Aryadan Shaukath

Who is Aryadan Shaukath?

Aryadan Shoukath is a India film producer. He is the son of one of Kerala’s senior Indian National Congress leader Aryadan Mohammed [state minister of electricity] MLA, Shoukath is a powerful mouthpiece of secularism and a fighter against religious arrogance.

Aryadan Shoukath is one of the most vibrant cultural and political personalities in nilambur, with politics in blood and art in his heart He was the president of Nilambur Panchayath.Heading Nilambur, which won Kerala's best panchayat award from the state Government, 42-year-old Shoukath could be India's only panchayat president who has also won movie honours.

His first film in 2003, Padam Onnu: Oru Vilapam, was an indictment of Muslim orthodoxy on girls' education. It won 15 awards, including the National Film Award for Family Welfare and the Best Asian Film Award at the Madrid Festival. His latest film Vilapangalkkappuram is about a girl who flees the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat to come to Kerala.

While participating in a talk show on Malayalam channel Asianet News on 11.1.2013, Shoukath said that 80% of girls in his village are married below the age of 15. A girl of 14 once came to him and said that her in tears and said, "My mother says that if I do not agree to my marriage, I would find her hanging when I return from school tomorrow. What do I do?". Even though he was the President of Nilambur Panchayat, Shoukhat said he was helpless, he couldn't help the girl.. The show, Nammal Tammil, was on the forced marriage of Muslim girls by men from Mysore.