AYUSH ANAND & VAIBHAV CHADHA
What is the main reason behind continuous political violence in Kerala especially of communist violence in northern districts of Kerala? Why are we observing such large scale political and ideological violence here, where as other parts of country is relatively peaceful.
The ideology of Marxist-leaning communist party which is a major ruling dispensation in Kerala, is primarily responsible for this situation. There are four main reasons behind such regular political violence:
- Ideological intolerance towards other political ideology
- They lost their Ideological basis
- They believe in elimination of their opponents
- They want to grab the power by any means
Ideological Intolerance: The attacks and violence which we see generally happening are at those places where the CPM has the strong presence. Where there is no CPM, we find no clash there. Wherever they got influence, they start resorting to politics of murder and violence. There are party villages of CPM. Be it BJP, Cong. Or IUML, they are not allowed to work in those villages. CPM always wants to work alone in those villages, for this they don’t hesitate to resort to any kind of violence.
If CPM is in majority or in of major influence in any area then they don’t allow other political parties to function, they even don’t allow raising political flags of other party in those areas. If any devoted worker of other political allegiance dares to host his party flag, then he has to pay heavy price for that. They don’t allow polling agents of other party to work and monitor polling on those booths of party villages.
All these tactics are the part of their intolerance and hatred towards other ideology. They boycott and corner out the people associated with Sangh pariwar or even to congress. They even not permitted those family members to take water from the common well of village. Recently Dr Anita was not allowed to open her clinic at Kalisery, Kannur, because her mother was a congress candidate against CPM. She is still struggling hard to open up her clinic, but CPM workers are not letting this happen. Some 262 political killings were happened and in most of the cases one party is CPM.
Loss of their Ideological basis: CPM is now hand in gloves with the capitalist forces of the state. Recently Harvard economist Gita Gopinath appointed as an economic adviser to Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan. She is widely known for her strong advocacy for neoliberal economic policies. So, here we see Ideological hypocrisy. They were the most vociferous voice against such neoliberal economic policies and even claim for now, but they appoint one of its strong advocates, as an economic adviser to the state. It clearly shows how close they are now with capitalist ideology de-facto.
If CPM is in majority or in of major influence in any area then they don’t allow other political parties to function, they even don’t allow raising political flags of other party in those areas. If any devoted worker of other political allegiance dares to host his party flag, then he has to pay heavy price for that. They don’t allow polling agents of other party to work and monitor polling on those booths of party villages.
The people who have been killed by CPM cadres come from downtrodden and labour class. Communist party believes in class war to protect the interest of poor, but here in Kerala they are attacking them for their vote bank politics. These confrontations have neither any ideological basis nor any alibi that why they are attacking lower class people of the society.
They are now just a political group which have typical double standards. They said they are the protectors of the lower class people, but here in Kerala they are targeting the same depressed class.
Believing in elimination of opposite voices: On 24th of July CPM secretary K. Balakrishnan said that “we will take weapons if CPM works are attacked” in an open public programme. It means those who are against CPM will be eliminated and the CPM has no believe in their government machinery for maintaining law and order. Even in the village of CM P. Vijayan, when some of the villagers including some of his relatives, left the CPM, their houses were attacked by the CPM cadres. They don’t want any other party people in those villages. There are incidences where they attacked the same house for several times. They dump hair from the barber shop into the well; they destroy vehicles of other party workers standing outside.
To grab power by any means: The CPM had by and large human face in Kerala because of their some pro people and environmentalist campaigns. But in order to keep their cadres in their party they started attacking those who were leaving the party. To stop the outflow of their cadres they have taken weapons. Their cadres are now leaving their party because now CPM has no ideology and they want only to grab the power by any means. So, such violence is happening.
Q: Sir, what is the history behind such political violence and its Initiation in Kerala? How communist movement started in Kerala and why it is so violent?
A: Problem of clash between CPM and Sangh pariwar workers is a long story. Initially when Sangh shakha were being started in late 40s in Kerala, at that time CPM was established and very strong. They first abused us, ridiculed us but somehow shakhas started across Kerala. First it started in Calicat, Kasargod, Palaghat, Trivendrum, in all places there has been clash and CPM workers tried their best to stop our activities through their violent and undemocratic means. These clashes happened mainly because communist movement has an ideological basis as also RSS have its own ideological basis unlike other political groups. Other organisations are mostly leaders oriented or on the basis of caste, region or religion. But there are only two poles on the basis of distinct ideology in Kerala. Initially we considered it as an ideological fight.
CPM thought this “Sangh Dal” will not flourish in Kerala because of their arrogance, ego and ignorance. They constantly propagated such falsehood that Sangh is an out dated ideology, it is meant to serve the cause of upper class people, forward people. It is a party of north Indians, It is a secretive body and because of the dress code they ridiculed us as a fascist organisation. But the fact was we were with the entire community, we worked accordingly and slowly we have been accepted by the commons of Kerala and the Shakhas of RSS increased manifold, in-fact now in Kerala RSS has maximum density of shakhas compared to other parts of India.
Marxist thought lower class hindus are only their rank and fold. They didn’t felt well any encroachment in this section of society. In the late 40’s when RSS work starts here, the most dominant and influential party was congress. Most leaders of congress were belonged to higher class of forward Hindus. But strangely the leaders of Marxist party were also form higher class Hindu families, because of their wealth and land they studied and educated initially and influenced towards communist ideology. EMS Namboodaripad, M N GovindaNaiyr, and A. K Gopalan etc. these all leaders were from higher caste but their rank and grass root cadres were from lower class. Interestingly these communist leaders were in congress initially.
After 30’s when the attraction towards Gandhi slowly weaned away, that was the time communist movement was gaining momentum across the world. They influenced with the happenings going on in Russia and other European countries. So, these people thought following Gandhi will not get anything and hence they left the congress and joined the communist movement because of their newly founded attraction towards violent means of politics. These propaganda attracted youths especially more educated class of youth viz. Nairs, but Ezhwas who were then less educated not attracted towards this communist ideology as they don’t know it. Ezhwas were fighting for small things of their daily need and communist party just supported them. That is how communist movement got momentum in Kerala.
Now, the issue is Violence is a part and parcel of communist thinking and Kerala’s comrades inherited this thought process of politics naturally. In communist ideology there is no place for Dharma, Ahimsa and Cultural civilisation. Communist Ideology focused only for material gains. Violence, directionless materialism is in their genes. Gandhiji was for “Ram Rajya” and “rule of Dharma” whereas communist want struggle and revolution. In their idea of revolution blood-shed and violence is essential. They thought violence is midwife of revolution.
Meanwhile quit India movement failed and congress cadres were disappointed. That was the time when the leaders of Kerala’s communist party brought those disappointed congress grass root cadres in their folds using their influence as they were also Ex-Congress man and well acquainted to these disappointed cadres.
When Sangh came in the picture of Kerala society in late 40’s, it interacted with initially literate persons who confined to higher educated class and they became more aware about their nationality and cultural identity. Because of this barrier, initially working class was not so associated with us, but later on they also started coming closer towards our ideology. When the CPM saw in-spite of their propaganda Sangh Ideology is gaining ground even in the lower class society, they started violence to check this outflow of their lower class cadres.
Then came the turning point, i.e. in the year 1967, when the 14th National Council Meeting of Bhartiya Jan Sangh (BJS), held at Calicut. This was the conference when Deen Dayalji elected as the president of Jan Sangh. At this conference delegates came from all over India to Calicut. For the first time our Ideology got proper media coverage and the root philosophy of our ideology widely publicised in Kerala.
People from different parts of India held procession rally in their ethnic dress, music and culture. It was widely appreciated among the commons of Kerala. Then initially few Hindu groups started keeping soft corner for Jan Sangh. Ideology ofSangh started going down well in the masses. By the same time Jan Sangh also came in power in few parts of India. It also helped us a lot in winning confidence of common people.
With such large scale success of this conference, communist started worrying more. For the first time they were considering us as would be opponents and threat to their political clout over the state. So, they decided as per their genes and started physically assaulting our cadres to afraid them. It’s dangerous. You will find murder of our worker started only after year 1967 because of this reason. It is in this background political violence still continues.
But they are not succeeding in their plans. Their vote percentage is continuously going down after each assembly election. Whereas it is only BJP whose vote share is increasing very significantly. Violence is being organised systematically to check such migration. We are exposing them, it is not like Marxist V. RSS/BJP, and rather it is Marxist V. all others. We are being killed more because we are protesting more effectively to their violent ideological march; we want politics in Kerala as per the true spirit of Indian Constitution, whereas CPM has more affection towards their manifesto. We are the major obstacle in their vicious design, so we are being targeted more.
Q: How such violence can be checked then? Will it continue forever?
A: They can’t prolong with such violent activities. Common mass believes in peace, harmony & friendship. So, this type of politics will never get the support of mass. In Kannur they are winning the election only through malpractices. We have now evidences of their malpractices. They have also enough influence over the police forces and other government missionaries. It always helps CPM to evade the due process of law for their wrongs.
In the next election we are going to form our Government in Kerala and then such violence will stop for forever. Now in Kerala it’s true that we have only one MLA, but BJP is the number one opposition party outside assembly house, whether in terms of protest or other political activities.