Urging the gathering to stay united for Gaza, he gave a broad picture of the destruction that has already been wrought on churches, mosques, universities, and even United Nations institutions, besides the deaths of scores of residents, including children. He repeatedly said that the conflict in Palestine is not just an issue for Arab Muslims in the region but also concerning all, including a sizable population of Christians who have lived there for many generations.

The Solidarity Youth Movement (SYM) is the youth wing of the Kerala unit of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. It held the event as part of its ongoing campaign titled "uproot Hindutva and apartheid Zionism."

A few days later, a similar rally was held in Palakkad, the eastern town of Kerala that shares a border with Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, where the chief guest was Dr Mohammad Makram Balawi, director general of the League of Parliamentarians for al-Quds, an independent organisation comprising members of parliament from around the world in support of al-Quds (Jerusalem), who addressed the gathering virtually, explained how matters were worsening in Palestine, and called the attack a “genocide”.

Mashal's attendance invited strong condemnation from Naor Gilon, Israel's ambassador to India, who took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) and called the former Hamas chief’s address “unbelievable”. He accused Mashal of using the platform to encourage Muslims in India to prepare for a jihad against Israel, support Hamas financially, and promote a Palestinian narrative on social media, apart from taking to the streets and showing anger. He also said it was time that India added Hamas to its terror list.

Political reactions

Irked by the conflation of Zionism with Hindutva, members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and even the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the BJP’s ideological fount, as well as Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar targeted the rallies.

BJP Kerala unit president K Surendran said that there was a larger conspiracy with the tacit support of Kerala's ruling CPI (M) and opposition Congress in organising these rallies to propagate the destructive ideology of Hamas. BJP president JP Nadda asked why the left-wing government in Kerala allowed such an event to take place and did not take any action against the organisers. Surendran said the Save Palestine campaign is being held in the state in a way that glorifies the terrorist organisation Hamas and its leaders as warriors.

Kerala's far-right Christian Association and Alliance for Social Change (CASA) also accused the state government of promoting terrorism by not initiating any action against the Solidarity Youth Movement and its leaders.

India, for its part, has walked a diplomatic tightrope, condemning the attack Hamas militants launched against Israel on October 7, and at the same time, seeking a two-state solution — a recognised Palestinian state alongside Israel — as the way forward.

After a bilateral meeting between foreign ministers S Jaishankar and Penny Wong on November 21, at the 14th India-Australia Foreign Ministers’ Framework Dialogue, the two leaders condemned the Hamas attack as an act of terror and called for observance of international humanitarian law in Gaza.

On its part, the Pinarayi Vijayan government has remained tightlipped over the issue but they also wish to avoid antipathy from the Muslim community in the state. CPI(M) state secretary M V Govindan told Hindustan Times that there would not be any need for the state government to initiate action against the SYM event as there was no directive from the Union home ministry or the ministry of external affairs in this regard. He said the state would act against the organisers only after the Union government gave clear directives.

Kerala’s leader of the opposition and senior Congress leader V D Satheesan said that Kerala had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause. Statements by Congress Working Committee member Sashi Tharoor MP and CPI(M) central committee member and former health minister K K Shailaja, who termed Hamas as a terrorist outfit, evoked strong condemnation from among their cadres.

Top police officials in Kerala, who were contacted by the Hindustan Times, said there were no grounds to charge suo moto cases against the organisers of the events as Hamas is not declared a terrorist outfit by India. There was no anti-Indian rhetoric at the meetings. They also confirmed that no appeals for radical action were made in the meetings.

No formal police complaint has been filed against the event so far.

Despite the high-voltage campaign targeting them, Solidarity and its parental organisation are not defensive and said that they will continue their activism. SYM president CT Suhaib maintained that Hamas was no longer a banned outfit in India and that the participation of its former leader in a meeting of his organisation was not a crime under Indian laws.

"We believe Hamas is a resistance movement and not a terrorist organisation. We feel Israel's war against the people of Gaza is a criminal activity, and all democratic forces must unite against its diabolic designs," he said.

Wahid Chullippara, general secretary of Solidarity's student wing, the Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO), said the campaign against Zionist racists and those who identify with them ideologically, continues.

"India has a long legacy of supporting the freedom movement in Palestine," he said.

When asked about the allegations that the organisation was a radical Islamic organisation that often dovetailed with the interests of extremist organisations, Suhaib said: "It's true that we hail from Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, and we have strong convictions with regard to Islam and its humanistic stands. But our vision is broader. Ever since the organisation was formed on May 13, 2003, we have been active across Kerala, highlighting burning social issues concerning all people, irrespective of religion. We have organised agitations by being part of a pluralistic civil society and, on occasions, turned into a charity organisation extending support to those who land in crisis. "Religion is not the criteria, and we consider society as a whole.”

What is the SYM?

Headquartered at Hira Centre, the seat of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in Kozhikode, Solidarity has been involved with social issues rather than religious ones. In the past two decades, it has aligned with Kerala's leading civil society movements related to the displacement of persons by large-scale infrastructure projects like the Wallarpadom Container terminal, National Highway widening, coastal tourism, etc.

It was also at the forefront of the 2004 agitations against the bottling unit of Coca-Cola in Plachimada in Palakkad, accusing it of plundering groundwater and causing a livelihood crisis for local Dalits. The factory now remains defunct.

It also mounted protests against shelved mega infrastructure projects like the Kerala Express Highway Project and the Silverline Semi-High Speed Railway Project. Apart from leading many agitations on behalf of the victims of aerial spraying of the killer pesticide Endosulfan in the cashew estates of the northern Kasargod district, it raised a crore of rupees through mass drives across the state in 2009 for their medical care.

"We wish to identify ourselves as a civil society movement that promotes the universal love and brotherhood promoted by Islam. In both struggles and charity works, religion was never our criteria,” CT Suhaib said.

“Our stand is completely in accordance with the larger political perspective of the progressive state. We have no hatred for anybody," Wahid said.

According to Jamaat-e-Islami Hind's Kerala chapter chief P Mujeeb Rahman, SYM and Jamaat-e-Islami Hind shared common ground with India's secular political parties on a variety of issues, and Palestine is just one of them. He said the organisation focuses mainly on marginalised communities and is always keen on collaborating with the state's Dalit and Adivasi communities.

The SYM was formed after the Kerala chapter of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind decided to transform the Students Islamic Organisation (SIO) into a student organisation and launch a separate wing for the youth in 2002. A mammoth function was held on May 13, 2003, at Muthalakulam Grounds in Kozhikode, in which Dr Koottil Mohammed Ali was elected the first state president, and Hameed Vaniyambalam the general secretary of SYM.

At present, the SYM has 14 district committees, 110 area committees, and more than 1000 individual units across the state. Its stated objective is "liberating the generation of youths from moral bankruptcy and debauchery and transforming them into a radical vanguard fighting for the betterment of society".

In 2016, it organised an international conference on Islamophobia in Kozhikode. The movement has also initiated several legal battles to protect the rice fields of Kerala and hilly areas from granite mining. It also challenged the Citizenship Amendment Act (2019) and extrajudicial killings of suspected Maoists in Kerala in the court.

"Solidarity is needed as an offshoot of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, driven by Islamic principles. But it has a proven inclusive vision, and it is always identified with the causes of the marginalised. So we feel nothing wrong with associating with it," noted Dalit activist K K Baburaj.

Who are the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind?

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind is an Indian Islamic group created as an offshoot of the Jamaat-e-Islami, which split into different autonomous organisations in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh following India's partition in 1947. Jamaat-e-Islami Hind was founded in April 1948 after a meeting in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh.

The Government of India outlawed the organisation twice, but the Supreme Court of India overturned both orders.

It was initially opposed to electoral politics, but by the mid-1980s, it had enabled its members to vote in elections.

On April 18, 2011, it facilitated the formation of a national political party, the Welfare Party of India, led by top organisation leaders and individuals from the larger Muslim community and beyond, including a Christian priest.

Critics of Jamaat-e-Islami in Kerala, like noted scholar Hameed Chendamangalur, terms it a fundamentalist organisation inspired by the teachings of Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, a scholar who wanted to convert the then-undivided India into a Muslim state.

"The organisation has not abandoned its founding cause of the Muslim state, and all its humanitarian outreaches and political causes must be understood in the larger context of the teachings of Maududi. It's attempting to find more grounds for the teachings of Maududi, which are separatist and against the concepts of a pluralistic nation with co-existence," Hameed said.

Mujeeb however countered this stating that the activities of his organisation are visible to all. "We are doing nothing secretly. We always engage with people of different faiths and communities. We never voiced against the larger national interests and, in times of division and crises, upheld the values of unity. We will continue to be a unifying force," he said.

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind holds a wider presence in Kerala's socio-cultural fields by being the driving force behind a trust that brings out Malayalam's fourth largest daily, Madhyamam, and its weekly literature magazine.