– Ashraf Kunnummal, Sadique PK & Ubaid Rehman

Beemapalli, a small seaside coastal town, whose population is predominantly a Muslim fishing community, is situated in the Trivandrum district of Kerala. About six years ago, on 17th May 2009, between 2.30 pm and 3 pm the police shot and killed six Muslim fishermen, also injuring 52 others. It was the second largest police shooting incident in the history of Kerala state since 1957. However, compared to the importance given to other such political events in the history of the state, Beemapalli received little attention in the collective memory of political struggles in Kerala.

The shooting incident in Beemapalli involved the residents of Cheriyathura, a neighboring area dominated by Latin Catholics, a prominent OBC (Other Backward Classes) community among Christians. Latin Catholic and Muslim fishing communities have lived in their respective neighbourhoods for quite a long time. Instances of past conflicts that occurred between them have been described as ‘communal riots’. The dominant narrative of Beemapalli killings always tried to portray the police shooting as yet another episode of communal violence.

The report of the Judicial Commission Report headed by Justice Ramakrishnan on the incident was shelved by the V.S.Achuthanandan led Left Democratic front (LDF), until 2011.The subsequent United Democratic Front (UDF) government also did not want to discuss the commission report in the legislative assembly. Moreover, two years ago, the police crime branch approached the Trivandrum first class Judicial Magistrate to drop the existing cases against the police officers who were involved in the killings. Besides this, many who were injured in the police shooting have not been paid any compensation, and are also being regularly harassed with fresh cases being filed against them.

Mainstream political organizations maintained a convenient silence over the killings in Beemapalli. Six years after this incident, only a few Muslim organizations, such as the Solidarity Youth Movement (SYM), the local branches of Muslim League, the district committee of Samastha Kerala Sunni Student Federation (SKSSF), Popular Front of India (PFI) and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) spoke up about the rights of Beemapalli residents and also in support of their struggle for decent livelihoods.

There was very little coverage of the incident in the print and visual media. Madhyamam and Thejas, which are owned by Muslims , were the only newspapers that covered the incident extensively. Both newspapers conducted investigations of the killings and published a series of reports about it. These reports and other legal and political issues related to the killings appeared regularly in these newspapers. As a result, the editors of both newspapers came under threat of being branded as ‘communal/fundamentalist’ from the state and society.

Meanwhile, prominent newspapers in Kerala reported the police version of the killings according to which, the ‘violent mob’ of Beemapalli entered the Cheriyathura area with ‘explosives from Nagpur’ and tried to attack the Latin Catholic Church in an attempt to kill the small Latin Catholic community there. The police thus claimed that the shootings happened in an attempt to rescue the Latin Catholic community. Almost all the newspapers, including the English language ones, such as The Indian Express and The Hindu, as well as Malayalam newspapers, like Malayalam Manorama, and Mathrubhumi, reported and thus reaffirmed the police version of the incident.

Different fact finding teams led by civil rights organizations, such as PUCL (People Union of Civil Liberty) and NCHRO (National Confederation of Human Rights Organizations), found that the shooting took place in a Beemapalli residential area and there was no evidence of any attacks targeting the Cheriyathura residential area or the Church. The minutes emanating from the all-party meetings just after the police shooting also point to the fact that after the incident, the church authorities did not in any way claim that it had been attacked. Even the Latin Catholic Solidarity Committee’s Bishop Susapaakyam did not claim that ‘communal violence’ had happened in Beemapalli. However, a few days later the church authorities began to follow the mainstream narrative of the alleged attack.

Paying attention to the politics of ‘naming’ of the Beemapalli incident will help to unpack the police and dominant media versions. In the days following the incident, the police and the media referred to it as the ‘Cheriyathura firing’. This falsely indicates the misconception that the Muslim fishing community of Beemapalli entered and attacked Cheriyathura, when the journalists and fact-finding teams who went beyond the police version found that there was no such thing as church attack or any Muslims entering into the area of Cheriyathura. But in order to refer to it as a form of ‘communal violence’, the police had to construct this false story that Beemapalli residents attacked Cheriyathura residents. Using this framing, the police made it appear as a legitimate condition of shooting at a ‘communally motivated violent mob’, and that they were trying to protect a weaker Christian community under attack from this ‘violent Muslim mob’, in the process restoring communal harmony. This ‘naming’ of the incident as the ‘Cheriyathura firing’ by the Police gained consensus in Kerala through the media reports. After this fabrication by the police, media personnel told us in many personal interviews that they had decided not to report this particular incident because it was just ‘communal violence’. Journalists argued that if they reported it by speaking about the injured, it would cause further communal divisions and they feared spreading communal violence to other parts of Trivandrum.

Beemapalli means the habitation around the Masjid of Beema the famous and beautiful masjid (and dargah shareef) built in the name of Beema Umma. According to local oral historians, the Masjid’s name came from the name of a Muslim woman saint Syed Unnisa Beema Beevi who was the mother of Shaheed Mahin Abubakar. Mahin Abu Bakar came from Arabia in the 14th century and fought against local upper caste landlords and was eventually murdered. After forty days of the departure of her son, Beema Beevi also died. According to Fatima, an old woman in Beemapalli, most of Beemapalli’s residents converted to Islam from lower castes like Nadar (now a Hindu OBC community). Beemapalli Muslims today are predominantly lower caste converts to Islam.

Most of the Beemapalli residents we interviewed mentioned two important developments that have created increasing tensions with the state, including the police. The tensions arose when local residents migrated to the Gulf in the eighties, which in turn led to an increase in their wealth and resulted in the independent growth and prosperity of the informal Beemapalli market. And finally, there is the successful shrine festival they conduct every year.

According to the Mahallu Jamaat committee (the higher body of administration which is elected by Beemapalli residents), there are around 28,000 Muslims currently living in Beemapalli. The shrine festival is the main life center for them. The main issue behind the May 8-17 conflict was a clash between some of the Beemapalli residents and a few people from outside over the control of the local market. Beemapalli residents viewed this as an attempt to stop the shrine festival and to sabotage the informal market related to it.

The Beemapalli market is famous for its ‘informal economy’ and people from all over Kerala visit it to get ‘foreign’ goods. Thus, Beemapalli is a place that resides within this negotiated space of legality and illegality from the viewpoint of the state. According to some shopkeepers in Beemapalli, famous Malayalam movie directors are constant visitors to the market to buy the latest (‘illegal’) pirated DVDs/CDs of movies. Our interviews with Beemapalli residents showed us that it is the flourishing informal market and autonomous life they had after the Gulf migration which had an impact on the attitude of the state and police. The police and state want to control this market and it was, according to the words of one of our interviewees, their ‘jealousy’ (asooya) towards Beemapalli that led to the clashes. In this sense, the social mobility acquired through Gulf migration and the prosperity of the new non-corporate market had an impact on the attitude of the police and state.

Recently, there has been an increased presence of police in Beemapalli and there are attempts to establish a few more police outposts in the area. Beemapalli residents have questioned this move, and suggest that instead of building more police outposts, the government should concentrate on advancing education by building more schools, since there is only one upper primary school that was established in 1981. The residents wonder why they are building a police station before building a good high school or college in Beemapalli.

It is evident that the incident of the police shooting brought the issues of society and development in Beemapalli to a wider audience. The residents are taking the increased attention from the state as an opportunity to negotiate governmental intervention to improve their livelihoods. Our recent visit shows that amidst the tragic killing of six of their people, the residents of Beemapalli are active in building and sustaining their community’s life.

[Translated by Ashraf Kunnummal. Excerpt from a field report in the Malayalam edited volume Beemapalli Police Vediveppu : Keralam Marakkunnathum Orkkunnathum (Beemapalli Police Shooting : What Kerala Remembers and What Kerala has Forgotten). Edited by Ashraf Kunnummal ( Calicut : Thejas Publication 2012)]

Ashraf Kunnummal studies at University of Johannesburg and can be reached at ashrafk497@gmail.com.

Sadique PK studies at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and can be reached at sad3mpd@gmail.com.

Ubaidurahman works at Media One TV and can be reached at ma.ubaid@gmail.com.