Malappuram, a Right Wing Punchbag

Let's debunk why the Right Wingers always try to attack Kerala.

Check out the map below.

Do you see the lonely green dot in the southern section of India?

That is Malappuram(MPRM), a Muslim majority district in a 'communist' state of Kerala.

The unique mix of Islam & Communism has made MPRM a favorite for Right-Wing propaganda.
It is usually done in 2 steps:
- Pick a story that shows the district in bad light or create one
- Show how Islam and/or communism is responsible for that.

For example.

• Claim 1. "Abnormal population growth"

As per a report by Economist, during 2015-2020, MPRM's population grew by a whopping 44%.
It's based on a study by the UN on Global Urbanisation. Which means, they were estimating/projecting how many people moved from rural life to urban during 2015-2020.

Now, like the rest of India, Kerala IS urbanizing at a very fast rate.

No mention of the birth rate in the report. In fact, the fertility rate of MPRM is 2.2 vs the national average of 2.7

So how did @SwarajyaMag report it?

- Added a Muslim speaker talking to a Muslim crowd
- And under "Also Read" they put an article that talks about the decline of the Hindu population.

What was a positive, urbanization news became a dog whistle about "Muslims increasing population to take over Hindu majority".

• Claim 2: MPRM/Kerala is ISIS Hub

"Kerala is mini Kashmir/Pakistan", "ISIS is recruiting in Kerala", is something you can find in Social Media very often. Even the media will amplify the MPRM connection to instances of arrests or attacks. (Samples below)

So what's the reality?
Unfortunately, there are ISIS recruits from India. And yes some of them are from Kerala too. In 2017, an RTI was filed to Home Ministry about the breakdown of ISIS recruits per state, and here is the response:

Uttar Pradesh-17, Maharashtra-16, Telangana-16, Kerala-14, Karnataka-08, Madhya Pradesh-06, Tamil Nadu-05, West Bengal-05, Uttrakhand-04, Rajasthan-04, Gujarat-04, Bihar-02, Delhi-01, Jammu & Kashmir-01

Now, yes this is 3 years old
And yes, even 1 terrorist is a grave risk

But you see how Kerala is not the odd one out?
How many times have you read about this from anywhere except WB, TN, and Kerala?

The fact is that Kerala has worked to make sure there is no other spike in terror sympathizers or joiners, and there hasn't been one since.

But the media fails to complete the narrative because it is effective to tell North Indians, "majority Muslims means terrorism".

• Claim 3: No temples

Aah, the most famous one. "There are no temples in Malappuram", is a standard template response on Social Media.
This claim has two parts to it.
The first part, on face value, can be debunked by a google search. There are a lot of temples in MPRM.

The second part comes from the news which claims that temple restoration work is resisted in MPRM by Muslims. Now, this is more complex.
You can find news of Muslims restoring temples.

You can find news of Hindus hosting a vegetarian Iftaar party for those Muslims.
And you can find news of the resistance too. But it is not a prevalent as RW would want you to believe and it is often more about land ownership than religion.

• Claim 4: High crime

Now if you see total crime cases, yes Kerala tops the country and MPRM is quite ahead in that.
But, in violent crimes, MPRM is much lower than a lot of districts in the rest of India.

Also, there are indications that the high rate is possible because of the efficient reporting of crimes by police

A special mention to POSCO cases. MPRM leads to child abuse cases in India. 54% of districts in India have more than 100 POCSO cases pending.

However, it is worth noting that the spike in MPRM happened after police busted a child abuse racket with the help of State Childline. Again there is a school of thought that thinks this is because of improved reporting and investigations by state.

So here is a snapshot of propaganda that MPRM faces frequently just because it doesn't fit the idea of "Muslim majority danger land" of RW.

The point of this thread is not to say that MPRM is perfect, but to say that it is among the better districts of our country. And instead of deriding it, we can learn a thing or two about social harmony.

I have added some references below.

• Claim 5: Alcohol and Pork not allowed.

You can find that a lot of liquor shops closed in MPRM in the last few years and now there is one open.
But that was because of the "no bars near highway" order of SC.

I wasn't able to find any pork shops listing though, but also couldn't find any official news on pork band. So I will leave this open-ended for now.

Ref:
Claim 1: https://swarajyamag.com/insta/kerala-malappuram-emerges-as-number-one-city-in-the-world-in-terms-of-population-growth
Claim 2: https://www.news18.com/news/india/maximum-isis-arrests-made-in-up-says-home-ministry-1610475.html

https://www.ndtv.com/kerala-news/operation-pigeon-focus-on-de-radicalising-kerala-youth-after-21-join-isis-1719053


Claim 3:  http://indiafacts.org/temple-reclamation-movement-in-kerala/
             https://www.hinduhumanrights.info/malayambadi-narasimha-temple-ruins-found-and-now-under-revival-restoration/
            https://newscusp.com/kerala-temple-gives-vegetarian-iftar-to-muslims-who-helped-restore-the-building/

Claim 4: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/malappuram-leads-in-child-abuse-cases/article25693226.ece

The map, in the beginning, is from @indiainpixels. Follow them for interesting visuals.

The information provided by @taru_uniyal. Follow him on Twitter. Amazing information. 

The outline of the first claim is heavily based upon this brilliant Quora post.
Follow him for more Kerala love.
quora.com/Why-is-Malappu…