http://thewire.in/2016/05/18/bjp-wont-capture-kerala-yet-but-rss-culture-is-sweeping-the-state-36806/
COMMUNALISM
BJP Won’t Capture Kerala Yet But RSS Culture Is Sweeping the State
BY LATHA JISHNU ON 18/05/2016
A Bharatiya Janata Party poster for the just concluded Kerala assembly
elections reveals a lot about its strategy in a state which has consistently
rejected the lotus. It provides the best clue yet as to why the party which is
unlikely to make much political headway in
the near future is finding comfort in the spread of Hindutva across the state.
The poster features the triad of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party boss Amit
Shah and state BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan with the strategic slogan
‘Vazhimuttiya Keralam, Vazhi kaattan BJP’. This translates to “Kerala has lost
it way; BJP will show it the path.”
Of the three, Modi appears to be the least clued in on how to win over this
recalcitrant state which has so far rejected the blandishments of his
‘development plank’ that catapulted him into 7 Race Course Road two years ago.
He has regularly wooed Kerala since early 2014, well before he became the prime minister, and he
has made frequent visits to the state. Yet, he has shown a poor understanding
of the Malayali psyche. Some political analysts believe he has botched the BJP’s
prospects with his
But the canny Shah and his acolyte Rajasekharan are better tuned into Kerala.
The appointment of Rajasekharan, an RSS pracharak, as party boss in the state
marks a turning point in the BJP strategy.
Rajasekharan is hardcore Hindutva, and his anointment in December 2015 is both
reward for his services in diffusing the saffron ideology and recognition of
his ability to push the party agenda further. Over the past decades,
Rajasekharan has been the battering ram of the Hindu Aikya Vedi or Hindu Unity
Organisation, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Kshetra Samrakshana Samiti (KSS
or Temple Protection Committee), Balasadanams (for very young children) and Ekal
Vidyalayas. His has been an all-encompassing role, efficiently executed and
with little fanfare.
It is well known that he and Shah enjoy a rare rapport and see eye-to eye on
what needs to be done in Kerala. An excellent communicator and networker,
Rajasekharan has brought on board well-known figures like G. Madhavan Nair,
former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, T.K.A. Nair,
principal secretary to former prime
minister Manmohan Singh, on the Hindutva bandwagon and deployed them effectively
to influence people and win friends.
His elevation to the party presidency came within weeks of the BJP’s best yet
poll performance in Kerala. In the November 2015 local body elections, the BJP
wrested Palakkad municipality from the UDF and also emerged as the second
largest party in the Thiruvanthapuram corporation after the LDF. If there are
turning points, this certainly
was one: the saffron party’s vote share rose from 10.5% in the 2014 Lok Sabha
elections to 14% in the local elections. It was also a signal that the RSS had
acquired the critical mass necessary to openly pursue its agenda. The toughest
challenge for the RSS-BJP has been the religious demographic profile of the
state with Hindus accounting for close to 55% of the populations and the
Muslims (26.56%) and Christians forming the rest. It has taken the saffron
lobby a long, long while to work around these figures.
But change it has wrought and in ways that the Sangh is familiar with. The most
obvious sign of the Hindu resurgence has been the use of the KSS and VHP to
“build a temple-based organised society” and a “temple-based way of life”.
Dozens of kavu, or ancient shrines, where theyyam (living god) performances
have been held for centuries have
fallen prey to this drive. Theyyam is the oldest surviving mystic ritual of
This is the paradox of Kerala. To believe that the LDF has ushered in a
socialist revolution in this state is as naive as thinking that the BJP’s
inability to win a single seat in the assembly and parliamentary elections so
far is proof that the saffron ideology has failed to penetrate Kerala. By
embedding itself in the local community over the decades, the RSS has prepared
the ground for taking the state back to a time when religiosity was paramount.
It is an alarming regression with rituals and obscurantist views threatening to
overwrite the history of its social reforms.
The kavu, which subscribes to animism and ancestor worship, is as integral to
North Malabar as the hammer and sickle and the legendary Marxist leader A.K.
Gopalan are. And theyyam is the preserve of a host of lower castes. Now, the
pre-Vedic kavu are being converted into mainstream Hindu temples and the
traditional culture of Kerala, specially that of its Adivasi population and of
the lower castes, is being airbrushed from the landscape as the VHP and RSS
push their Sanskritisation drive. But there is little protest from the local communities
who have been persuaded that the new structures and regular paid puja conducted
by Brahmin priests are indicative of upward mobility.
Small family temples and old temples in need of maintenance have also been
taken over by the KSS as matters of private faith have been turned into public
symbols of majority assertiveness. Everything connected to religion is now
loud, public and well-funded. As the recent Puttingal temple tragedy
illustrated, religion has become competitive and frighteningly divorced from
the traditions of the land. Godpersons are the presiding deities of the new
‘Hinduness’ of Kerala, such as the homegrown Mata Amritanandmayi and Sri Sri
way into Kerala as the RSS tries to homogenise the Hindus.
The core message of the RSS that Hindus have been neglected and discriminated
against by the bipolar politics of the state while the Christians and the
Muslims have been pampered by their leaders has succeeded beyond belief. Such a
view is easily juxtaposed against the growing conservatism of the Muslims, in
particular, since the burqa and religious beards are now a common sight in some
parts of the state. Competing religion fundamentalism is feeding cultivated insecurities
as rival communal parties jostle for power. A six-week trip through Kannur, the
hallowed janmabhoomi of the Communist
movement, Palakkad, Thrissur and Ernakulam districts in March-April, made it
clear that the secular balance is becoming increasingly fragile as the RSS’s
cherished goal of a ‘Hindu Kerala’ turns out to be not such an impossibility.
The rise of the consumerist Malayali and a thriving middle class – it is the
only state where the huge billboards are completely monopolized by the gold
jewelry trade – has made the incursions of the Hindu Right far easier. As the
historian K.N. Panikkar explains in a recent article in The Hindu, “Kerala has
witnessed a sudden burgeoning of the lower middle class during the last two
decades, whose craving for modernity has created a cultural crisis, a solution
for which they sought in superstitious practices and irrational rituals. Their logical
destination is the BJP.”
No longer concerned about the need to keep it clandestine, the RSS outfits now
openly promote communal polarisation. Anything is provocation and an excuse for
muscle-flexing by Hindutva forces. A couple of years ago, the Hindu Aikya Vedi
and other outfits like the VHP took out a massive and successful rally against
the government’s
decision to allow a Muslim religious conference to be held on the Aluva-Periyar
river bank because it was adjacent to a Siva temple. The fallout is a growing
intolerance which is becoming increasingly ugly as small and hitherto unknown
entities such as the Hanuman Sena throw their weight around and strike at the
heart of the state’s cultural
ethos.
Acts of intolerance
An appalling example of the religious bigotry was the Hindutva campaign against
well-known writer and critic M.M. Basheer, who was forced to abandon his
columns on the Ramayana in the Malayalam newspaper Mathrubhumi in August last
year. There was a virulent campaign against the writer and the newspaper by
abusive callers asking why a Muslim should write on the Hindu god Rama. This is
said to be the first time a writer has been attacked on the basis of his religious
identity and bodes ill for the state. Incidentally, the month of Karkidakam in
the Malayalam calendar (mid-July to mid-August)
is celebrated by Malayalis as Ramayana month but in recent years what was a
private tradition has been turned into yet another public spectacle of
religiosity with entire villages being turned in to Ramayana centres by the RSS
network.
There have been other instances of intolerance that are undermining the liberal
democratic conventions that Keralites take for granted. In March this year, the
saffron brigade attacked popular TV anchor Sindhu Sooryakumar after she
moderated a discussion on the why some people celebrate Mahishasur Jayanti and
if this should be deemed an objectionable act. This followed the emotional
speech by HRD minister
Smriti Irani in parliament where she claimed students of Delhi’s Jawaharlal
Nehru University had observed Mahishasur martyrdom day and purportedly depicted
Goddess Durga as a ‘sex worker’. Mahishasur is the demon killed by Durga.
Sooryakumar of Asianet News TV received over 2,000 abusive calls and threats to
her life for allegedly demeaning Durga during the show. The popular anchor had
done no such thing but it was typical of the smear-and-tarnish campaign the
Sangh outfits are notorious for.
Neither the RSS nor the BJP leaders condemned the outrage even after five men connected
to the BJP, RSS and other Hindu groups were found to be involved.
Increasingly, their politics of hatred is finding resonance in a state that has
so far been impervious to such poison.
In a society which prizes it liberal values and open debates, such instances
are becoming frequent as an emboldened Sangh pushes the envelope. In
Kerala, admittedly, is no secular haven when it comes to politics. All parties
have used religion and caste to promote their interests but none of them has
resorted to the kind of polarisation that is now being witnessed. As indicators
of the new path the BJP is offering
Kerala, these are, indeed, ominous signs of what lies ahead.