Kerala CM rejects cleric's call to keep women at home

Chief Minister V. D. Satheesan on Wednesday rejected Sunni scholar Kanthapuram A. P. Aboobacker Musliyar's statement that women should remain confined to their homes. Speaking after the state Cabinet meeting in Thiruvananthapuram, Satheesan said the view does not fit progressive Kerala and that his government will not stand with it.

Kanthapuram, who is also referred to as Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad and as Grand Mufti by his followers, spoke at an Islamic conference in Kochi on Sunday. He said bringing women onto public platforms would lead to "great destruction" and that Islam prescribed purdah to prevent that outcome. A written directive from his organisation had already told the community that "exhibiting young women in public places and among unrelated men is un-Islamic".

Satheesan answered a direct question on the row. "We have absolutely no agreement with that statement. It is not a position that suits progressive Keralam. We cannot agree with it in any manner," he said. He added that women are not meant to live shut indoors and should take part in every field of public life.

He called the remarks a 19th-century mindset spoken in the 21st century and a misreading of Islamic history. He named Khadijah, the Prophet's first wife and a trader; Aisha, who took part in the Battle of the Camel; Queen Bilqis; and the woman who challenged Caliph Umar on mahr and was told she was right. "Neither the government nor our party will stand with regressive viewpoints," he said.

The politics around the statement is tighter than the wording. Satheesan's Congress leads a coalition that includes the Indian Union Muslim League. IUML leaders have taken a softer line on Kanthapuram than the chief minister. Senior CPI(M) figures, now in opposition, attacked the cleric's line in public. Muslim women on social media criticised the circular even as several scholarly bodies lined up behind Kanthapuram.

Kerala has long treated female literacy, workforce presence and elected office as ordinary facts of state life. Women hold seats in the Assembly, run local bodies and work in health, education, police and the courts. A Cabinet-level rejection of a senior Sunni voice is therefore a signal inside the ruling alliance as much as a comment on theology.

Kanthapuram heads a large traditional Sunni network with schools, colleges and a publishing arm. His circular was not a stray line at a meeting. It was issued as instruction. That is why Satheesan answered it in the Cabinet briefing rather than leaving it to a junior minister.

The chief minister's use of Islamic history was deliberate. He did not argue that religion should stay out of public debate. He argued that the cleric's reading of the tradition is wrong on its own terms. That framing lets Congress keep talking to Muslim voters while drawing a line that IUML may find hard to cross in public.

How the League responds in the coming days will show whether the coalition treats this as a one-day quarrel or as a test of who sets social policy in the state. For now the government's position is on record: women stay in the mainstream, and the Cabinet will not dress confinement up as faith.