On Sunday, 60-year-old Krishnan attended a wedding in Kerala’s Palakkad district. This was the first public event that the daily wage labourer has managed to attend in the last two-and-a-half years. Not because he was too busy or unwilling, but because the rest of the village denied him the right to be a part of any event, says Krishnan.
The reason for their ostracisation – their political choices. Krishnan and his two sons, 20-year-old Vijayan and 22-year-old Jayan, were all members of the CPI (M) till they left the party in 2015 over clashes with some other members. The trio soon joined the Congress, and that was when the trouble began for them, says Krishnan.
Krishnan and his family, who live in Kannannur in Palakkad district, allege that after they quit the party, the CPI (M) local committee started off an unofficial social boycott against them.
Krishnan says that his relatives stopped inviting him for weddings, his friends stopped talking to him and the family was denied groceries from shops in the village.
“Even if relatives and friends did invite us for wedding or other functions, they would later urge us not to turn up. CPI (M) workers had threatened to ruin their event, each of them said,” Krishnan’s son Vijayan told The News Minute.
“Many times, even my mother has been asked to leave grocery shops. So, we would get things from shops situated far away,” he added.
It was only when Mathrubhumi News recently reported about the social boycott that the family’s plight came to light. Last Sunday, the family had once again been asked not to attend a wedding nearby that they had earlier been invited to.
“After the news was telecast on Mathrubhumi, a few CPI (M) workers came to us and took our father to the wedding. Though he was hesitant, they insisted. While attending the function they forcefully took a photo with my father. Now they are circulating the photo and claiming that there is no boycott of our family,” Vijayan said.
Krishnan’s elder son Ajayan alleges that allowing his father to attend the wedding on Sunday was just a farce by the CPI(M) and the family continues to be ostracised.
“As news reports claim, this was ‘not the end to our pain’. They just wanted to prove that we were telling lies,” Ajayan said.
Krishnan’s wife Leelavathy said that she was more scared of the attacks on their house at night.
“Many times, people throw stones at our house. He (Krishnan) is not well too. We don’t know how we are going to live here. We need to travel by bus to somewhere outside the village even to buy essentials,” she said.
Though the family complained to the police about the boycott when miscreants destroyed Krishnan’s paddy and banana cultivation, no action has been taken yet.
However, when TNM contacted the CPI (M) Kannannur branch Secretary, he said there was no social boycott. “It’s all a misunderstanding by the family. How can a party boycott a family, what do we gain by this? We have not done that and we will not do that. These are wrong allegations based on political agenda,” Shanmughan said.