The coconut tree that refused to fall

Nearly four decades ago, in a small village in north Kerala’s Muslim-dominated Malappuram district, a coconut tree became an unlikely symbol of communal anxiety and tension.

The tree stood inside the compound of a Hindu household. Its fronds leaned towards the neighbouring mosque. Every few weeks, ripe coconuts would fall onto its clay-tiled roof. Tiles cracked. Rainwater seeped in. The mosque committee complained. The Hindu family refused to cut the tree as the coconuts contributed to their meagre monthly income.

With each falling coconut, grievances quietly accumulated. The son of the Hindu household, now in his political youth, had begun leaning towards Hindutva. For him, the mosque was no longer just a neighbour. The tree no longer just a tree.

As tension mounted, elders from both communities decided to take the matter to the most respected Muslim leader in Malabar, Panakkad Syed Mohammedali Shihab Thangal (1936–2009), the supremo of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) whose moral authority extended far beyond religion and party.

The Thangal listened patiently to both sides. Then, he reached into his pocket, took out some money, handed it to the president of the mosque committee, and declared, “The masjid has to be demolished. The clay roof-tiles should be replaced with concrete.”

Among believers in Malabar, there is a popular conviction, call it superstition if you will, that if the first donation comes from the Thangal, his blessings will take the project to successful completion. That night, both parties returned to their village.

When the Hindu household’s old matriarch heard what had happened, she chided her son for the curse he had brought upon the family and rushed to Panakkad that very night. The wise old man received her with grace and, in his famously gentle manner, dismissed her promises to cut down the guilty tree and her apologies for her indiscreet son.

“The coconut tree is the elixir of our life,” the Thangal said. “It should be protected at any cost.”

The mosque was rebuilt in concrete. The coconut tree still stands. In Malappuram, this story is remembered not as a miracle but as a simple example of how social disputes are supposed to end.

Last year, when the Shree Lakshmi Narasimha Murthy Vishnu temple in Punnathala village in Malappuram hosted an iftar for hundreds of Muslims, the event grabbed national headlines. Television studios framed it as an extraordinary spectacle of communal harmony. The temple authorities dismissed the hype, saying they had been doing it for decades.

“The times have become so cynical that normal social gestures of the past have come to be seen as extraordinary spectacles of communal harmony,” observes Thoppil Shajahan, a Malappuram-based social observer.

The results of the recent local body elections were another fitting reply to the canards against Malappuram. The Congress–IUML combine won all the wards in the district panchayat, with hundreds of Christians and Hindus winning on IUML tickets. As per the alliance deal, the vice-president’s post went to the IUML — Vishnumoorthy Theyyam, a Dalit Hindu woman, who had won from a general seat, was chosen.

In a district where Hindus are said to be threatened, a large majority of Hindus still cast their votes in favour of the two Muslim candidates representing the Muslim League and the CPI(M) in almost every election, leaving the BJP with just about 65,000 votes. That a BJP candidate promised voters quality beef if elected became a hilarious side story of the campaign.

According to Malappuram native and prominent Malayalam writer Alamkode Leela Krishnan, Muslim-majority (70.25 per cent) Malappuram “can be the world’s most beautiful experiment in pluralism”. No major communal conflict has occurred in this district since the 1921 Mappila rebellion, which was an eruption fermented largely by British colonial policies.

Malappuram’s Muslim leadership, Krishnan argues, has historically stood for communal harmony. The Hindus, in turn, have complete faith in the local leadership and its commitment to people’s wellbeing, regardless of religious identity.

Begin here, and Malappuram’s story of everyday accommodation and mutual responsibility falls into place. A story of resistance to the labels — ‘mini-Pakistan’, ‘jihadist hub’ — the national narrative keeps trying to pin on the district. The labels have political uses, but they do not explain why Hindu priests accept donations from Muslim families, why Muslim farmers tend lotus ponds for temple rituals, why mosque courtyards become provision centres for tens of thousands of poor families regardless of religion.

This is an explainer about those habits, and the attempt to overwrite (and override) them.

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Malappuram is not a small place. The 2011 Census recorded a population of 4,112,920 people, spread across towns and a dense network of villages. Muslims form the majority at 70.2 per cent, Hindus 27.6 per cent and Christians 1 to 2 per cent of the population. The district’s sex ratio of 1,098 females per 1,000 males and its literacy figures place it among Kerala’s socially advanced districts on many human development indicators. Nearly 44 per cent live in urban areas.

These figures are helpful, but they do not explain the social routines that make neighbourliness practical here.

On the outskirts of Valanchery in Malappuram, the Moonnakkal Juma Masjid opens its compound thrice a month to a long and patient queue of women. Token in hand, each woman steps forward to collect a monthly quota of rice, sometimes also wheat and sugar, distributed from a large community store run by the masjid committee. Donations come from worshippers who buy and give as part of religious custom.

Outside the mosque, a cluster of rice shops exists largely for this service. Inside, a modest processing facility cleans, packs and issues sacks as per a token system. The beneficiaries — over 28,000 families across 171 mahals in 21 panchayats — are a mixed lot.

“Religion has never been a criterion,” explains K. Anfal, a masjid committee member. More than half the families collecting rice are Hindus and Christians. Many locals say they prefer the mosque’s arrangement to the public distribution system because of better quality and steadier quantities.

In Edakkulam village, Muslim farmers tend lotus ponds that supply puja flowers to some of Kerala’s most famous temples. Last year, families from Edakkulam supplied more than 100 kg of lotus for a major thulabharam ritual at Guruvayur.

In Kottakkal, the Palappuram mosque’s mimbar is donated by P.S. Varier, founder of the Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala. The Panakkad Thangal family continues to act as mediator and moral anchor in Malappuram’s public life.

At Kaliyattakkavu Bhagavathy Temple in Munniyur, devotees first visit the maqbara of Mamburam Thangal before beginning the festival procession. At Thunchanparambu near Tirur, the birthplace of Thunchathu Ezhuthachan, thousands of children, many from Muslim families, are initiated into their letters during Vidyarambham (Vijayadashmi day), with Muslim volunteers distributing milk and snacks.

Against these textures of everyday life, a political industry of manufactured suspicion has repeatedly tried to nationalise local affairs.

When the Air India Express flight crashed at Kozhikode airport in August 2020, local residents were the first responders. They used private cars to ferry the injured, guarded passengers’ belongings, donated blood and organised food for survivors.

No one asked who was Hindu, who was Muslim. Similar scenes unfolded during the 2001 Kadalundi train accident and other disasters.

Malappuram’s real story lies elsewhere. In the coconut tree that was not cut. In the temple that serves iftar without ceremony. In the rice sack handed to a Christian widow inside a mosque courtyard.