Kerala CM rejects cleric's call to keep women home

Kerala Chief Minister V D Satheesan on Wednesday rejected a call by influential cleric Kanthapuram A P Aboobacker Musliyar that women should stay confined to their homes.

Kanthapuram, often called the Grand Mufti of India, had warned that bringing young women onto public platforms with unrelated men was un-Islamic. He said the Quran teaches women to remain quietly at home, and that great destruction would follow if they entered the public arena. The remarks came after women took part in Eid Milad-un-Nabi celebrations, and after a circular from Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama barred women from public stages.

Satheesan told reporters after the Cabinet meeting that neither Congress nor the government agreed. He called the stance unfit for progressive Kerala and a 19th-century idea in the 21st. Women should live in the mainstream and take part in all activities, he said. He also said the Quran was being misinterpreted, citing businesswoman Khadija, military leader Aisha, queen Bilqis, and a woman who challenged a mahr cut in Caliph Umar's court.

Coalition ally Indian Union Muslim League took a softer line. State chief Panakkad Sayyid Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal said the cleric might have meant women's safety in a society where women are often targeted. Several Muslim scholars backed Kanthapuram. Muslim women on social media pushed back.

This is a live fight inside the UDF. Satheesan put clear distance from both the cleric and his own ally's cushioning of the remarks. Kerala has spent years putting more Muslim women into local bodies and public life, including IUML's first woman MLA, Fathima Thahilya.

The BJP has already attacked the UDF over silence from ministers. For readers elsewhere in India, it is a familiar argument about who gets to define a community's public rules.

Watch whether IUML hardens or softens further, and whether other UDF voices join Satheesan in public. The circular and the cleric's defence are already on the record. The political cost will show up in how women candidates and local committees are treated next.