‘For 5 months, my wife and I lived under police protection’

As the crowd claps, E J Jabbar, district president of the Kerala Yukthivadi Sangham (KYS)’s Malappuram branch, says, “Some tricksters and priests light a fire on their heads to claim they have supernatural powers. There is nothing uncanny about it. A wet cloth protects from burns.”

While their active numbers in Kerala are now estimated to be around 4,000, the state has a long history of rationalist thinking.

The first such organisation, Sahodara Sangham, was set up by social reformer Sahodaran Ayyappan in 1917. A rationalist publication, Yukthivadi, was started in 1929 by M C Joseph, C V Kunhiraman, C Krishna and Ramavarma Thampuraman. In the meantime, a Yukthivadi Sangam was set up in 1935. The Kerala Yukthivadi Sangham itself began in 1969.

KYS state general secretary U Kalanadhan says they are strict about their membership. “One should have the grit to abandon religious faith and remain an atheist for life. We have scores of supporters in the cyber world, but many don’t admit it in the open that they are rationalists.”

Rationalists were the first in Kerala to donate their eyes post-death, which later got acceptance among all sections of society, Kalanadhan says. In the last eight years, bodies of 40 rationalists have been handed over to medical colleges for research.

While rationalists have not faced major threats in the state, there have been attacks during debates. “Two years ago, when a huge amount of wealth was recovered from the cellars of Padmanabhaswami temple in Thiruvananthapuram, I argued on a TV show that some of it should be used for the welfare of society. The next day, when I reached Malappuram, my house was attacked by RSS workers,” says Kalanadhan.

Jabbar, a retired schoolteacher, says he became a rationalist in 1976 after reading the Quran, and has been the target of Muslim ire for raising questions about Islam. “In 2001, when I supported a love marriage, Muslim extremists targeted me. For five months, my wife and I lived under police protection. I got threatening calls from the Gulf.”

However, unlike in Maharashtra and Karnataka, physical threats against rationalists in Kerala, Jabbar says, are coming down. The attcks have instead moved to social media platforms and the rationalists have decided to take them on there too.

Says Jabbar, “We had a Facebook group titled Freethinkers. It has been shut down eight times in the last four years, following complaints that we abuse religion. Its membership was 1.3 lakh at the time of the last closure. Now, we have 40,000 members.”

Kalanadhan regrets that while many youngsters are keen to join the rationalist movement, they face opposition from their family and religion.