In the context of the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, Dr P Sanal Mohan, history researcher and former professor at the Mahatma Gandhi University, observes that the shift of dominant Catholic factions and Dalits towards the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kerala undermines the state’s social ideology of equality and fraternity. He attributes this to the desire for development, the influence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as disillusionment with the Left and Congress.
In an exclusive interview, Dr Sanal, who is also the author of Modernity of Slavery: Struggles Against Caste Inequality in Colonial Kerala, highlights the need for a broad alliance of progressive forces and the importance of critical scholarship on caste and social movements to transform India's political landscape. Excerpts below
Q. Does Suresh Gopi’s victory from Thrissur in the recent Lok Sabha elections signal a genuine transformation in the dominant Catholic community's political leanings?
This is an important question that demands nuanced analysis. Suresh Gopi winning from Thrissur would appear as a paradigm shift within the Catholic community because he won by a margin of 74 686 votes, almost 37.80% in terms of vote share. Many analysts cited this as the beginning of the BJP's ascend in Kerala’s electoral domain, with the support of the Catholics. However, Suresh’s stardom-generated appeal, as many observe, has contributed to his political rise. But, in Hindutva’s neoliberal era, what must also be noted is the foray of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the harbinger of development in Kerala, focusing on Thrissur. Suresh Gopi has been positioned by the BJP as the local deliverer of this new brand of development. With Modi’s blessings, he is ordained to translate it into actual practice.
There was also the talk that if Suresh Gopi won, he would become a Union cabinet minister. It had a purchase among the upwardly mobile and ‘development hungry’ sections. The question of development, whatever it meant, became the password for accessing votes. I think the notion of development thus circulated, and Modi being the wholesaler of it, influenced vote swings. This is significant in the context of the financial difficulties the state faced during this period and the general impasse the Kerala model of development was confronting.
Symbolic acts, such as the fanfare with which the Vande Bharat train was introduced in Kerala, and the euphoria it created, provide a good example to understand this. However, it was a curse to the general commuters whose trains were delayed for the fancy train to dash ahead. There are several examples.
However, such policies lacked political morality if we bring in Prime Minister Modi’s comments and his tirade against such ‘sweet things’ during the run-up to elections, which the highest court of the land quite earnestly took up. We may recall that PM Modi eventually took refuge in such offers in addition to his venomous comments against Muslims in India in late April 2024. Did such wanton efforts to destroy the social fabric of India receive the required condemnation in Kerala? We need to think about it. It would seem that there were efforts to legitimise such dangerous polarisation in Kerala even by a section of dominant caste Christians in the last decade, epitomised by a section of the Catholics who screened the controversial film Kerala Story before the April 2024 elections.
The Kerala society has yet to see the kind of riots that take place in North India, although political violence has been normalized in Kerala by different political parties. The possibilities of pogroms and genocide have become a reality in India, and it is not hypothetical, although all of us wish that would not happen. The Catholics, or, for that matter, other Christian denominations, except a few, are yet to show their commitment to a Christian concept of humanism, which would demand them to take a position opposed to Hindutva violence that has taken a heavy toll on India.
Did Christian humanism take roots in Kerala which has a long tradition of Christianity thought to go back to the Apostolic time? Did it develop a critique of entrenched caste violence and inequality until the Protestant missionaries came in the 19th century? It never happened in Kerala. In Kerala, we do not hear similar bold voices of revered theologians and thinkers like Sebastian Kappen, Paulose Mar Gregorios, or Paulose Mar Paulose, among others, today, who provided critical theological and political reflections that were liberating and humanistic to the core. I am not forgetting that there are people like Bishop Geevarghese Mor Koorilos and others.
The current leaning of a section of Catholics or Christians in Kerala towards the BJP shows their desire to articulate a particular politics which is legitimised by their own belief in their upper caste origin as stated by, for example, Bishop Cleemis of Malankara Catholic Church a few months ago. Living in Kerala, they refuse to see the violence that Hindutva forces have engulfed India with since the 1980s and its genealogy and the tacit approval of it by the current regime ruling India. Along with the actors’ popularity, one could also find the legitimacy provided by sections of Christians, mostly dominant caste Christians, who articulated Islamophobia that supported the ideology and politics of the BJP during the 2024 election.
If Christians in Kerala are committed to the movement of Jesus, they should be aligning with anti-fascist forces in Kerala and India. Therefore, the challenge before Kerala is to build a broad alliance of all progressive forces to develop an anti-fascist and humanist political front. The left in Kerala has to unlearn many of their dogmas to remain a vital force. Additionally, the Left's highly bureaucratic party apparatus must become genuinely democratic to remain relevant and committed to the egalitarian ethos that will help regain the eroding moral high ground they once claimed. This became a problem in Thrissur with the exposure of corruption in the cooperative sector that contributed to the erosion of trust in the Left. Therefore, the fight against corruption has to be central to the Left agenda. It is only by genuine democratic social and political movements that the rise of fascist politics in Kerala can be defeated.
Similarly, we need to think about how the Hindutva ideology takes root in civil society in Kerala through different means, often invoking ideas of culture, community, etc., and conflating culture and religion. This is where the real long-term fight should take place. At present, the progressive forces in Kerala depend on the shallow concept of the ‘Renaissance’ deployed to counter the Hindutva ideology. They become caught in a double bind, not necessarily distinguishing between historiography and the contemporary ideological challenges. The impasse becomes clear when one comes across the venomous comments by SNDP Yogam General Secretary Vellapally Natessan against minorities in the Kerala state, who is also a significant figure in the Renaissance Protection Council of the Government of Kerala.
So, the complexity has to be understood as deeper than one would think. Yet, ideological and political mobilisation is required to defeat the communal and divisive politics of the BJP, which is traded as nationalism today.
Q. What are the underlying factors driving the Christian community's shift towards the BJP, and how does this align with their religious and cultural values?
One should not use the notion of a monolithic Christian community, as one can identify fissures within such a unit. The Malankara Marthoma Church, The Church South India, the Latin Catholic Church etc., have differences of opinion with sections of SyroMalabar Catholics regarding BJP’s politics. Let's go by public statements of the various Church authorities of the different denominations of Syrian Christian Churches in Kerala. It appears that they identify BJP as the representative of Hindus. They do not seem to distinguish between a political party and a religion.
This is followed by their open statements that they originated from Hindu upper castes. This circle is completed when they invoke their upper caste origins to legitimize the contemporary political preferences of certain people within the churches.
Q. Will the electoral trend in Thrissur recur or recede in the next elections?
The bloody violence in Manipur is a fault line. However, it has not affected the kind of politics that evolved in constituencies like Thrissur, which secured the support of Christians to the Hindutva program.
Influential sections of traditional Kerala Christians, as represented by some of the heads of churches, recently parroted the claims of the BJP and the Union government regarding the Manipur violence – as tribal conflicts, forgetting the multiple dimensions of the problem, including the religious dimensions of the targeted violence and killing tribal Christians. This is in sharp contrast to the position of the Bishop of Bangalore, Peter Machado, who vehemently criticised the anti-Christian stance of the BJP governments. Instances from the killing of Graham Staines and his minor sons Philip and Timothy to the brutal violence against various churches, priests, pastors, and nuns in North India bear witness to this. It is also true that none of the violent events against Christians in India has affected the political choices of the Christians who go along with the BJP. Similarly, the violence against Christians of Adivasi origin in Kandhamal in Orissa and Dangs district of Gujarat seems to have fallen the wayside as far as sections of Christians in Kerala are concerned.
The Christian communities’ disillusionment with the LDF and the UDF must be spelt out clearly to understand their situation in Kerala. The dominant caste Christians in Kerala are not a deprived social group, though this does not mean that there are no poor people among the traditional Christians. Deprivation is seen in the case of Latin Catholic Christians of the coastal areas and Dalit Christians as a social structural problem. However, such issues are not considered significant in the dominant churches' politics. Despite the propaganda, the BJP could not make much headway, so they are not unassailable.
The electoral trends can be changed in Kerala if a new humanist politics evolves to counter the Hindutva Neo-Liberal fascist combine. Now, everybody talks about narratives, but what is more important is the factual basis of the narratives. Therefore, progressive forces must work hard to reach the masses. The complacent Left does not show the way.
Q. Despite winning only one seat, the BJP's vote share surged across almost every constituency, recording a 3.5% point increase from 15.64% in 2019 to 19.14%. What factors contributed to this steady rise, and did any specific community play a significant role in this growth?
This increase in vote share is due to a variety of factors. There was a desire to chase the fruits of development as propagated by the Union government and the BJP. If one looks at the community-wise profile, it appears that some sections of the voters who previously voted for the LDF and the UDF voted for the BJP. In certain constituencies, community organisations such as the SNDP could swing votes in favour of the BJP.
It is also possible that upper-caste voters in specific constituencies voted for the BJP. Also, there could be sections of the OBCs and Dalits. Certainly, the BJP propaganda played a role, along with the disillusionment with the left and the Congress. What is the most desirable politics for the caste-oppressed? They should realise that caste oppression was a kind of holocaust that spanned over centuries, and only radical anti-caste politics can liberate them from oppression. Such politics will be fundamentally opposed to the divisive and deadly politics the Hindu right represents.
Q. The CPI(M) has acknowledged a substantial leakage of its core Ezhava vote base to the Sangh Parivar camp. What is the nature of this leakage, and will these votes consolidate in the Sangh Parivar camp or revert to the LDF's core base?
One needs to look at the historical development of the Ezhava community to answer this. In the north of Kerala, the RSS and the BJP receive their maximum support from the Tiyya community. In the southern parts of Kerala too, a substantial segment of Ezhavas are part of the RSS formations. However, the teachings of Sri Narayan Guru are fundamentally opposed to the ideas that the Hindu right holds dear to them. The fault line is the movement itself, understood today as a Hindu movement, which was not so even during Guru’s times.
Substantial numbers of Ezhavas were part of the working class movement and the Left movements of various types. Additionally, the community was decisively transformed in the context of colonial modernity that imbued all the trends mentioned here, along with a pivotal role in the development of new ideological and aesthetic movements. The politics of Sangh Parivar is fundamentally opposed to this, and they have been appropriating Narayana Guru for their purpose as they do with many others in various parts of India. Therefore, the Hindu right would try hard to secure the support of Ezhavas if possible. And they are doing it now. The significant question is whether the communities that were part of the progressive movements in Kerala that created modern Kerala want to be part of the Hindutva fascism that would mean the death of Kerala as we see it today.
The Left parties, the CPI(M ) and the CPI must analyse the situation and understand what the Kerala society requires now. If they can mobilise the popular classes and be ready to understand people facing multiple oppressions, not just class, that will be the beginning of a new politics. They have to take seriously questions of caste oppression, gender oppression, and more importantly, today's environmental problems and climate change. That alone can solve the problems of the oppressed, through which the Left can create a new politics. The question is whether the Left and democratic forces are ready to do it.
Q. As the left faces erosion from its Ezhava vote base and the Christian community shows affinity towards the BJP, will the saffron party emerge as a viable third front in Kerala politics over the next few decades?
The Saffron party may think of establishing their domination in Kerala. However, there are political and cultural forces in the state that can halt its advances. Look at what has happened in UP in the 2024 election. The divisive policies eventually met with its nemesis.
In Kerala, it now appears that the Christian community and Ezhavas do not share much in common in terms of their social goals, as evidenced mainly by the outrageous comments of the SNDP Union General Secretary. Even if the saffron party mediates, the contradiction would surge forth. However, as people living in proximities, the fraternity that Sri Narayana Guru advocated should take centre stage, rather than polarisation and violence of the Hindu right. If the challenge from the saffron party becomes threatening as far as the social fabric of Kerala is concerned, it is the duty of every thinking mind to come up against it. That is where the anti-fascist front should focus on. It is not a simple LDF/UDF problem, but the need of the hour then is a genuine political mobilisation for regaining the soul of Kerala society. Therefore, the next decades should be that of such politics.
Q. What role will local leaders and grassroots mobilisation play in shaping the BJP's fortunes in Kerala, and how will the party balance local aspirations with its national agenda?
The BJP is indeed doing its best through various kinds of religious organisations and political forums of its own to mobilise supporters and emerge as an alternative. Even some of their supporters in the academic realm say that they will have to soft-pedal their aggressive monocultural postures in the multi-cultural Kerala.
Several rungs of their organisations try to aggressively push their agenda in civil society and even in formal institutions, including universities and other higher educational institutions. They have not succeeded in destroying the scientific temper in institutions of higher learning by introducing their mind-boggling pseudo-historical theories in Kerala. Yet, cultural wars of various kinds are evolving.
The BJP, by all means, is a centralising political entity with scant respect for institutional norms and human rights. They might try to nurture their kind of politics in Kerala, fusing it with their proclaimed aggressive communalism dressed up as nationalism. It appears that those who lead the saffron party do not recognise the multicultural dimension of India, which is the real asset guaranteeing the collapse of the apocalypse that they represent.
Q. How does the BJP's growth in Kerala fit into its broader national strategy, and what lessons can be drawn from this for the party's expansion in other states?
It seems that over the decades, the BJP could normalise a hate-filled political discourse in Kerala too. Additionally, their fudging of data related to almost all aspects of the economy and society created a situation where people began to feel something substantial would happen here. The people of UP have realised the false promises of the BJP and the violence of the system that they have developed. What they might be doing is an all-out war against some of the cardinal ideas that sustained modern Kerala. They might practice such steamrolling if they can elsewhere in the country. However, the question to be asked is who would stand by those founding social ideologies that made possible social life in Kerala, notwithstanding its internal fissures.
Q. The Arya Samaj's attempt to ally with the Ezhava community in the 1930s failed as they joined the Left wing of the Congress party, becoming the backbone of Kerala's Communist movement. How long has the Sangh Parivar been attempting to infiltrate the Ezhava vote bank, and can we expect their overtures to substantially penetrate other communities' vote banks?
I do not think the idea of a vote bank is correct, although it is very popular. Ezhavas had a history of anti-caste politics that was expressed in multiple ways, including religious conversion and atheism. Their attitude to the Arya Samaj is to be understood in this context. Sang Parivar has been trying to appropriate Sri Narayana Guru and the movement of the Ezhava community. However, the liberatory potential of the SN movement is opposed to the ideas and practices of the Saffron party.
Although history can be a good ally of positive politics, its selective use and misrepresentation are what communal parties are engaged in. Additionally, it is a serious matter to analyse whether the SN movement today sees itself as different from the aggressive Hindutva once. Unfortunately, there is a forgetful collapsing of both, which is alarming.
Q. What are the intricate caste dynamics that are contributing to the BJP's electoral success, particularly among Dalit voters?
In Kerala, it happens because of the disillusionment with the major political fronts. The other aspect is the desire of sections of Dalits to align with the so-called nationalistic symbolic substance that the Hindu right represents. It is important to note that in many other parts of India, Dalit parties and organisations have shown qualitatively different politics rooted in Ambedkaerite ideas of libertarian politics. I think there is a deficit of that in Kerala, where community organisations that are important even today mirror early twentieth-century images created during the princely rule.
Q. Is the support of Dalits for the BJP a regional phenomenon or a response to specific issues?
We observe differences across India. Some sections of Dalits are mobilised by Hindutva ideology that allows them some sort of gratification as part of what some would call a certain variant of ‘national community.’ In actual practice, they become scapegoats of the divisive politics. Nevertheless, it also depends on the histories of particular communities.
Some communities remain predominantly anti-caste, drawing on, as I said, Ambedkerite ideas and partaking in such a vision. Therefore, one needs to look at differing histories and sociologies of the communities to understand the particular politics they adopt. However, in the 2024 elections in many parts of India, Dalits decisively voted against the BJP as they feared the Constitution being undermined by the Hindutva party. There have also been alliances of convenience that saw some Dalits going along with the BJP.
Q. What are the factors driving the growing disillusionment of Dalits with the Left, and why is the Congress party not capitalising on this discontent as a natural alternative?
Historically, Dalits had different relations with the Congress due to Mahatma Gandhi’s untouchability mobilisation. However, it had its limitations rooted in paternalism. In the post-independence period, this politics continued, and even today, we see such politics prevailing in the Congress. In Kerala, although we find some Dalits as part of the Congress temple entry movement in the early twentieth century, there wasn’t much enthusiasm among Dalits if we look at the historical data.
The Left in Kerala had historically secured substantial support from Dalits due to the mobilisation of agricultural labourers. The disillusionment with the Left was set in the post-land reforms era as Dalits were entitled only to homesteads and not farms as an economic unit.
I do not think Dalits move towards BJP due to ideological reasons as not many communities could identify with the kind of history the Hindu right propounds. I shall give an example. Many Dalit communities in Kerala historically lived as slaves of upper-caste landlords, temples, churches etc. Their history of slavery goes back at least to the eighth century CE. In contrast, in the history that the Hindu right propounds, there is no caste slavery at all, and they talk about a spurious history of a thousand years of slavery under the Islamic empires!
What we need today are critical interventions in civil society that can demolish the myths created and circulated by the Hindutva ideologues, critical scholarship on caste, social movements, and anti-caste ideology.