Against communalism: DU prof writes on breastmilk bond between Hindu-Muslims in Kerala

Professor Yasser Arafath, originally from Kozhikode, speaks about the old practice in north Malabar where Hindu women breastfed Muslim babies and vice versa.

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In an old video which has now become viral, a Malayali Muslim preacher Simsarul Haq Hudvai can be heard saying that it is not Islamic to celebrate Onam or Christmas. The video surfaced last week, when it was Onam time in Kerala. Simsarul says in the clip that the distancing should be done diplomatically, in a way that it does not hurt others, but that Muslims should stay away from favouring another religion.

In the light of the video popping up again, Yasser Arafath, a professor of history, has put a Facebook post about an old practice of wet nursing in north Malabar. The practice existed till a few decades ago, when women in a neighbourhood would breastfeed each other's babies, across religions. This meant that Hindu women sometimes breastfed Muslim babies and vice versa. Yasser’s argument was basic: If a baby had milk from a woman of another religion, how does anything else matter?

Yasser, an Assistant Professor at the Delhi University, is originally from Nadapuram, Kozhikode. In a call with TNM, he explains the old practice on which he has written a yet-to-be-published research paper. “It was a time when women bore a lot of children, sometimes 15 to 20. At one time, there’d be multiple babies to be fed -- babies born in consecutive years. And every woman in the family would be thus engaged. So when another woman comes to the house, the mothers, tired and desperate, didn't care what religion the visitor belonged to if they could feed their child milk,” says Yasser, who has recently completed a fellowship at Cambridge University.

Yasser places old-time households in Kerala in two periods: one when there was just the house and the property, two when there was the house and the property and the fences separating them from others. When there were no fences, people walked into houses without anything to block them. And this had brought the women closer together, while the men went out. When the women interacted with each other, they did more than socialise, they gave breast milk to the newborns of the house.

Yasser’s paper is called Transcending Breasts: Milk Kinship, Identities and Communal Living In Malabar. “It is forthcoming. It is based on this practice that existed till about 35 to 40 years ago in north Malabar: in the districts of Kozhikode, Kannur and Wayanad. I came upon it while I was researching on another topic, on the riots in Nadapuram, Kozhikode. It’s come in EPW journal. The riots would often happen in Nadapuram but unlike in other places where such riots were common, the healing process was very quick. The gap in social relations would close immediately. When I began asking questions about this, I heard more about this practice of milk kinship,” Yasser says.

There was an example in his own family. When his grandmother’s sister died 17 or 18 years ago, two unknown men had come to see her body. In conventional Muslim households, not everyone could see the bodies of women. “Even Muslim men were not encouraged to see women’s bodies. But these two men belonging to another religion asked to see her. When someone said they can’t do that, the dead woman’s daughter, my aunt, came out and said, those men were her brothers, because her mother had breastfed them too.”

A famous example is of late K Moidu Moulavi, Islamic scholar and Arabic poet, who was breastfed by a Hindu woman. Chirutha, the Hindu woman’s daughter and Moulavi were recognised as siblings. “Two kids who drink milk from the same woman are treated as siblings. All this may have ended three to four decades ago but the stories are being told from generation to generation. Younger people listen to it, and that’s why the healing process happens so soon after every riot in north Malabar,” Yasser says.

Wet nursing was reportedly common in other parts of the country too.

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