Indian social media seethed with outrage on Monday after photos of slain Hamas terrorist leaders were displayed during a cultural festival in the Palakkad district of Kerala.
The offensive images were paraded by a group of men riding elephants during an Uroos festival, an annual Muslim event in Kerala. The eleven-day festival commemorates the death of a legendary Indian Muslim leader named Beema Beevi, who was ostensibly related to Islam’s founder, Mohammed, and purported to perform miracles.
The festival concludes with a grand procession, making it a major tourist attraction. This year’s procession on Sunday drew a crowd of about 3,000 people, including a few prominent opposition politicians. One of the VIP guests was V.T. Balram, a leader of the opposition India Congress Party.
This year’s procession included an elephant carrying a group of youths waving posters of slain Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, architects of the horrific October 7, 2023, attack on Israeli civilians. The banners included a slogan that implied Indian Muslims should embrace the terrorists as their own flesh and blood.
“Young children were seen holding the posters of Sinwar and Haniyeh, with the crowd cheering them on throughout the procession. The incident quickly became a topic of contention, with many questioning the organisers of the festival for allowing such displays,” India Today reported.
Members of the governing BJP party swiftly condemned the Hamas iconography at the Kerala festival, pointing out that Muslim groups have made pro-Palestinian political statements at several events held after Hamas launched the Gaza war.
In one of the more egregious examples, Kerala University attempted to rename its annual youth festival “Intifada” in 2024, a word that describes perpetual Palestinian warfare against Israel. Hamas figures have also been invited to participate as virtual guests at Indian Muslim events.
BJP filed complaints with state and district police on Monday, naming the president, chief secretary, and treasurer of the Kerala Uroos festival, known locally as “Thrithala Fest” after the town where it is held.
BJP’s police complaint said the images of Hamas leaders were displayed at Thrithala Fest “with “the aim of creating communal divide among the youth by instilling extremist ideology in them,” and the ultimate objective of “destroying peace in Kerala.”
“There is a motive to trigger a Hindu-Muslim riot behind displaying the photos of Hamas leaders,” charged BJP Palakkad West District President P. Venugopal.
BJP State President K. Surendran said the festival was hijacked by “Hamas extremists” and demanded a state-level probe of the organizers. He accused opposition party leaders of pandering to extremists in order to harvest their votes.
V.T. Balram, the Congress party leader present at the parade, fired back by claiming BJP-friendly media were exploiting the Hamas controversy to “target the Muslim community in Kerala.”
While Balram conceded that valorizing the perpetrators of the October 7 attack might be a bit provocative, he insisted that support for the Palestinian cause was widespread among the Muslims of Kerala, and they had a right to express their support. On the other hand, he accused critics of waging a “hate campaign” against Muslims by objecting to their support for Hamas.
Thrithala Fest organizers appeared to be backing away from the Hamas display on Monday, seeming to imply that they did not anticipate the banners of Sinwar and Haniyeh being waved.
