MALAPPURAM’S peculiar demography provides perfect cover for groups that seek it. It is one of only two Muslim-majority districts in India, outside Jammu and Kashmir (the other being Murshidabad in West Bengal). Since the early 1990s, fundamentalists appear to have had a concerted plan to win over the community. Kerala Nadvathul Mujahedeen’s leader Ahmed Kutty paints a grim picture: ‘‘The method of the extremists to take control of a mosque is always the same. It begins with a small cell of adepts praying with the others and trying to rally them. If there is not much headway, relentless arguing and...