People's Democracy

 THINKING TOGETHER

Inspite of glorious social reform movement in the past, land reform measures taken by the earlier Left and Democratic Front governments, highest literacy rate and stronger communist and Left movement in the state, why is the society of Kerala still in the grip of dark communal and casteist forces of all varieties? Please explain.

Samrat Biswas, Tripura (through e-mail)

COMPARED to many other parts of the country, it would be wrong to say that Kerala is completely in the grip of "dark communal and casteist forces."  We must recollect that Swami Vivekananda had once described Kerala as a "mad house" of caste divisions. As you mentioned, it is because of the glorious social reform movements unleashed by the communists and other Left and democratic forces that Kerala today has, despite its initial backwardness, achieved some of the highest levels of human development indicators in India. Some of these like the literacy rate, infant mortality and other human development indices are comparable with the levels currently achieved by many advanced western countries. 

Despite such impressive developments, communal and casteist forces continue to exercise influence to some degree in Kerala. We cannot go into all the reasons for this in this column. But we may mention the two most important ones.

First, the hold of communal and casteist consciousness over the minds of the people is very tenacious in a country like ours. Even after achieving modern development, such consciousness continues to dominate the thinking of many people. One example will suffice. Consider a third generation NRI, born in the modern and advanced USA, who has probably never stepped on the soil of India. But when the question of his marriage arises, he puts in advertisements in the matrimonial columns seeking a bride belonging not only to the same religion but to the same sub-caste! Being born and bought up in a modern and advanced society does not automatically eliminate such backward consciousness. This requires a relentless struggle. Such a struggle, fortunately, is continuing in Kerala which is why such communal and casteist forces are not able to dominate the politics of the state as much as they would have liked to do.

Secondly, while the communists and the progressive forces work for the elimination of such social consciousness by concentrating on the economic development of society and the empowerment of the people, the reactionary forces and opportunistic political parties seek to utilise the communal and casteist influences on the people to preserve their vested interests and reap electoral gains. For the sake of their electoral benefit, they not only preserve but nurture the further growth of such forces which, in the final analysis, seek to keep our country and society in backwardness.

Therefore, the struggle against communal and casteist forces needs to be combined with a political struggle against such interests who seek to utilise communal and casteist forces for their political benefit at the expense of the society and the people. The current UDF government in Kerala has come into existence precisely on the basis of such an unprincipled grouping of all casteist and communal forces. The CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front’s struggle against communalism and casteism per se as well as the political struggle against the UDF is what will ensure that in the future, the grip of these "dark" forces, as you call them, will be weakened, finally to be rendered ineffective.