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Unravelling trends in Kerala politics

The result was a freeze in coalitional relations with certain partie
From a bipolar polity of evenly matched coalitions since 1982, Kerala has turned into a triangular arena of political combat. Whatever the professed political agendas be, certain social and communal equations have played a key role in every election since 1982.
Till 1987, there was a strong belief that the dominant parties — the Congress and the CPM — cannot form a government without the support of either the Muslim League or any faction of Kerala Congress. The internal struggle in the CPM in the early 1980s on the strategy to be adopted towards these parties is too known to be repeated. The slogan raised by the CPM-led LDF, courtesy the strategy of Com EMS, was that both majority and minority communalism was twin dangers to be opposed. This aroused the hope in vast Hindu majority, who were not yet attracted to the complete saffronised politics, that a government without parties professing secularism, yet naturally perceived as torchbearers of minority communalism, was possible and LDF saw victory, albeit a facile one, in the 1987 elections. The regional pattern of that victory, reverses in Malabar region and sweeping southern Kerala, evidenced the soft Hindutva reaction against the then UDF regime led by late K. Karunakaran which had given a pride of place to parties of minority religion.
Though Com EMS was quick to realise that this strategy cannot be a long term one and shifted to look for allies in minority religion-based parties, when the saffron surge in the post-Babri Masjid Ayodhya dispute started, others held on to the 1987 strategy, as one for all times to come. The result was a freeze in coalitional relations with certain parties and groups leaving the LDF and UDF. But dilution of the 1987 strategy was visible when P. J. Joseph faction of Kerala Congress entered the LDF later to leave it after a decade. Saffron politics during 1982-2014 remained largely on the fringes, except in one or two constituencies. But post-2014, the scenario has undergone a sea change. Though the Congress has been decimated at the national level. the Left led by the CPM too has been reduced to a pale shadow of its old self. The challenge is faced in their strongholds of West Bengal and Kerala. The decimated Congress continues to hold on in Kerala despite several factors and allegations working against it. What are the primary reasons for the LDF's successive defeats despite the Congress not being in a good shape at all at the national level?
Three main factors that come to mind are:
(a) The Communist movement in Kerala from the beginning got and expanded its social base fighting against rigours of caste and for reforms in decadent practices in temple worship. The role of P. Krishna Pillai and A. K. Gopalan in Guruvayoor Satyagraha is too vivid in history. The Communist party has had its roots in the oppressed sections among the Hindus. Minority groups with organised religious interests have been against the Communists and there has been no substantial change till date. With the rewritten grammar of Hindutva under Shri Narendra Modi, when the backward and scheduled castes started embracing the erstwhile precincts of the chitpavan Brahmins. the Left in Kerala is seeing an erosion in their assiduously built traditional base among the Hindu backward and scheduled castes. With minority votes flocking to the Congress-led UDF with not much let up in the historical antipathy to the Communists, the triangular polity is proving to be electoral ruin for the Left in Kerala
(b) The perception among the middle class that a rigorous party structure is not a welcome feature in a more open democracy. This has led to the iconic status to the party's rebel and mascot Com V. S. Achuthanandan.
(c) The problem of credibility faced by the Left after a number of them have been affected by Parliamentary Cretinism.
The recovery has to be a process of long haul and will require rewriting the grammar of party structure and attitude towards social, religious and communal groups. In the short run, realignments may help but cannot be sure. A leaf out of the UDF politics in dealing with mass grievances sans the murkier side of it can also be thought of. Political Left has to cease to don the role of an educator in the era of information explosion. It has to undergo metamorphosis as a listening and learning community. Undoubtedly, they have leaders with this vision and any advice can be unwarranted. But hopes are never misplaced.
(The author is a researcher of issues of Indian federal polity)
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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