Since the news of the Union government’s move to ban the Popular Front of India (PFI), there has been a flurry of media interest in the organisation with several articles and op-eds commenting on its ‘radical Islamist’ activities and alleged involvement of its members in violent protests, religious violence, and revenge killings of Sangh Parivar activists in coastal Karnataka and Kerala. However, this narrow focus on PFI’s links with violence, some proven and some unsubstantiated, presents a simplistic, incomplete picture of the organisation and its complex politics.
PFI employed discourses of dignity and self-confidence, and campaigned for Muslims to assert their citizenship rights. It projected itself as the only organisation which could defend Indian Muslims against ‘Hindutva fascism’ by offering various forms of protection—legal, political, developmental, and physical. These underreported aspects of PFIs politics provided a sense of empowerment and played a key role in attracting young Muslims who feel increasingly insecure in an environment of violent, aggressively Islamophobic Hindu nationalist ideology. Understanding the PFI phenomenon in its entirety is necessary to understand the context that made its rise possible and why simply banning it is an incomplete solution to check communal conflict.
Academic research on the movement has highlighted three key aspects of PFIs political strategies—legal pragmatism, welfare activism, and projection of physical strength. ‘Legal pragmatism’ is a term coined by German political sociologist Arndt-Walter Emmerich to explain how PFI used legal activism, aid, and education to mobilise support among their constituents. This involved educating Muslims about their constitutional rights and showing them how legal knowledge could be used to fight against state apparatus and media which are seen as biased against Muslims.
In their 2021 paper in Asian Survey, scholars Santhosh and Paleri observed that PFI organised workshops across the country, mostly in Muslim-majority areas, to create awareness on fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, Right to Information Act, provisions of laws like UAPA, police procedures to be followed in arrests, and processes to file police complaints and legal petitions. In his 2020 monograph on PFI, Emmerich described how PFI provided legal aid to victims of communal riots such as the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, helping them obtain compensation, and also provided legal counsel to Muslims who alleged being falsely accused in criminal cases. PFI also actively filed defamation cases against media outlets for their negative portrayal of Muslims. Emmerich, Santhosh and Paleri have noted that this assertive language of legal and political rights provided a sense of empowerment to Muslims, especially in places like coastal Karnataka where Hindu nationalist vigilante groups often attack members of the community and police are seen as biased. Santhosh and Paleri quote an activist of the Social Democratic Party India, PFI’s political wing, in Mangalore who says, “We used to fear police station(s) and court proceedings earlier. But once PFI came, we started learning laws and (the) Constitution and became much aware of the police and they could not bully us any longer. Earlier we never thought ourselves as the citizens of the country with so many rights” (p. 575).
The active involvement of PFI activists in social welfare and relief efforts following disasters and communal riots has also been instrumental in gaining support among Muslims. In cases like the Muzaffarnagar riots, Emmerich noted that PFI was seen to be stepping up when the state failed to respond adequately. A founding ideologue of PFI whom I interviewed in Kozhikode in June for my research said that their relief work during the Covid-19 pandemic had helped them gain influence in parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Through voluntary work and other efforts such as the ‘School Chalo’ campaign, scholarships for students, and financial aid, PFI aimed to gain legitimacy and sympathy as an organisation that could provide for the material needs of Indian Muslims, majority of whom are socio-economically backward.
Along with this legal and developmental protection, scholars have highlighted that demonstrating physical preparedness to confront Hindutva groups was also a key aspect of PFI’s positioning of itself as a defender of Indian Muslims. PFI leaders propagated a discourse of self-defence, arguing that Muslims, Dalits, and other marginalised communities must be prepared to defend themselves against attacks from Hindu nationalist groups since the state may be unwilling or unable to protect them.
The ‘Freedom Parades’ that PFI organised annually in Kerala and coastal Karnataka, among other places, were described by scholars Santhosh and Paleri as “a visible exhibition of well-trained and disciplined warriors among Muslim youth who are ready to protect the community” (p. 576). The PFI ideologue I interviewed argued that such a “muscular message” was necessary to deter Hindu nationalist groups from attacking Muslims and other marginalised groups. Although he stated that PFI condemned violence, Emmerich, in his study, quoted PFI activists who admitted to using violence at times and justified this based on the leadership’s discourse on self-defence.
Even as PFI used the language of constitutionalism and legal rights, it also drew on Islam as a resource for its politics which drew criticism from several Muslim religious groups. PFIs membership was limited to practising Muslims and it used verses from the Quran in its campaigns and messages. Santhosh and Paleri argued that PFI positions itself as a defender not only of Muslims but of Islam, and it “presents Islam as a religious and ethical binding force as well as the ultimate repertoire of political action and mobilization” (p. 1015). They are sceptical of PFI’s outwardly secular discourse and argued that its ideology was centred on religion and aimed to create a monolithic “moral Muslim community” by policing its boundaries. PFI’s involvement in moral vigilantism in coastal Karnataka and in violence related to ‘Islamic’ issues such as the riots in Bengaluru in 2020 and the infamous hand-chopping case in Kerala, both over derogatory remarks on the Prophet Mohammed, all lend credibility to this argument. Emmerich also observed that some PFI and SDPI activists advocated for Sharia as personal law for Muslims to continue, hinting at resistance to internal reform of the community.
The use of Islam as a political resource, along with an emotional discourse of victimhood and a confrontational message of self-defence that condoned violence, led to legitimate concerns among Muslim political and religious leaders in Kerala that PFI was ‘extremist’ and it was radicalising youth. However, as many Muslim leaders I interviewed in Kasaragod in north Kerala observed, with the rise of hegemonic Hindu nationalism, Muslims are growing increasingly insecure and as a result, despite all the criticism against these organisations, there was greater support for PFI and SDPI as a force that could offer them protection.
During fieldwork that I undertook in Kasaragod and Kozhikode in May and June this year as part of my Master’s thesis, I interacted with several Muslim religious and political leaders who spoke of this fear and insecurity among many members of the community, especially youth. Incidents in north India such as the bulldozing of the homes of Muslim protestors in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, mob lynching of Muslims, and hate speeches constantly reach people on their mobile phones and fuels the sense of being under attack.
When the state itself is seen as perpetrating the attack on Muslims, PFI’s pitch that it is the only defence gained legitimacy. A state-level leader of the Sunni Students Federation (SSF) in Kerala told me: “People who know things and are aware don’t support PFI. But among youth, when they see these issues continuously, in UP someone has been killed, hijab issue, beef issue, hate speeches, then they feel we need something to save us right. And from this side, that fear is being created too (by PFI). “You are in trouble. Your life is in danger. Who will save us?” So they feel they need someone with muscle and they feel support towards the PFI.” If this is the situation in Kerala, where Muslims have historically been relatively more secure and mainstream than in other parts of India, it is likely that the fear and insecurity is greater elsewhere in places like Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.
Whether PFI was a “global terror recruiter” aiming to establish an Islamic state as alleged by the NIA will be known only after the agency validates its charges in court, in what one hopes will be an unbiased, neutral investigation. However, PFI certainly aimed to establish itself as a defence against Hindu nationalist groups by providing legal, developmental, and physical forms of protection to Muslims, many of whom feel failed by the state and supposedly secular parties. Unless the rise of Hindu majoritarianism is challenged and a secular, inclusive state is revived, the ban on PFI will not address the context that made its rise possible.
(The author is a journalist and researcher who studied the politics of SDPI and IUML in north Kerala during her Global Affairs MSc at King’s College London. Respondents quoted above have not been named as per the Research Ethics Guidelines of KCL. Fieldwork for this research was funded by the Henry Luce Foundation as part of its Muslims in India project. The views expressed are the author’s own.)