On May 10, the southern Indian state of Kerala received the news of the death of Soumya Santhosh, a caregiver woman working in Israel's Ashkelon city. The 30-year-old was killed in a retaliatory airstrike by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group. According to a media report, Soumya was killed while she was on a video call with her husband and her nine-year-old child back home.  As the news made media headlines in Kerala, it triggered a political storm. Leaders of various political parties rushed to give condolence messages on Soumya's death on their Facebook pages, as the matter escalated into a communal affair in Kerala, which was reflected in the way her body was received and its posthumous ceremonies.

The problem originated when various leaders interpreted Hamas as a "terrorist organization" and described Soumya as being killed in a "terrorist attack". As the condolence messages were posted, many Muslim youths wrote comments against the usage of terms like 'terrorism' and 'terrorist attack'. For them, Hamas represents an organization committed to defending the Islamic world from Zionist assault.  As pro-Hamas comments filled the condolences posts, the leaders were forced to withdraw their posts or apologize for hurting the sentiments of Muslims. The seriousness of the problem can be illustrated by the fact that stalwart leaders, including a former chief minister of Kerala, had to drop words mentioning 'terrorism' in their posts. The conflict escalated as Hindus and Christians reacted to the stance of Muslim youth through social media

There are two reasons for the intensified responses of Muslim youths. First, Kerala is home to many Christians and Muslims who now approach the Israel-Palestine conflict primarily through a religious lens. Though Israel is a Jewish state, many of Kerala's Christians share an emotional bond with the Jews and identify with Zionist politics. Such pro-Israeli attitude denotes a sharp U-turn in the outlook of Christians who, till a decade ago, were never concerned about Israel's religious identity. 

At the same time, anti-Islamic sentiments in India and elsewhere affect Hindu-Christian youth in Kerala, and they associate Islam religion with Islamist terror. Further, a section of Hindus and Christians working in Israel used this opportunity to express their anti-Muslim sentiments.  

Muslim hardliners' view

However, for the Muslims, predominantly Muslim youth, Palestine is a symbol of Zionist-Christian 'tyranny'. These Muslim youths see Israel–US axis as evidence to argue that the Christian world was supporting the Jews, and what is going on is nothing but persecution of Muslims. Because of these perceptions, the Malayalee youth in Kerala and the Gulf reacted emotionally to the pro-Israel stance. 

Of course, Palestine evokes strong sentiments among Muslims in Kerala. Nevertheless, it was not just a religious issue in Kerala, as some Muslim youth think. Left parties have been condemning Israel's occupation of Palestine since the 1970s, especially with an eye on Muslim votes. Not only that, the Left parties used to forcefully highlight the Israeli-Palestinian issue in Kerala society, apparently to gain the confidence of the Muslim community. 

However, Islamic politics has been influencing the Muslim youth of Kerala over the last decade, and this political view prompts young Muslims to come up with an intense response - as seen in the recent controversy - which is different from that of the Left view. 

Hindu right-wing view

Interestingly for the Hindus of Kerala, especially for Hindus with right-wing political ideology, the attack on Hamas or Palestine represents a metaphorical success over the Muslims, whom the Hindu right-wingers view as the traditional enemy.  Further, for the Hindu right-conservatives, Israel represents an evergreen hero fighting "Islamic terror". 

With such political imagery, Hindu right-wingers hail Israel's defense system, military, and strategies in dealing with Hamas. Interestingly, they dream that India, like Israel, must be strengthened militarily in order to be able to fight Islamist terror promoted by Pakistan. The heated social media debates after Soumya's death demonstrate the changing communal alliance between Hindus and Christians in the state. 

These debates show that the strained Israeli-Palestine relationship and armed conflicts will have enduring consequences for Kerala, though neither Israel nor Palestine has any severe significance in the everyday life of people in Kerala. Of course, Israel is a holy land for the Kerala Christians, and the rich among them have been visiting the West Asian country after the development of the tourism industry there. However, these are recent developments, as millions of Christians in Kerala have never expressed their political sympathy towards Israel or Zionism for many years. 

The ongoing political strife between Muslims and Christians indicates that Kerala's society is undergoing tremendous changes and that Israel is no more just land for religious pilgrimage. On the contrary, a group of Muslims, with radical political dreams, views the entire issue merely as a Zionist usurpation and anti-Muslim propaganda. This section does not recognize the complicated socio-political realities and the infighting and factionalism among the Palestinians.

 Unfortunately, the developments surrounding Soumya's tragic death in Israel brought out starkly the social and religious faultlines in a politically conscious Kerala where Hindu, Christian, and Muslim communities had previously always coexisted.

Religious polarisation

Firstly, the political class found it expedient to either observe silence or keep away from the Soumya issue, and this strategy was reflected through the funeral ceremony. No one representing the Kerala government attended the funeral though Jonathan Zadka, Consul General of Israel in southern India, was present. On the contrary, most leaders of the Indian National Congress and the leaders of Communist parties abstained from visiting Soumya's grieving family while the BJP was seen to play a sympathetic role. The only government representative was H. Dineshan, Collector of Idukki District, but he represented Arif Muhammad Khan, the Governor of Kerala. 

On the other hand, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan visited the family as a representative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but such a move was also aimed to send a political message in Kerala.

Secondly, Soumya's posthumous functions and the absence of government representatives or the political class gave the impression that pro-Israel or anti-Hamas stances were not politically correct and would not go down well in politically-conscious Kerala where the Communists returned to power for a second successive term in the state in elections last month  

On the one hand, it also creates the impression that all Muslims in Kerala were pro-Palestine and that they were not saddened by the death of Soumya, an ordinary woman who went abroad to earn a living for her family. Such narratives give the impression that the problem is not Palestine or Hamas, but a cocktail of religion and politics. 

However, the mainstream media has been careful not to use the term ‘terrorism’ to refer to Hamas, though social media platforms and right-wing media used the word freely to describe the Palestinian militant outfit. Additionally, live reports from Keralites settled in Israel complicated the issue further. Though these live Facebook reports were intended to update about the conflict in Israel, most of them ended up interpreting the issue as a Christian–Muslim conflict.  

As these trends show, Kerala society is undergoing a period of intense religious polarisation. Sadly, global issues and the tragic death of Soumya only exacerbated the religious confrontations. Israel's attempt to take over her family and give her honorary citizenship is also seen as sending the wrong political and social messages. 

Additionally, the position of the state's Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic government and various political parties is sending the message that religion is the basic factor of social life of Kerala - which it is not - and political parties take their stances on sectarian lines purely for political gain alone 

(The writer teaches at the NSS Hindu College, Changanacherry, Kerala. The views are personal. He can be contacted at vineethmathoor@gmail.com)