The muezzin’s prayer call broke up the Lanthaparambu branch committee meeting of the CPM in Kochi on October 1, and Muslim members dispersed to pray and break their Ramadhan fast with refreshments served up by the party, which sees religion as the opium of the masses.
Reports said the organisers announced the recess over microphone as soon as they heard the muezzin’s call from a nearby mosque. The meeting was being held at Regent Hotel Hall.
This is not the first time that party members responded to the call of religion. Two party members elected to the Kerala Legislative Assembly – a Hindu and a Christian – had taken oath “in the name of God” instead of making a “solemn affirmation” like the rest. Aisha Potti, a Brahmin and member of the CPM area committee in the southern Kollam district, had said that while she was committed to communism and the party, she would never give up her faith.
M.M. Monayi, member of the Ernakulam district committee and a Syrian Christian, said religion was a matter of personal choice. Soon after, party state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan warned workers against deviation from Marxist-Leninist principles, especially the tendency to whittle down their revolutionary zeal and take to religion.
Pinarayi could not have been happy to see three Christians from Kerala taking the oath “in the name of God” in Parliament. While Sebastian Paul (Ernakulam) was an Independent backed by the CPM, K.S. Manoj (Alappuzha) and Lonappan Nambadan (Mukundapuram) had won on party symbols.
The open expression of faith by the branch committee at Mattancherry is said to be a signal that the ranks of believers are swelling and the party might find it difficult to ignore them.
Perhaps the prayer break was forced by the view that there is less harm in allowing workers to profess their faith in the open than in losing them to bourgeois parties.