reflected a pattern of stigmatising minorities and deepening communal tension.
These patterns are not limited to one ideological camp. In a similar instance, senior journalist, author and political commentator N. P. Chekkutty was described as a representative of “Islamic extremism” by a CPI(M) leader, prompting criticism from media professionals and civil society groups. The allegation was made without evidence and was widely seen as an attempt to undermine a journalist by invoking religious suspicion. Chekkutty, who began his political life in the 1970s through the Students' Federation of India (SFI), had earlier faced attacks from sections of the Left for serving as editor of Thejas, a newspaper administered by Muslim management.
For the Islamophobia Research Collective (IRC), a group of volunteers who systematically track Islamophobic incidents across Kerala, such moments are part of a wider pattern rather than isolated controversies. Their documentation shows how routine or accidental acts associated with Muslims are often reframed through narratives of suspicion, disloyalty and threat. One example occurred in August 2024 in Eroor, Tripunithura, where a birthday balloon printed with the words “I Love Pakistan” quickly became a communal flashpoint before police confirmed it had been mistakenly shipped from abroad. The speed with which the incident escalated — through protest, media amplification and political framing — reflects a recurring pattern: Islamophobia often spreads through exaggeration rather than evidence.
This kind of social surveillance, prejudice and suspicion surrounding Muslim minority lives has a name: Islamophobia. It appears in many forms — treating Muslims with suspicion, limiting opportunities, mocking everyday practices, linking them to violence or embedding bias within institutions such as schools, media, housing and law enforcement. At its core, it operates through the constant scrutiny of Muslim life. In Kerala, this scrutiny ranges from everyday cultural practices to organised religious activity and political participation in the public sphere.
In 2024 alone, the Islamophobia Research Collective (IRC) documented 260 Islamophobic incidents and statements in Kerala — roughly one every 36 hours. Their findings were published in Kerala Islamophobia Report 2024, edited by Baburaj Bhagavathy and Dr. K. Ashraf. The report forms part of the larger work of the Islamophobia Research Collective, which represents one of the first and most systematic efforts to document and map Islamophobia in any Indian regional language.
Baburaj Bhagavathy argues that the roots of this alienation lie deep within postcolonial Indian nationalism itself, where Muslim identity has often been constructed as the “other.” This logic continues to shape public discourse in Kerala, where organisations such as the Nair Service Society (NSS) or SNDP Yogam can engage in political activity without being labelled communal, while Muslim League and other Muslim organisations are frequently viewed through a communal lens.
In Kerala, Islamophobia today circulates most actively through social media, where dedicated pages, influencers and networked accounts continuously produce and circulate anti-Muslim narratives. Unlike overt hate speech seen in other parts of the country, it often appears in coded and calibrated forms shaped by the state’s political culture. Suspicion is rarely expressed directly; instead, it spreads through selective framing, repetition and visual messaging. Edited clips, misleading captions and decontextualised incidents are frequently used to construct a sense of threat around Muslim presence.
Mainstream media, including television debates, often amplifies these narratives rather than challenging them. Stories that gain traction online frequently move quickly into television discussions, where Muslim speakers are placed in defensive positions and expected to respond to allegations framed in security terms. Through routine editorial choices — panel selection, framing questions and vocabulary — news discourse normalises suspicion without always expressing overt hostility.
An incident this January in Palakkad showed how quickly such narratives take shape. Videos of a woman named Aneesa offering namaz on a busy road in the town centre circulated widely on social media before basic facts were established. The prayer was later understood as a form of protest linked to a long-standing family property dispute, yet the initial reaction online was marked by hostility and speculation. Coverage by Janam TV framed the act as both religious and a public nuisance requiring legal action, while a widely circulated post by the Christian right-wing group CASA warned that the “danger” associated with Muslims had now reached Kerala.
As K. Ashraf notes, media discourse does more than report events; it actively shapes public perceptions of Muslims, often framing them through suspicion, criminality and cultural incompatibility.
While individual Muslims often face everyday scrutiny, collective forms of organisation attract even greater suspicion. Across Kerala, welfare initiatives, political platforms and cultural programmes led by Muslims are frequently viewed through a security lens, where routine civic activity is framed as a threat rather than participation.
A 2024 case involving MEC 7 (Multi Exercise Combination), a community fitness programme popular across Malabar and among Gulf Malayalis, reveals how deeply such suspicions can run. Conceived in 2012 by Perinkadakkad Swalihuddin, a former military officer from Malappuram district, MEC 7 developed as a group exercise routine combining elements of yoga, physiotherapy and breathing practices. For years, it functioned as a public fitness initiative across northern Kerala before suddenly becoming the focus of intense political and media scrutiny.
The episode escalated after remarks by CPI(M) leader P. Mohanan Master, who alleged that the programme was linked to Islamist organisations and suggested it promoted a form of “religious nationalism.” His comments quickly moved into television debates and news coverage, where discussion shifted from the programme’s activities to speculation about its intentions. Soon after, Sunni Yuvajana Sangham leaders publicly questioned the initiative’s “political motives,” while sections of the Malayalam media amplified allegations linking it to banned organisations.
Political responses were uneven. While leaders across parties, including ministers such as P. A. Mohammed Riyas, defended MEC 7 as a harmless fitness programme, opposition figures and right-wing commentators called for investigations. As the episode intensified, central and state agencies opened inquiries, none of which established evidence supporting the allegations.
This logic is not unique to MEC 7. As K. Ashraf notes, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind has frequently been portrayed in public discourse as a front for extremist agendas despite its stated commitment to constitutional and democratic methods. The same framing extends to the Popular Front of India (PFI). Even after its ban, associations with the organisation are invoked to discredit a wide range of Muslim initiatives and individuals.
The MEC 7 episode also reveals another layer of how Islamophobia operates in Kerala — its geography. Certain regions with significant Muslim populations, such as Malappuram, Eerattupetta and Kasaragod, are often framed in the public imagination as spaces of inherent suspicion. In the media and political discourse, these places are disproportionately referenced when discussing issues linked to security or extremism, regardless of the factual basis. Islamophobia in Kerala is not evenly distributed; it clusters in areas where Muslim communities are numerically strong, creating a cartography of prejudice that marks entire districts as suspect.
One such instance documented in the IRC’s 2024 report involved a statement by Sangh Parivar-affiliated historian Sandeep Balakrishna, who claimed in a widely circulated interview that there existed a village in Malappuram where “non-Muslims have no entry.” Such claims, disseminated across mainstream platforms, illustrate how easily Islamophobic narratives travel across Kerala’s media landscape.
The danger of sustained Islamophobic narratives is not limited to headlines or debates; it seeps into everyday life. One member of the Islamophobia Research Collective posed a simple question: how does a Muslim feel when they wake up each morning to yet another story framing their community as suspect? That constant drip of suspicion chips away at dignity, belonging and trust.
At the same time, the rise of Islamophobia has also brought together a range of voices working to challenge it. Across Kerala, journalists, researchers, activists and community groups have increasingly begun to name and confront anti-Muslim prejudice in public life. In 2021, these efforts took a more organised form with the formation of the Kerala Network Against Islamophobia, under whose banner the Islamophobia Research Collective was established. The collective brings together people from diverse social and political backgrounds. “We have people from Dalit communities, Ezhava and Thiyya communities, atheists, queer activists and people from feminist movements in this broader coalition against Islamophobia,” said Baburaj Bhagavathi. Over the past few years, their work has helped build a more sustained public conversation around Islamophobia, keeping it visible within Kerala’s social and political discourse.
It is in this global context of rising Islamophobia that the United Nations designated March 15 as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. The date commemorates the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings, in which 51 worshippers were killed by a white supremacist gunman during Friday prayers in New Zealand.
While the scale of Islamophobic incidents and statements documented in Kerala is deeply concerning, the emergence of a sustained public conversation around Islamophobia itself offers a measure of hope. Efforts to name, document and analyse it have begun to create a more consistent awareness of how it operates in everyday life. That work, still unfolding, may eventually shape how Kerala understands identities, coexistence, equality and shared belonging in the years ahead.
Jisha M is an independent journalist and filmmaker.
