indus constitute 56 per
cent of Kerala population,
but political parties of religious
minorities in the State’s ruling
front have found some strange
methods of demography to
project them as a minority
with the devious objective of
overtaking the majority community in all aspects of social
life, starting with representation
in the State Cabinet.
According to certain allies
of the Congress’ in the ruling
UDF coalition, Hindus in
Kerala are no bigger force than
the Muslims and Christians
who together account for 44
per cent of total population of
Kerala. Muslims constitute
25 per cent of Kerala and
Christians 19 per cent.
The proponent of this
strange idea is PC George,
Kerala Government chief whip,
C h i e f M i n i s t e r O om m e n
Chandy’s personal troubleshooter and vice-chairman of
the Kerala Congress (M), a
political party of the Christians
based mainly in Kottayam.
George has claimed that the
theory that Hindus are religious
majority in Kerala was a myth.
Though the primary aim of
George, a Catholic, is to justify the Muslim League’s claim
for a fifth berth in the Chandy
Cabinet and his own party’s
demand for a Rajya Sabha seat,
observers are apprehensive that
his theory could lead to a situation where the minorities
can upset the social harmony.
Once MLA Anoop Jacob of
the Kerala Congress (J) takes
oath, minorities will have 11
Ministers (55 per cent) in the
20-member Chandy Cabinet
though their combined share in
the population is 44 per cent.
Minorities have a clear
upper hand in the Chandy
Government. George was made
the Chief Whip instead of
Minister but he is enjoying the
status of and all the privileges
available to a Cabinet member.
It is also a fact that important portfolios like Industries,
F i n a n c e , L aw, E d u c a t i o n ,
P u b l i c Wo r k s a n d Wa t e r
Resources are held by Ministers
from the minorities.
Stating that the Muslim
League deserved to get seven
(“not five or six”) Cabinet
berths if its vote-base seen in
the last Assembly election was
taken into account, George
told the media the other day
that the CPI(M) was opposing
the minorities’ just rights in
their efforts to play the “majority communalism card”.
“As per the latest census,
Christians and Muslims constitute 44 per cent of the total
Kerala population. The scheduled castes and scheduled tribes
form 12 per cent and 27 per
cent (among the Hindus) of the
population are Ezhavas. This
shows Hindus are not a majority in Kerala,” George said.
According to observers,
George is being extra-clever by
excluding Dalits and Adivasis
from Hindus. Equally strange
is his exclusion of Ezhava, a
backward Hindu caste. Experts
in population studies have no
idea as to how George is going
to justify his premises but they
say that he could be trying to
start some controversy.
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