Ayodhya of the South – A timeline of ‘time immemorial’

The masterchef of Malayadipatti

Last Christmas, 52-year-old Syed Abutahir woke his family up before dawn. It was time for the annual pilgrimage to the hilltop dargah just outside Madurai dedicated to Sufi saint Hazrath Sultan Sikandar Badshah Aulia. It is a three-hour drive from his home in Rajapalayam to the foot of the hill in Madurai.

If things hadn’t gone horribly wrong that day, it would have been the 22nd time Abutahir made an offering at the mausoleum of the saint. Before the truck arrived to take them to Madurai, Abutahir snuck away with his goat to the hillock right behind his house. He wanted to graze his pet one last time before sacrificing it. 

“I raise a goat every year like my own child. Some rich people simply buy an animal for sacrifice,” he said, “Sacrifice counts when you give up something dear to you.” 

Abutahir named his elder son Sikkandar Bhatshah (sic.), believing that his birth is a boon from the patron saint of the dargah. 

Until a few years ago, he would make the pilgrimage during the Deepavali holidays. But that meant his Hindu neighbours in Rajapalayam could not join him for the trip to the spectacular hilltop shrine from where all of Madurai is visible. 

For the last few years, this Sunni Muslim family has moved the date of their Sufi pilgrimage to Christmas. Just so their non-Brahmin Hindu neighbours could join the feast.

At first light on December 25, 2024, Abutahir’s friend Pacakivel Eswaran arrived with his mini-truck and they set off for the hill – 20 excited men, women, and children – some Hindu, some Muslim.

“Apart from Eshwaran, there were eight other Hindus. We travelled like one family – very jolly, all looking forward to a feast,” Abutahir said when we spoke to him over the phone on July 4. 

When they reached the foot of the hill around 6 am, everybody first trooped to a nearby mosque to refresh and rest for an hour before scaling the hill. Ten minutes into their climb, all the revelry came to a sudden halt. 

“Police Sub-Inspector Kamban was waiting for us with his men on the path leading to the dargah. It was like they knew we were coming,” Abutahir said. “They told us that animal sacrifice at the dargah had been banned.” 

The pilgrims immediately protested and demanded to know who issued the ban orders and why. Members of the Sikkandar Dargah committee, the local jamaat, and several community leaders soon joined the agitated pilgrims. 

The police allegedly responded with an instant crackdown. They hauled Abutahir, 20 other Muslim men, and the goat to the Thiruparankundram police station half-a-kilometre away. 

After separating the Hindus in the group, an FIR was lodged against only the Muslim men accusing them of unlawful assembly, threatening a government servant, wrongful restraint, obscenity and nuisance under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

“The police separated the women, children, and the Hindu neighbours who travelled with us,” Abutahir said. “The jamaat arranged for them to wait at the local mosque. We were made to wait at the police station till late evening.”

More than six months had passed but Abutahir still struggled to make sense of that entire episode when we spoke to him over the phone on July 4. He was just grateful that the Thiruparankundram police had not yet summoned him.

The events of that day set off a major political upheaval in the state just ahead of the Assembly elections. Led by the Hindu Munnani, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Hindutva forces launched a massive statewide campaign demanding complete control of the hill. 

They demanded not just a ban on animal sacrifice but also a ban on prayers at the dargah in Madurai, saying that the entire rock is the body of Hindu god Murugan.

“People are saying Hindus are hurt by sacrificing animals,” Abutahir said during our first phone call on July 4. “But I have gone to the dargah during Deepavali holidays for 20 years. Hindus would be celebrating at the Murugan temple but nobody stopped us. Many Hindus would also eat the mutton and chicken served by us.”

Interestingly, when the police booked them, no Hindutva organisation was in the picture, not even the local unit of the BJP. No Hindu resident of Thiruparankundram had submitted a formal complaint to the police against the animal sacrifice. 

In fact, in their defence, the dargah committee told the court that the dargah is a syncretic place of worship that attracts pilgrims from both or all religions. They pointed out that one of the main persons who performed the Halal ceremony at the dargah is not a Muslim but a Hindu named Paramasivam who belongs to the Mukkulathor or Thevar community.

Paramasivam’s son, a devotee of the dargah, signed a sworn statement to this effect, saying his family performs Halal and collects a portion of the meat as part of an ancient ritual barter.

The FIR registered by the police lists the Thiruparankundram Revenue Inspector, Thirukannan, as the complainant in the case. In his written complaint to the police, Thirukannan accused the Muslims of “blocking the public path” leading to the Muslim shrine. When we called the officer, he said we needed permission from the Madurai Collector MS Sangeetha to speak to him.

Why would one set of pilgrims have a problem with another set visiting the same shrine? Did any pilgrim complain to the authorities that they were disturbed by Abutahir and his group? The complaint by the Revenue Inspector doesn’t elaborate. The FIR quotes the officer saying the protesters “prevented the police from doing their duty” and “used inappropriate words and slogans” such as “down with police anarchy”.

Abutahir said, “I do not even remember seeing the Revenue Inspector when the whole incident happened. How did he become the complainant?” 

The Madurai Commissioner of Police J Loganathan reiterated the allegations made by the Revenue Inspector in his submission to the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court. The police chief made no mention of the fact that Hindus from Rajapalayam travelled with their Muslim neighbours like a family to sacrifice a goat and participate in Sufi rituals. 

The Commissioner of Police and the District Collector refused to meet with TNM despite repeated attempts to contact them over several months during which we visited their offices multiple times and waited hours for an appointment.

After speaking to us for about 15 minutes on July 4, Abutahir abruptly disconnected the call and went incognito. He blocked contact with us and the jamaat members who connected us to him.

Finally on September 23, a source called to say that they had managed to convince Abutahir to meet us. They said that he agreed to speak after Madurai-based human rights lawyer S Vanchinathan offered to represent his case.

Early the next morning, we reached Rajapalayam, a town in Virudhunagar district known for the world famous Rajapalayam Hound.

Abutahir lives in a suburb called Malayadipatti with his wife Syeda Banu (44) and younger son Appas (19) amidst Hindu neighbours. Their firstborn, named after the Sufi saint, is studying in Chennai. Theirs is the only Muslim family in the neighbourhood.

It turned out that Abutahir is the master chef of Malayadipatti. For 30 years, he has made his living by stirring up a feast at Hindu functions. Far from being a marginalised minority, Abutahir’s family feels celebrated by the people of Malayadipatti for their food.

Before we could start our interview, their neighbour Vijayalakshmi (32) rushed into their kitchen without stopping for permission. She’d run out of coriander and some spices. “I was there when it all happened on Christmas. I would’ve told you the full story, but breakfast is late. Speak to anybody in the village; they’ll only say good things about Abu Anna (brother),” she said before darting out.

Syeda Banu told us that they had become closer to their Hindu neighbours after they fell out with their extended family that lives in Madurai. “Earlier, many of our Muslim relatives would come with us for the pilgrimage. But they had some differences with us and stopped visiting the dargah around three years ago.”

Since the feud, the only families that travel with them to the dargah are their Hindu neighbours. “People of all castes live in this village but there are no Muslims and no mosque. The nearest Muslim settlement is more than 5 km away,” said Appas. “Growing up, all my friends were Hindu. I made my first Muslim friend when I entered college.”

Asked about his vanishing act, Abutahir said that the local police in the area had been following his movements. “I feel like my phone is being tapped. The police have been asking questions. They want to know if I’m associated with any radical groups; if I know how to use arms and ammunition,” he said. “I was told to lie low and not speak to the media or political parties.”

Abutahir added, “I do not want any trouble. I just want the truth to be heard by the court. Speak to my neighbours who came with us to Madurai.”

Appas takes us to meet one of the families – Pacakivel Poomari (52), her husband, Madeshwarai (53), their son, Pacakivel Eswaran (25), and his wife Manimekalai Thevar (22). The family, which belongs to the Mudaliar community, appears steeped in religion. Their house and its courtyard resemble a temple.  

Pointing to the courtyard, Poomari said, “This is where Abutahir hosts his guests during Muslim festivals. He does Halal and prepares the meat near his house. He then cooks and serves it here.” 

She also said that they visit the Sufi shrine in Madurai because they believe in its divinity.

“It’s not like we go there only for the feast. We camp for three days on the hilltop and participate in the prayers,” her son Eswaran added.

Eswaran, who describes himself as a dedicated follower of lord Murugan, said, “We also visit the Murugan temple at the base of the hill after praying at the dargah.”

He said that Abutahir cooks all the meals for their family functions – weddings, festivals, baby showers. “Saivam (vegetarian) on the day of the main event and asaivam (non-vegetarian) the day after. The goat is slaughtered in Halal style by Abutahir and we all eat it.”

He said that Malayadipatti has people from all castes living harmoniously. “Mudaliars, Nadars, Thevars, Acharis we all live together. In fact, my wife is a Thevar and there was no major opposition to our love marriage,” he said.

Aren’t there Dalits in the neighbourhood? “They don’t get along with us and we don’t get along with them. They live separately near the statue of Emmanuel Sekharan,” Eswaran said.

He said that since the Christmas incident, the people of the neighbourhood have stood by Abutahir. “We have offered to give sworn statements saying we were with him last Christmas, but it has not been recorded,” he said.   

Narrating their side of the Christmas incident, Khan tells the Chief Minister in his petition, “ACPs Guruswamy and Shanmugham stopped us from climbing the hill and stubbornly refused to allow the sacrifice, saying they had orders from their superiors.”

Khan said that when the officers were pressed by jamaat members, they claimed that the orders were from the District Collector. When the jamaat checked with the Collector’s office, they found that no such order had been issued.

The officers then claimed that the Revenue Development Officer (RDO) had issued the orders on behalf of the district administration. But when the Muslims approached the RDO’s office, they too said that no such order had been issued to the police, Khan’s letter said.

Khan turned down our request to meet and conveyed that he is exhausted from talking about the issue. The president of the dargah committee, Arif Khan, who shared the petition copy with TNM, said that the CM’s office never responded to their appeal for an investigation into the police excesses.

The FIR against Abutahir and the 20 other Muslim men has now become a small footnote in the thousands of pages of annexures stapled to a raft of writ petitions filed by Hindus, Muslims, and Jains before the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court. Each community is seeking greater control over the hill.

Even as Hindus and Muslims tussle to establish the antiquity of their claims, the Jains have provided archaeological evidence claiming that they established shrines much before the other two religions.

Our investigation dissects the evolving legal and political equations surrounding this conflict, detailing how police and bureaucratic actions created a vacuum that the BJP rapidly filled to escalate its Hindutva agenda. 

Crucially, it explores why local secular groups feel profoundly disappointed by the police and the DMK-led state machinery, which they view as having actively undermined the Dravidian Model's commitment to social justice.

1 hill, 2 peaks, 3 religions

The name Thiruparankundram might not resonate with those outside the world of Murugan devotees. In classical Tamil, Thiru means venerable. Param is a reference to Murugan and means the lord-god or the immaculate being. And Kundru or Kundram means hill.

Thiru-Param-Kundram, the sacred hill of lord Murugan or Muruga.