COMMUNALISM AND THE GOOD LIFE
The CPI( M), the CPI, the Congress, all play it beneath the secular label. That is where the BJP fails. If you do not play the communal card under a secular cloak, the Malayali does not appreciate it. He likes to be seen as secular— call it a fig leaf!
Communal politics in Kerala is hardly news. What is perhaps news is the variations it exhibits from time to time. Nobody calls it communal here. It is just called politics.
Of the three chief communities— Hindus ( 56.2 per cent), Muslims ( 24.7 per cent) and Christians ( 19 per cent)— Hindus and Christians have been in politics much before Independence, generally under the Congress banner. The Muslim League entered the big picture only in 1971, when it got a berth in the Congress- CPI- led United Front. It has stayed put in the Congress stable.
The Kerala Congress ( KC) started out as a Christian- Nair split- away from the Congress. ( Nairs are upper- caste Hindus, though the Brahmins disagree.) Then it went into such a splitting spree, especially between the Christians, that K. M. Mani, the supremo of the main Christian faction, made the famous statement: The KC grows when it splits and splits when it grows. The KC factions are nothing but familyowned political private limited companies. The Muslim League also is a similar company, but not single familyowned. It has the head of the Panakkad Thangal family as a titular chief, but essentially it is a group business.
The whole thing is, it hardly needs to be said, business. The communal card is like an ATM card. Put it into the election machine and— bingo!— out comes power and money. Then you pocket the card and start making adjustments and understandings so that your path is smooth. The CPI( M), the CPI, the Congress, all play it beneath the secular label. That is where the BJP fails. If you do not play the communal card under a secular cloak, the Malayali does not appreciate it. He likes to be seen as secular— call it a fig leaf! BJP is further afflicted by the fact that its potential votaries, the 56.2 per cent Hindus of Kerala, are entrapped by the Congress- led UDF and CPI( M)- led LDF. Because that is where the fruits, nuts and honey are. A bald plate of saffron is not interesting enough. The Muslim League has a reasonably secured Muslim vote bank because as a long- standing UDF partner, it has a goodies galore. There are of course thousands of Muslims in the Congress as well as CPI( M) too.
At the end of the day, the Congress is nothing but a gathering of upwardly mobile Hindus, Christians and Muslims. The CPI( M) has a more fascinating story. It is the single largest Hindu party of Kerala, with the Ezhavas— classified as OBC— having an upper hand. Ezhavas also happen to be the single largest Hindu group of Kerala at 22.91 per cent of the Hindu population, with Nairs at a mere 12.88 per cent and the Brahmins, 1.59 per cent. This is one of the further reasons why the BJP is finding it hard to make that big thrust. The slot has been taken. And this is the reason why Vellappally Natesan, chief of the SNDP ( Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Sangham— official body of the Ezhava community) finds it harder to get Ezhavas to vote according to his diktat. He compensates by running the multimillion SNDP as a family concern and enjoying the media iconography his, it must be admitted, excellent bluster produces.
NSS ( Nair Service Society), the official Nair body is another toothless tiger, not a family concern but, like the League, group- owned, presently headed by G. Sukumaran Nair, whose bluster is pathetic. Politicians pretend to take the NSS seriously and hand out some goodies but the matter ends there. The NSS cannot dictate votes. It just makes the claim, like the bishops do, to keep the show going. As for the Natesan- trumpeted alliance between the SNDP and the NSS, the less said the better. The caste gulf between Nairs and Ezhavas is so immensely real that even a child knows the very notion is stillborn.
The Church claims to be in control of the 19 per cent Christians. The bishops certainly are in control of the wealthy institutions and real estate and spiritual matters of the flock. But their writ does not run in the polling booth. Even old ladies vote any which way they want. Like the SNDP and the NSS, the bishops too are playthings in the hands of politicians but the politicians shrewdly make it look otherwise.
Communalism in Kerala, in general, is not of the violent kind, but cunning and exploitative. It is about sharing the spoils between the communities and castes with the politician as master of ceremonies. Malayalis love their materialism too much to encourage real violence. Even ultra Islamists are floundering because the average Muslim is discovering the merits of La Dolce Vita.