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The violence between RSS and CPI-M cadres has been widely reported in the media. The homicidal political riots between the two organisations can be traced to the late sixties. However, the Kannur violence is more conspicuous since both red and saffron casualties have been unusually high in the last three years. Although peace has been restored more than hundred workers of both the groups have been killed. The real question which needs to be answered is the reason behind ideological rivalry turning violent.
Politics in Kerala has been a classic example of bipolarity between the CPI-M-led Left Democratic Front and the Congress-led United Democratic Front. Demographically the minorities constitute 43 percent of the total population. Muslims and Christians are 21 and 22 percent respectively. The backward castes, like the Ezhavas, which alone constitute 20 per cent of the population, form the bulk of the support base of the CPI-M. This enduring equilibrium has been threatened by the expansion of the RSS since the eighties and the subsequent emergence of the BJP, who now poll nine per cent of the vote.
GREAT BOOST
The growth of the RSS in the state is not a sudden and it is beginning to challenge the Left organisations and their social philosophy - particularly their approach to the minorities. The RSS started its work in Kerala in the mid-forties, but could not emerge as a potential force till the late-seventies. One of its senior-most leaders, the veteran trade unionist, Dattopant Thengadi, spent a long time expanding RSS activities there. In 1967, the Bharatiya Jan Sangh session which was held at Calicut in Kerala gave some impetus to the party. It is at this conference that party ideologue Deendayal Upadhyay categorically defined the RSS position on minorities. Mode of worship, he said, did not change the culture and history of a people - he called Muslims and Christians Mohammadi Hindu and Christi Hindus respectively.
Moreover, the grand project to construct the Vivekananda Rock Memorial launched by another RSS leader Eknath Ranade, former all-India general secretary of the RSS, was a great boost to the organisation. It also exposed the Marxists' vote-bank politics. The role of RSS cadres during the Emergency was also a shot in the arm.
After the Emergency, the RSS emerged with a new image and moral strength. It charmed even Marxist revolutionaries turned social democrats. Senior CPI-M leader AK Gopalan observed about the Sangh, 'there is some lofty ideal which is capable of inspiring such deeds of bravery and stamina for sacrifices’. Balasaheb Deoras, then the sarsanchalak, publicly claimed that the PSS was growing fastest in Kerala. In Kerala, unlike other states, the RSS’s social base was the lower strata of people and it could embrace the backward castes like the Ezhavas.
Besides, workers have also turned saffron - the RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), has a foothold amongst the fishermen and head-load workers. The growth of the RSS provoked repressive tactics. Marxist governments imposed bans on the RSS at least five times. The fishermen organised shakhas on boats to counter the government order which prohibited meetings in public places.
SMOKE AND FIRE
The ideological impact of Hindutva led the traditional rivals, the LDF and UDF, to look for new social bases. The rigid caste division between the lower and upper castes was also hit by the Hindutva ideology. It negated the EMS Nam-boodiripad thesis that “the, Hindus here are so caste-rid-den, the caste rules regarding their mutual social relations are so rigid, it is extremely difficult to create a sense of Hindu solidarity' (Kerala Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow).
The CPI-M’s slanderous propaganda that the RSS is anti-minorities could not stop its expansion. Vigorous intellectual activism through three well-organised intellectual and cultural wings also helped it counter the propaganda of the Marxists and to expose them as minorities worshippers. The smoke was not without fire. The CPI-M’s protracted alliance with the Muslim League proved the point.
The CPI-M also witnessed an exodus of grass-roots workers to the RSS. Induchudan, a former editor of CPI-M daily Deshabhimani presided over an RSS rally in Alwaye and condemned the Communist-led government's ban on the RSS.
The CPI-M, which has grown in the Marxist-Stalinist tradition, cannot identify with political pluralism. Hypocrisy in its ranks increasingly disillusioned the cadres. A large number of BJP office-bearers have a Marxist background. Even the state BJP president CK Padmabhan was an activist of the Democratic Youth Federation of India, the youth wing of the CPI-M.
The defection of party activists has been perceived as a threat, to its existence. When legal obstacles failed to check the growth of the RSS, it began to resort to physical liquidation. Out of 50 RSS cadres killed, 48 were ex- Marxists. In the past the Congress and occasionally the Muslim League supporters had to face the wrath of the red brigade. And even recently on 1 November 1999, students belonging to the Congress who were on dharna in front of the state secretariat were ston-ed by the SFI without any provocation. Which is why Karuna-karan once remarked , “a situation has come when the people have to turn to [the] RSS to face Marxist violence”. Kannur, known as the Leningrad of Kerala, is home to many prominent hardline CPI-M leaders.
SCORING POINTS
Party cadres could not tolerate the erosion of their hegemony there. Violence began soon after the Nayanar government came to power in 1996. It was state-sponsored, as the police played a partisan role. As AK Antony, Congress leader, said on 4 December 1999 “the police force, which is efficient enough, is not being allowed to act. [Its] hands are chained.” The RSS responded with all its strength.
The CPI-M's seeming anxiety for peace was due to bad media publicity in the aftermath of the killing of KT Jaykrishnan, a prominent BJP youth leader and school teacher, in a classroom in front of school boys on 1 December 1999, just a day after pact had been brokered on the initiative of VK Krishna Iyer.
Even friendly media could not defend the CPI-M, which is why party general secretary, Harkishan Singh Surjeet said on 3 December 1999, that “the entire country is anxious to see peace restored in Kan-nur. Violence is not going to benefit anyone and I don't think this is time to score points.’
The RSS now has 4,000 shakhas with a daily attendance of nearly 100,000 swayamsevaks. Taking advantage of the chain of violence in Kannur the Kerala government has now proposed to ban all drills and parades without prior permission. It finds fault with the shakhas, but none in its own Stalinist traits.
(The author is Senior
Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Delhi University.)
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