MALAPPURAM, February 20: Legends are written on the last page of the morning paper. On an inconspicuous Wednesday morning, the legend of Panakkad Syed Muhammadali Shihab Thangal, the Mahatma of Malabar Muslims, is written in the script of golden pulp, of baked kitsch.At three in the afternoon, the honourable Thangal inaugurates Azadhi Restaurant and Cool Bar at Mahe. At 3.30, the honourable Thangal inaugurates MRA Bakery And Cool Bar -- "the taste of Malabar" -- at New Mahe. At four, the honourable Thangal opens Kolathanad Jewellers -- "the golden dream of the proud Kolathunadan heritage" -- at Thalassery.
All these ads are adorned by a stamp-size Shihab Thangal in a black cap. They appear in a newspaper that continues to challenge the social conservatism of Thangal's politics. But the divinity of Thangal can singularly sustain the ad revenue of his reformist opponents. And his kingdom extends beyond the newsprint. Panakkad in Malappuram, a two-hour drive from Calicut, is the epicentre of Muslimpolitics in Kerala. From the pastoral remoteness of Panakkad, Thangal semaphores the course of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).
Shihab Thangal: The healer-in-chief, the supreme guide, the most reverent counsellor, the wisest of men, and the only supplier of oxygen to the Muslim League. In him merge the secrets of ancestry and the exigencies of realpolitik, the mandate of faith and the burden of power. The highest guru of Malabar Muslims is the best friend of the Congress. His official designation, the State president of IUML, is an understatement.
And the House of Thangal in Panakkad is a statement of submission and salvation. He has just returned from a campaign tour in Thiruvananthapuram. Complaints, doubts, pain, disputes, worried matrimony and controlled faith are multiplying in the courtyard. He sits behind a table with scattered papers and soiled currency notes. Amid them the royal smugness of a heavy, golden Mont Blanc. The pen achieves a perfect harmony with the gold-rimmed glasses ofThangal.
It is divinity at work. Shihab Thangal blesses the dirty 20-rupee note, brought by a seeker of prosperity. The holy air released from Thangal's mouth makes that soiled paper a ticket to wealth. Then Thangal listens to quiet whispers and tearful anxieties of the pilgrims -- old women in purdah, young wives with tired children and thin travellers covered with dust. His words are salvation. And he rises from his seat to inaugurate a new jeep. Thangal sits on the passenger's seat, his eyes break the glass shield and travel to the end of the horizon. The camera clicks. The driver turns the key.
Thangal retreats from the Thangal-struck. Entry to this drawing room is restricted to select visitors. In this spartan space, the only diversion is an aquarium of three fish.
The monosyllabic movement of Thangal's lips is almost as quiet as the aquatic rhythm in the glass box. Thangal on social reform: "Malabar Muslims are not so backward. We have schools with the agenda of reformation". Thangal on BabriMasjid: "The Rao Government did a mistake. But the Muslim League in Kerala didn't want to forsake power." Thangal on the issue of Muslims as the victims of Muslim leaders: "That happens only in north India". Thangal on Muslim women in politics: "There are enough men. I don't want more Muslim women in politics".
And Thangal is the only man in Muslim League who doesn't have to contest an election to remain the paramount leader of the League. The party has two Lok Sabha seats both in Kerala. Bombay's Banatwala reaches Parliament through Ponnani in Malabar. The nationalism of Muslim League is another word for the subrural backwardness of Malappuram. Or, it is as remote as Panakkad. Its author is a man who has the mandate of a million hearts. One of the most powerful men in political Islam lives in the periphery of a State where Muslims constitute a meager 20 per cent of the population.
Thangal's power is spiritual, ancestral and political. It started five generations ago, when the first Thangals landed inValapattanam from Yemen. They travelled to Calicut, then to Malappuram, as learned men of healing. "It was business plus religion", says Thanhal. And it was a saga of sacrifice and endurance. "In the early '20s, my great grandfather was banished by the British". Shihab Thangal inherited the spiritual as well as the political mantle of the Thangal magic from his late father, Syed Ahmed Pookkoya Thangal. But this Thangal, now washed in pre-inaugural cologne, has seen the world beyond Malappuram. "For eight years from 1958, I studied at the Cairo University".
The rustle of salvation grows in the courtyard. And Shihab Thangal has to go. Bakeries are waiting. Jewelleries are waiting. Candidates are waiting. You take leave, thank him for the rarest of bananas he offered, for that tea flavoured with the finest spices of Malabar. The House of Thangal, as Alavi, for forty years the manager of ceremony here, says, is an open house. And this house has reduced the distance between religion and politics. The IUML is aparty of permanent power, and Thangal knows that power alone ensures the relevance of his party.
Panakkad Shihab Thangal is power. The air released from his mouth livens the soiled reputation of League politics in Kerala. And the visiting journalist almost faints in the fragrance of the most merciful Thangal?
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
