Two Muslim girls at a college campus are lynched by 40 odd assailants. Those goons were hurling racial and islamophobic epithets targeting the ethnicity, the life style and culture of the Muslim students. Social media activists support those assailants and directly make devious remarks on Muslim dress code, Purdah and other Islamic symbols. Any form of dissent in that campus is immediately dubbed as Talibanism or fundamentalism.

Well, we are not reporting any incidents occurred in central universities where Hindutva forces time and again unleash such undemocratic brutalities. This is happening at a campus in Kerala, where so called secular ruling party’s student organization, SFI have deplorably indulged in misogynistic as well as islamophobic atrocities for the last two years.

Universities & colleges are supposed to be centres of democracy in its purest sense, where we expect to have a conscientious atmosphere of intellectual discourse, debate and dissent. On the contrary, we witness the news of campus lynchings, suppression of dissenting voice and violence across universities in India. Ever since the ascent of BJP government in power in 2014, its students wing, ABVP has always been on the rampage especially in central universities.

In Kerala, SFI have been a dominant force in campuses where it use its muscle and political patronage to oppress the opposition and quell the dissenting voices. SFI and its authoritarianism through violence and vandalism in the campuses of Kerala were always ‘fascistic’ enough to draw a direct analogy to their political icon Stalin’s ‘great purges’ in Soviet Russia in the first half of 20th century. However, last few years, SFI seem to have reinvented their modus operandi, thanks to the majoritarian Hindutva sentiments across the country incessantly instigated by the ruling regime, slowly transforming into a staunch islamophobic outfit, emulating ABVP in every heinous aspects. Recent lynchings and hooliganism against activists of Muslim Students Federation (msf) and Fraternity movement, the girls among them in particular, of Madappalli College, Vadakara by SFI goons have not only exposed their rodomontades about freedom, gender justice, secularism etc but also disinterred their islamophobic mindset.

SFI have always exhibited their double standard in dealing with the issues related to Muslims. ‘Non issues’ concerning Muslim community or institutions are carefully converted to an ‘issue’ by them and let it blow out of proportion to score brownie points while appeasing the islamophobic and majoritarian sentiments. The fervour and penchant showed by the student wing of CPIM, to malign and march towards Muslim institutions like Peace schools for no reason and their reluctance in raising a finger against Pro Hindutva institutions like Sivasakthi Yoga Vidya Kendra at Udayamperoor where inmates came out in the open and disclosed the stories of human rights violation, torture and forceful conversion, give us a clue about their pitifully hypocritical outlook. It’s rather awful to see the rapport between ABVP and SFI in such issues.

SFI leaders and their social media warriors often try to vindicate their position on these islamophobic issues by limiting their enmity ‘only towards extreme elements’ within the community. But the fact of the matter is they, at the pretext of criticizing, mocking or trolling those ‘extreme elements’, are actually doing all those abominable aspersions towards Islam and its sacred tenets. It’s the new generation SFI cadres who have their intense liking towards militant atheism led by Dawkins-Harris-Hitchens trio ,are seen wallowing in severe hate campaigns against islam in social media,once they are confronted with the contemporary discourses regarding islam, morality,and gender justice. Recent desperate attempts by SFI JNU unit to hide their islamophobic head in the sand by projecting and showcasing ‘muslim names’ within their campus leaderships, is similar to the ridiculous ploy carried out by the BJP, who have Naqvis and Shanawas Hussains in their kitty, and it is itself a prime example of lack of political consciousness of the very same leadership who, the other day subconsciously reached in a consensus that ‘Islamophobia”is nothing but a mere ‘jargon’. So it’s high time we rip apart their so called secular mask,debunk their beef fest eyewashes and reveal their real faces of islamophobia.

Muhammad INK