The organisations which would participate in the seminar are: two factions of the Sunnis, three Mujahid groups and the Muslim Education Society (MES). The Kanthapuram faction of the Sunnis will be represented by Kerala Muslim Jama’at state vice-president C Muhammad Faizy and general secretary Ali Abdulla. The other invitees are: Samastha Kerala Jem-Iyyathul Ulama secretary Umar Faizi Mukkam and Mushawara member PM Abdusalam Baqvi, Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen (KNM) state president TP Abdullakoya Madani and vice-president Hussain Madavoor, KNM Markazudawa general secretary CP Umar Sullami, Haj Committee member IP Abdusalam, Wisdom Islamic Organisation general secretary TK Ashraf and MES president Dr. Fazal Ghafoor. Thamarassery Bishop Mar Remigiose Inchananiyil and Rev Fr. Thomas, representative of the CSI will be the delegates from the Christian community.

Their decision constitutes a severe rebuff to the Indian Union Muslim League(IUML), the most prominent ally of the Congress in the opposition United Democratic Front(UDF) which has taken a decision to boycott the seminar. Announcing the decision, IUML state president Syed Sadiq Ali Thangal said only the Congress can effectively resist the move to implement the UCC. The CPI(M) has invited only the IUML , and no other UDF allies to the seminar. Nobody can move forward on this issue avoiding the Congress, averred Thangal. Moreover, attending the seminar would have an adverse impact on the future political situation in the State, added Thangal.

However, the Samastha Kerala Jem-Iyyathul Ulema, the influential Sunni forum which backs the IUML, in a clear sign of its political independence, has accepted the CPI(M)’s invite to the seminar. Samastha president Jiffri Muthukoya Thangal said his organization would attend the anti-UCC programmes of all political parties. “We have cooperated with the programmes of the IUML and the Congress in the past and continue to cooperate on the UCC issue also. Similarly, communist parties, too, are organizing programmes. We will cooperate with them also,” asserted Jiffri Thangal. In fact, Musthafa Mundupara, state secretary of Sunni Yuvajana Sangham, a feeder organization of the Samastha, is among the 10 vice-chairmen of the organising committee the CPI(M) has formed for the conduct of the seminar. Samastha is also planning to submit a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi after consulting legal experts. Further action will be decided after seeing the reaction of the Union Government, Thangal added.

Likewise, KNM president TP Abdullakoya Madani also administered a rebuff to the IUML saying that the CPI(M) seminar need not be viewed with suspicion. There was no need to inquire into the stand taken by organisations in the past. Stand on an issue taken in the past can be reviewed and corrected according to the needs of the present,” he pointed out. His reference was to the charge of IUML and Congress that the CPI(M)had backed the move for UCC in the past. CPI(M) patriarch EMS Namboodiripad, and other party leaders like Sushila Gopalan and EK Nayanar had stressed the need for a Uniform Civil Code.

The IUML’s boycott decision is due to the stiff resistance from a section within the IUML itself. While senior leaders like PK Kunhalikutty and PMA Salam favoured participation in the seminar, another powerful section led by national organising secretary E T Muhammad Basheer rejected it as “ill-motivated”. Other IUML leaders like MK Muneer and KM Shaji are also vehemently opposed to any engagement between the IUML and the CPI(M). This section believes that the CPI(M) is using the UCC issue to further its political agenda of dividing the UDF.

In conclusion, it must be said that both the Congress and the IUML erred badly in deciding to boycott the CPI(M) seminar. The IUML says the national movement against the UCC can only be led by the Congress. If that was the case, then the IUML should have persuaded the Congress to attend the seminar instead of deciding to stay away from it itself. The IUML’s boycott decision is obviously under pressure from the Congress. Differences among the opposition parties on the issue would only benefit the BJP, which has been clearly unnerved by the determined move of various opposition parties to form a united front against the BJP in the crucial 2024 parliamentary elections.

In view of this crying need, both IUML and the Congress should have shed their political differences with the CPI(M) and joined hands with it by attending the CPI(M) seminar. That would have sent a powerful message to the Union Government. The opposition parties would seem to have a lost a golden chance to advertise their unity. Hopefully, they would shed their reservations and change their stand. That way alone lies salvation. (IPA Service)