“Tea laced with some kind of drops is being sold by Muslim-run restaurants to make people infertile in a bid to seize control of the country.” This was a vicious comment, with no basis in fact, that was recently made by politician PC George at the Ananthapurai Hindu Maha Sammelan held in Thiruvananthapuram recently. Though a hate speech case was filed against PC George and he was in police custody for a few hours, not many in Kerala would have been surprised that PC George could utter such things or that he was targeting Muslims.
As his political base gradually eroded over the years, the language used by the politician became more vulgar and provocative. PC George, from Poonjar in Kottayam district, joined the NDA in 2019 and left in a huff a few months later. However this short-term political tie-up marred his relations with the Muslim community of Poonjar that had previously supported him for decades. As the community moved away from him, PC George started targeting them viciously.
In April 2021, PC George openly stated that 'love jihad' was prevalent in Erattupetta. Erattupetta is a municipality in Poonjar where the Muslim population is relatively high. "There is love jihad at Erattupetta and 47 girls from the region, including 12 Hindu girls, have so far fallen victim to the practice,” he alleged, which deepened the discord between him and the Muslims in the area. During the same week, at another speech made at Thodupuzha, 30 kilometers away from Erattupetta, he said that Muslims were encroaching into Christian nations and turning them into Islamic nations. George claimed that India must be declared a Hindu Rashtra as Muslims plan to make India an Islamic country by 2030. “Love Jihad is real and Muslims plan to make India an Islamic country by 2030,” he said. George became more emboldened, observers believe, as a section of Christian priests of the region also spew hateful propaganda against Muslims. The latest was this fake propaganda thereby urging non-Muslims to boycott businesses run by Muslims.
After being part of the United Democratic Front (led by the Congress), the Left Democratic Front (led by the CPI-M) and the National Democratic Alliance (headed by the BJP) George independently contested the Assembly elections in 2021. He lost the elections after 32 years with a margin of 16,581 votes. This was after a thumping win in 2016 when he won as an independent candidate by a margin of 2,928 votes.
Jacob George, a senior journalist and a political analyst told TNM that PC George’s Islamophobic comments are based in opportunism. “He turned against Muslims despite winning the elections with their full support. In the past, he used to help Muslims in every issue, even when they had cases at police stations. In the 2016 elections, he won as an independent candidate because of the Muslims’ support. Now he turned against them for political gains. He was going with the narrative of some priests in the region that love jihad exists and there is even ‘narcotic jihad,’” Jacob said.
According to CL Thomas, former editor of Asianet News and Media One television, the percentage of Muslim votes in Poonjar is around 33%. Thomas pointed out that the SDPI’s support had worked for PC George in the 2016 Assembly elections. “George was an opportunistic politician even when he was with the Kerala Congress. He was able to keep the trust of the Muslim community till 2019. Though regional factors in CPI(M) support helped him, it was the SDPI that worked on the frontlines for his victory. At that time, PC George had openly said that SDPI was the least communal party, a statement that was widely carried by Malayalam news channels. There are even pictures of him and his son, Shone George, holding their flags. He managed to win the trust of the Muslim community keeping an eye on their vote share in the constituency,” Thomas said.
Though PC George left NDA in 2019, when he was arrested in the hate speech case, BJP state President K Surendran declared his support for PC George, and Union Minister of State V Muraleedharan even tried to visit him at the police station. Many BJP leaders have declared that the contents of speech had merit.
“Muslims stopped inviting him to even their private functions. He has said many times that his poll defeat in the 2021 elections is due to lack of support from Muslims,” Thomas said.
The people of Poonjar had made their displeasure at their seven-time MLA known even before they cast their votes. George got heckled and booed at Erattupetta during an election campaign in 2021. A group of individuals heckled him when he began a campaign. To this, George reacted by saying, “Vote for me if you want or leave it.” He even blamed their parents “for not teaching good manners” to their children.
When the Kerala Congress split in the 1970's, George stood with the KM Mani faction. However KM Mani ousted PC George from his party on a complaint that the latter worked against VJ Joseph in Poonjar in the 1977 Assembly elections. PC George was 26 then.
Kerala witnessed frequent elections to the Assembly in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s as the ruling governments failed to complete the five-year tenure.
The Kerala Congress split again in 1979. At that time KM Mani, PJ Joseph, and Pillai parted ways. This time PC George stood with Joseph. PC George first won in an Assembly election in January 1980. He contested as a candidate of the Kerala Congress (PJ Joseph’s faction) which was part of the UDF then. He won from Poonjar with 1,148 votes. His opponent was VJ Joseph from the Kerala Congress (M), a political party founded by the late KM Mani.
In the 1982 elections, both the PJ Joseph and KM Mani factions of the Kerala Congress contested with the UDF. PC George won Poonjar for the Joseph faction. Both the Kerala Congress and Kerala politics witnessed many twists and turns in the ‘80s, while PC George went on to win more elections. In 1989, Kerala Congress (Joseph) joined the LDF.
PC George won the elections in 2001 though the LDF was confined to 40 out of the total 140 seats. Even PJ Joseph lost the elections from Thodupuzha then. George, in due course, managed to gain an upper hand in the LDF, surpassing PJ Joseph, by winning the trust of the then opposition leader VS Achuthanandan. VS rose to more popularity with his anti-corruption stand. PC George also got mileage from it as he was proactive in supporting VS in catching the encroachers of the Mathikettan Shola forests in Idukki. “George climbed the Mathikettan slopes along with VS and the alleged encroachers were those closely related to PJ Joseph. PJ Joseph was personally hurt by George’s stand on the issue and they had a falling out,” Jacob George said. Jacob George covered the Mathikettan issue for India Today weekly.
“But George's disassociation with PJ Joseph was also a move to make his own space as there was only one ministerial berth for Joseph’s faction which Joseph himself always took. PC George wanted to be a kingmaker in the LDF by being a trusted lieutenant of VS. But there began his fall as his closeness to VS made the UDF wary of him, and the CPI(M) also didn’t welcome him as he expected,” Jacob George recalled.
This finally resulted in PC George floating his own political outfit, Kerala Congress Secular, in 2004, which became an ally of the LDF.
Kerala Congress (S) was given a seat in the 2006 elections. PC George won from Poonjar in this election too. But his alliance with the Left didn't last long. He was ousted from the LDF owing to the public criticism he made against the front.
The pragmatic politician in PC George was unrelenting to give up. Soon, he found a place in KM Mani's Kerala Congress (M). George, who used to slam KM Mani in the rudest way on every platform, was suddenly singing praises of ‘Mani Sir’. In 2011, PC George repeated his resounding victory from Poonjar, and became the Chief Whip in the Oommen Chandy government.
However, PC George's honeymoon with the Kerala Congress (M) too ended without delay. In a meeting of the party MLAs held at the official residence of KM Mani, the then Finance Minister demanded that PC George be removed as Chief Whip. He was removed from the post in April 2015 after the UDF reached a point when George's public remarks against UDF leaders became an embarrassment for the alliance.
Subsequently, PC George contested the 2016 Assembly elections independently from Poonjar and won. Ditched by both the fronts, his party non-existent after merging with the Kerala Congress (M), and after his ouster from the UDF, PC George floated a social outfit called Janapaksham in February 2017. Besides making communal remarks, PC George's misogynist statements have made the news too. His victim shaming of the nun, the survivor in the Bishop Franco Mulakkal rape case, had forced the latter to cancel a press meet she had scheduled at the convent.
Furthermore, PC George even humiliated the woman actor who is the survivor of a sexual assault allegedly masterminded by prominent Malayalam actor Dileep. Days ago, on Eid (May 3), when his hate speech against Muslims was still in news, PC George wished everyone a happy Eid.
CL Thomas summed it up: “George represents what all is wrong in the current day society. He verbally abused the nuns who are standing with the survivor nun in the Franco Mulakkal case. He has become an advocate of the patriarchy in women’s issues. His bosses have now become the Sangh Parivar and the BJP, and his hate speech at the Hindu Aikya Vedi was to appease them. His communal stand is now from the realisation that he has lost people’s support and he has nowhere to go. BJP leaders Kummanam Rajasekharan and K Surendran backed him (after he made the hate speech) and Union minister (Union Minister of State, V Muraleedharan) went to facilitate his release after he was arrested for the speech. Both the parties didn’t feel anything unusual in it”.