Two incidents in Wayanad and Malappuram, where Muslims helped Hindu families with funeral rites, highlight Kerala’s tradition of communal harmony and neighbourly solidarity
WAYANAD/MALAPPURAM — Two Muslim brothers performed the last rites of their 85-year-old Hindu neighbour in Kerala’s Wayanad district, while a mosque in neighbouring Malappuram opened its premises to help a Hindu family conduct the ritual washing of a deceased woman’s body.
The two incidents this week have offered a glimpse of Kerala’s tradition of communal harmony, where relationships between neighbours and families often transcend religious boundaries.
For brothers Kappan Razak and Sulaiman, there was little to deliberate when their neighbour Kalyani Amma died on Monday at the age of 85 in Chithragiri village, within Meppanad panchayat in Wayanad. With no close relatives or family members available to perform her last rites, the brothers stepped forward.
According to Razak, Kalyani Amma had depended on them for years, from meeting her everyday needs to taking her to hospital. He said it was only natural that they should be there for her at the end of her life.
On Tuesday, Razak and Sulaiman lit her funeral pyre at a crematorium. Razak said they had cared for her as they would their own mother and that performing her last rites had been her wish.
“Although she lived just across a wall, Kalyani Amma had been a member of our family for years. Since we were very young, we called her mother. She had been staying in our house for the past few months,” he said.
In a separate incident, 52-year-old Premalatha died after battling cancer in Nanamukku panchayat in Malappuram. Her husband, Sahadevan, and daughter, Neethu, found that their small rented home, where they had lived for 18 years, did not have a suitable space for the ritual washing of her body before the funeral.
Khadija Mosque in Palaikkara stepped in, opening its premises to the family and allowing them to carry out the ritual washing there.
Sahada Mambad, state president of the Vanitha League, the women’s wing of the Indian Union Muslim League, said Muslim women also helped wash and dress Premalatha’s body.
“I saw Premalatha as my younger sister. It was our duty to take such an initiative for the family. We did this on humanitarian grounds,” she said.
Sahada’s husband, A V Abdurru, is the president of Khadija Mosque.
The incidents come amid criticism of prominent Hindu leader Vellappally Natesan over his remark that Hindus cannot “breathe freely” in Muslim-majority Malappuram district.
Reacting to the two acts of solidarity, Kerala Chief Minister V D Satheesan said in a post on X that they reflected the Kerala he knew, loved and believed in.
“Razak and Sulaiman were not born to Kalyani Amma. Yet, for nearly five decades, they loved and cared for her like their own mother. When the time came to bid her farewell, the two brothers fulfilled the 85-year-old woman’s last wish with the deep love and dignity of her own sons,” he wrote.
“Here, a mother’s love does not see religion. A son’s duty does not ask about caste. And grief, like love, belongs equally to us all,” he added.
Satheesan said such acts were what made Kerala special, describing it as a place where love knows no religion and compassion no caste. He expressed hope that the spirit of Kerala would inspire the rest of India.
