At around 7.30 pm on 20 August 2016, the sound of an explosion broke through the din of the evening at Koothuparamba in Kannur district, Kerala. An explosive stored in the house of P Dikshith, a 23-year-old Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker, had been set off accidentally. Residents from the area rushed Dikshith, who was reportedly alone at home then and had been making bombs, to the Indira Gandhi Cooperative Hospital at Thalassery. It was too late. The doctors who attended to him declared him dead. In and around the district of Kannur, Dikshith is one of the many political party workers who have lost their lives because of explosives that are stored, often in residential buildings, to make country bombs. In the district, accidental bomb blasts have resulted in the deaths of and injured not just party workers, but also children who happened to pick up the curious-looking objects. Such accidents are symptomatic of the larger culture of violence that has become an integral part of the political landscape in Kerala.
In January 2015, Shibin Bhaskaran—a nineteen-year-old worker from the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI)—was murdered by an armed gang that allegedly belong to the Indian Union Muslim League. Muhammad Aslam, a 20-year-old IUML worker, was one of the 18 IUML workers who was accused of killing Bhaskaran. In June 2016, a Special Additions sessions court acquitted 17 of the 18 people who were accused of murdering Bhaskaran . On 12 August, Aslam was hacked to death at the town of Nadapuram in Kozhikode district. He was travelling on his motorcycle when he was chased down by a gang of people that followed him in a car. The assailants attacked him with swords and chopped his hands off. Aslam was stabbed 67 times.
Aslam’s death is similar to that of TP Chandrasekharan, the founder of the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP). In May 2012, Chandrashekharan was allegedly killed by a gang that had been hired by leaders from the Communist Party of India-Marxist(CPI-M). He was reportedly stabbed 51 times. Chandrasekharan’s death sparked widespread criticism against the party and its workers. In both Aslam and Chandrasekharan’s murders, the deaths of their political rivals alone did not appease the attackers; they seemed to relish, in particular, the violence of these killings.
Late at night, on 11 July 2016, CV Dhanaraj, a CPI-M worker was hacked to death before his family’s eyes at his house in Payyanur in Kannur district. A few hours later, CK Ramachandran, a worker from the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh—the labour wing of the Sangh Parivar—was stabbed to death in his house at Annoor, near Payyanur. Less than two months later, on 3 September 2016, Bineesh, a 26-year-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker, succumbed to the injuries he had sustained on his head and leg after being attacked with sharp weapons at Thillankery in Kannur district. Bineesh was killed a little more than an hour after Jijesh, a CPI-M worker, was injured when country-made bombs were hurled at him while he was travelling in his car. The BJP protested Bineesh’s death by organising a district-wide strike on 4 September. At the Thillenkari panchayat, the CPI-M announced a strike of its own. By 15 September, as many as six CPI (M) workers had been arrested for Bineesh’s murder.
Such retaliatory attacks are not uncommon in the region. They follow a pattern in which the murder of a worker from a political party is avenged with the killing of another—regardless of their proximity to the organisation—from the rival party.
The district of Kannur been witnessing violent conflicts such as these since the 1960s. Political violence has become normalised here—residents are no longer surprised when they wake up to the news of bomb explosions or brutal murders. Although such incidents are frequent in, but not limited to, areas such as Panur, Chokli, Kadirur and Cheruvanchery in Kannur district, their reverberations are felt across Kerala. While Nadapuram in Kozhikode district has a long and chequered history of violence associated with anti-feudal and communal protests, in other areas, such attacks are rooted in the rivalry between the Communist, Congress and right-wing Hindutva parties.
Earlier, clashes among workers from rival political parties were based on ideological differences. Over the years, these motives morphed into proving one’s allegiance to the institution of the party and its leadership. “In the recent years, personal feuds involving party activists, communal issues and attempts to silence dissent against the party are the real causes of political conflicts in many cases, but are camouflaged as political killings,” said CK Vijayan, a senior journalist from Kannur. In the past few years, as senior CPI-M leaders were arrested for the murders of Chandrasekaran and E Manoj—a worker from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), who was killed in September 2014—many thought that the political violence in north Malabar would reduce. Yet, the brutality has prevailed. In fact, with the Left Democratic Front’s return to power in the state and the growing prominence of the BJP across Kerala, the situation has only become more tense.
Since the early days of the communist movement in Kerala, Kannur district has been known as a “red bastion.” Pinarayi Vijayan from the CPI-M, the chief minister of Kerala, won the state elections from the Dharmadam constituency here with a huge margin of 36,902 votes—about 56.8 percent of the total votes. The region, which is predominantly occupied by Thiyyas, an Other Backward Community (OBC), has a history of community-reform movements and left movements. The motif of a martyr plays an important role in the narrative of revolutionary politics here. Those who lose their lives in political conflicts are venerated to lure young supporters in and to establish the significance of various political parties. This legacy of martyrs was one of the main planks upon which both the BJP and the CPI-M rested their case during the assembly elections in May 2016. The CPI-M’s discourse on martyrdom ranged from its legacy of anti-colonial and anti-feudal struggles in Kerala, to the deaths of its workers in the recent inter-party feuds. Meanwhile, victims of political attacks—who had either lost someone or been severely injured themselves—addressed voters on behalf of the BJP.
At a public event in June 2016, Sreenivasan, a Malayalam-cinema stalwart who hails from Thalassery, reiterated a point frequently made by political analysts and residents in Kannur district: most martyrs and their families are from the lower rungs of political parties. A number of academic studies have concluded that a majority of the victims of political attacks in Kerala are cadres belonging to backward castes and economically deprived communities. The leaders remain unscathed. This virulent form of politics in Kerala is also a reflection of what academicians such as Ritty Lukose and J Devika refer to, as the masculine nature of the political activism in the state. “Leaders of political parties think that they can evoke the emotion of people and get their support by erecting flexes of martyrs,” Sreenivasan said, “However, only photos of party workers are found in these flexes. The workers do not wish to court death. Martyrs are born because of their own helplessness and the brain washing by the leaders.” Sreenivasan’s observations irked many political leaders in the state, including Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, the state unit secretary of the CPI-M, who indicated his displeasure by citing the names of CPI-M leaders who have been killed in the past, such as Azhikodan Raghavan and Kunjali. Balakrishnan also claimed that Sreenivasan was lying and misrepresenting facts.
According to the District Crime Records Bureau (DCRB) in Kannur, 70 political murders were reported in the district between 1999 and 2015. Among the victims, 35 were from the CPI-M, 29 from the BJP, 4 from the IUML, and 2 from the NDF. As many as 14 political murders were reported in 2008 and seven in 2009. Last year, this number came down to three. According to a report in The New Indian Express, over 200 people have been killed in the district in political attacks since 1980. Earlier, political clashes between the CPI-M and the Indian National Congress (INC) resulted in violence. Subsequently, the CPI, the IUML, and the BJP and RSS—both of which emerged as major players in this political game of violence—also joined the fray. The entry of other right-wing elements, such as the National Democratic Front (NDF), People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and Socialist Democratic Party of India (SDPI), has also contributed to this culture. The involvement of “quotation gangs”—criminal groups that are hired to organise and execute violent crimes—and the nexus of political leaders with sand, liquor, quarrying and real-estate mafia in the state only made the situation more sinister.
Although the dominant narrative on politics in Kerala focuses on its ideologically committed voters and the progressive role that political movements—particularly those aligned to the left— have played in addressing social issues, the ground reality is different today. “Earlier, political activists who lost their lives fighting for greater causes like Independence, or who resisted violent suppression during the Emergency were celebrated as martyrs. But, today political conflicts occur as a result of the tactics played by parties to establish and maintain their dominance in targeted areas,” Mohanan KP, a 61-year-old resident from Kannur, said. He continued, “These violent incidents have little to do with ideological commitment; most of the party members involved in violent practices are ignorant of political ideologies and history of their parties.”
T Sasidharan, an assistant professor and the head of the department of political science at Sree Narayana College in Kannur, appeared to believe that the roots of the political violence rampant in Kerala today, could be traced to the folk traditions and martial arts practiced in the region. “Instead of giving exposure to political ideologies, the parties encourage their cadres in using physical force. Only political education and critical thinking would enable cadres to realise the idiocy of blind loyalty to parties and their leaders,” he said.
“The metaphor of power bastions or forts of parties is used to describe areas dominated by a political party, where the earlier practice of protecting the forts by aligning forces, storing weapons and planning attacks on rival groups still continues,” said Mohanan. Such territorial demarcations have enabled a culture within which political party workers pride themselves on producing and hoarding weapons, and plotting and executing attacks on members from rival parties. The explosives that are used to make bombs are obtained under the pretense of being used in quarries or making fire crackers. Bombs of various kinds, along with custom-made knives and swords are easily made, collected, distributed, and sold in many parts of Kannur district. Various techniques such as the addition of glass pieces and rusted iron fillings in bombs, and the application of a coat of grease on weapons to clear off blood stains and finger prints are commonly used.
Although the police regularly confiscates bombs and weaponsfrom different parts of the district, including areas such as Panur and Kathirur, the consequent investigations rarely yield any result. The political commentators and journalists that I spoke to from the region told me that it is not very difficult to detect and monitor such illegal activities. However, they claimed, the political clout supporting this violence, coupled with the intimidation and suppression of dissenters within political parties, ensure that no legal action or public protests are initiated against the perpetrators of such crimes. Most often, party workers arrested for political crimes are easily let off with the help of their party leadership.
The leaders of these parties are quick to point the other way when they are asked about such violent practices. Speaking on the issue in the state assembly in July 2016, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the murders committed by party workers were “revenge killings.” He claimed that the state police had been directed to take action without any political bias. In September, a delegation of MPs from the BJP, which included Bhupender Yadav, Ananth Kumar Hegde, Nalin Kumar Kateel and Meenakshi Lekhi, were in Kannur to take stock of the situation. These MPs demanded an independent inquiry into the political violence in the district. Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, the state secretary of the CPI-M, alleged that this visit was an attempt to divert attention from the involvement of workers from the RSS and the BJP in similarly violent incidents. “The BJP leadership should stop its cadres from being involved in political violence before blaming the CPI(M),” he wrote in a Facebook post. P Jayarajan, the Kannur district secretary of the CPI-M, told me, “It is the BJP-RSS who started political violence in the region, and they are now trying to perpetuate violence. The two options available for us are either to surrender or fight back. We do not want to lose, and so we are organising ourselves for self-defense.” Jayarajan is one of those accused in the murder of RSS activist E Manoj in 2014, and is out on bail now.
Meanwhile, the leaders from the BJP blame the CPI-M for initiating “murder politics” and perpetuating violence. V Muraleedharan, a member of the BJP National Executive Committee and a former state secretary, who is from Kannur, said, “Being the most powerful party in the district, the CPI-M is trying to eliminate political opposition through violence. When the government does not take steps to curb violence, naturally the RSS-BJP activists feel threatened and they retaliate in an act of self-defense.” “The police should take necessary steps and take action against the perpetuators of violence irrespective of their political background,” he added. Following the recent spate of violent incidents, TG Mohandas, the BJP’s state intellectual state convenor, wrote a letter to the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and proposed a bizarre solution. Mohandas demanded the imposition of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act(AFSPA) to “restore normalcy” in Kannur. Even though the BJP sent its first MLA to the state assembly only in the election held earlier this year, Kerala has the highest number of RSS shakhas in the country. The RSS and the BJP, which share their cadre in the state, need martyrs to grow as a political force here, while the CPI-M needs martyrs to make itself relevant.
“The BJP and CPI(M), which are in power in the centre and the state respectively, are propagating violent politics, threatening the peaceful life of people not only in the district, but across the state. To put an end to this, both the parties should take responsibility and give up violent political practices,” VM Sudheeran, the president of the state unit of the Congress, the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), told me. Sudheeran spoke of a peace meeting that the KPCC had organised on 16 July 2016, after the murders of Dhanaraj and Ramachandran in Payannur. He claimed that the KPCC “has always followed the path of non-violence.” However, the situation was no better when the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) was in power in the state. A report on the political violence in Kerala, published by the BCC on 17 May 2016, quoted Paul Zacharia, a Malayalam novelist, who said “Even in areas with Congress legislators, the administration and the police look the other way when such violence happens and this has created distortion in the politics of the region.”
The commitment of party leaders in Kerala to erase this retaliatory violence remains suspect. Most of them are often given to using the provocative language of aggression, revenge and retaliation while addressing members from their parties. The selectively invoked rhetoric of non-violence notwithstanding, the current political situation in north Malabar indicates that the political leaders and cadres in the state will not lay down their weapons anytime soon.