Course correction

Six years is a long time in politics and public memory is short. From mid-2010, the Kerala Communist Party of India (Marxist) led by its indefatigable 87-year-old chief minister VS Achuthanandan sought to deflect attention from the considerable anti-incumbency against his lacklustre tenure. In a move that stumped the Indian National Congress (INC)-led opposition United Democratic Front, Achuthanandan went on the offensive by alluding to the rise of communalism among minorities. Achuthanandan’s charge was heavily problematic and reeked of “soft Hindutva” to many observers. After all, the communists were allied with a faction of the Christian-dominated Kerala Congress until April 2010, and with the Indian National League, an offshoot of the Muslim League. The 2011 elections saw an unprecedented communal divide in Kerala; the UDF secured the minority vote but was shocked by the consolidation of Hindu votes towards the LDF. To an extent, the INC anticipated this and broke precedent to field the then state Congress chief, Ramesh Chennithala, as a candidate, in a vain attempt to balance communal equations. The LDF nearly bucked anti-incumbency, falling agonisingly short of the majority mark by just two seats. 

Cut to 2016, the CPM has aggressively wooed the minorities, especially Muslims, raising the bogey of Hindutva politics, the freedom to eat beef, and the INC’s alleged soft response to the BJP’s rise. And as the election results show, the 180-degree turn in its political strategy from one assembly election to the next has yielded rich electoral rewards. The sentiment for Hindu vote consolidation was prevalent this time too. The UDF was in the same position as it was in 2011. By succumbing to Muslim League demands for another Cabinet berth, and bowing to Church-led protests against the Kasturirangan report on Western Ghats, the INC had cut a sorry figure.

The definition of minorities, as it applies elsewhere, cannot hold for Kerala. The state’s Hindus, who form the majority, are divided politically, while the “minorities” are politically organised and economically stronger than elsewhere. The Nairs, estimated to be 14 per cent of the total population, the Ezhavas, estimated at 27 per cent, and the Dalits (9 per cent), have been politically divided. But the Christians (18 per cent) and Muslims (27 per cent) have largely aligned with the INC and its partners. Powered by the Gulf boom for Muslims, and greater educational access and land ownership for Christians, these groups are minorities only in the demographic sense.

A Hindu revivalism is now afoot in Kerala, which has fomented a robust discourse over the rising political and economic heft of the “minorities”.

It is hardly surprising that the CPM took note of this chasm and ventured on a deliberate course of drawing electoral mileage in 2011. Back then, the CPM did not have to contend with the BJP, which was weak and virtually leaderless. The situation is markedly different today. From a six per cent vote share in 2011, the BJP, bolstered by Narendra Modi’s leadership, has improved its showing to 10 per cent in the 2014 general elections and 14 per cent in the 2015 panchayat elections. For a party that professes class politics, the CPM was quick to realise that it could not compete with the BJP or sustain the pitch for Hindu vote consolidation. Even in 2011, VS did not call for a consolidation of Hindu votes. His derisive references to the INC’s allies, the Muslim League, and the Church-backed Kerala Congress(M), coupled with the presence of Oommen Chandy, a Christian, heading the INC, were enough to stir the discerning electorate in 2011. To continue campaigning in the same vein in 2016 was to court the risk of being equated to the Sangh Parivar, with its outright appeal to majoritarian sentiments. Instead, the CPM campaign, this time, focussed on the UDF’s corruption and BJP’s divisiveness, a far cry from the Left party’s subtle appeal to communal sentiment in 2011.

The CPM’s position was also complicated by BJP president Amit Shah’s political acumen. Running circles around the CPM, Shah conjured an unlikely political alliance with a new Ezhava-dominated political party, the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena, and other backward caste, Dalit and Adivasi outfits. The BJP’s pitch for Hindu unity was now ready, though the Nair Service Society played party-pooper, upset at the BJP courting the Ezhavas first. For decades, the Ezhavas and other backward Hindu groups have been the bedrock of the CPM’s support base. Even while fighting to retain traditional supporters, the CPM quickly realised the need to widen its base and take corrective steps. The results were evident in last year’s civic polls. The Indian National Congress, complacent over the impending CPM decline after the erosion of Hindu votes to the BJP, was in for a shock. There is wide consensus that it was the INC’s votes that leaked to the BJP. The CPM’s aggressive outreach to the minorities had yielded results, especially among Muslims, even as it staved off any significant exodus from its traditional vote base. 

There was also a lesson for the CPM in this victory. In the past, the CPM’s keenness to woo Muslim votes had drawn flak from party supporters and lay-voters for drawing close to Islamic radicals like Abdul Nazar Madani. In contrast, the eschewing of problematic communal positions and recasting itself as a secular vanguard has endeared the CPM to liberals and fired up the party cadre, who are convinced that this is the correct strategy to puncture the communal votebanks of the UDF and the BJP. The CPM’s gains among the minorities, may be, at best, incremental. After all, the minorities have been reared on decades of indoctrination that denounced the Communists for anti-democratic, anti-capital and anti-religious leanings. Nevertheless, the beef festivals organised by the CPM in response to the Kerala House raid by the Hindu Sena and the Delhi Police, and the perception that it is the CPM and RSS that is locked in a bitter, and violent, ideological struggle have had a definitive impact on the minorities.

Political observers were quick to write the CPM’s epitaph amid the rapid strides made by the BJP in the past two years. The CPM was not to blame for the communalisation of Kerala’s politics. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Congress, unable to withstand the political challenge posed by the Communists, drafted Christian, Nair and Muslim community leaders and clerics into the political sphere and set in motion a powerful anti-Communist movement. Till date, the Congress has been unable to overcome the fallout of that decision. And now, half a century later, this original sin of the Congress has also paved the way for the BJP’s rise. It was assumed that the CPM would end up paying for the INC’s sins. However, going by last year’s civic polls and this year’s assembly elections, the CPM has had the last laugh. The CPM’s success against communal politics in the 2016 elections is a refreshing departure from the toxic appeal to religious and caste sentiments.

The author is assistant editor, dna