Kannur, a sleepy coastal district in the scenic south Indian state of Kerala, has metamorphosed into a hotbed of political bloodshed in the past few decades. Even as India heaves into the age of technology and economic growth, the town has been making it to the national news for horrific crimes and brutal murders with sickening regularity. Ullekh N.P.’s latest book, Kannur: Inside India’s Bloodiest Revenge Politics draws a modern-day graph that charts out the reasons, motivations and the local lore behind the turmoil.
As Sumantra Bose, Professor of international and comparative politics, London School of Economics and Political Science, mentions in his foreword for the book, “Ullekh N.P. is uniquely placed to write this chronicle of Kannur, both as a native of the place and as the son of the late Marxist leader Pattiam Gopalan. Being an ‘insider’— and a politically connected insider…Ullekh tells the story of unending horror with deadpan factuality, tinged with compassion in his latest book, Kannur: Inside India’s Bloodiest Revenge Politics.”
Let’s read an excerpt from the book-
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The news that hits headlines from Kannur these days is mostly about its law-and-order situation. TV scrolls announce items such as these with great frequency: ‘One killed in Muslim League–CPI(M) clashes’; ‘Two hurt in RSS–CPI(M) fracas’; ‘CPI(M) man killed, RSS men nabbed’; ‘RSS youth hacked, 7 CPI(M) men held’; ‘PFI [Popular Front of India] activists attacked’; ‘District Collector calls all-party peace meeting’, and so on.
The crime bureau statistics, as of November 2016, show that forty-five CPI(M) activists, forty-four BJP–RSS workers, fifteen Congressmen and four Muslim League followers have been killed since 1991 in Kannur, besides a few other murders of the cadres of parties such as the PFI. Between November 2000 and 2016, the number of party workers killed in Kannur was thirty-one from the RSS and BJP, and thirty from the CPI(M), according to data obtained from the police by the independent news website 101reporters.com through a right-to-information request. While the RSS leaders claim that the CPI(M) are now doing to them what the Congress had done to the communists in the past, the CPI(M) leaders contest it, reeling off stats, and claiming that they have been forced to resist because the Hindu nationalists are hoping to effect a religious polarization through the politics of violence in order to reap electoral gains that have eluded them for long.
The latest numbers do not endorse the RSS’s claims of being a victim in this Left stronghold. Regardless, the Sangh has actively pursued a campaign, spiffily titled Redtrocity(short for Red Atrocity, referring to the reported high-handedness by the Marxists), as a counterweight to the series of accusations hurled against it for allegedly sowing religious hatred, perpetuating violence against non-conformists, triggering riots and deliberately aiding a mission to heighten communal hostilities.
Police records show that the RSS and the BJP have been at loggerheads not with the CPI(M)alone, but also with other parties, including the PFI and the Congress. Yet, equally laughable is the contention by the CPI(M) that it is portrayed as a villain without reason because it has only been engaging in acts of resistance and seldom in violent aggression.
Recent data show that from 1972 to December 2017, of the 200 who died in political violence in Kannur district—which accounted for the highest number of political crimes
in the state during the period, far ahead of other districts—seventy-eight were from the CPI(M), sixty-eight from the RSS–BJP, thirty-six from the Congress, eight from the Indian
Union Muslim League (IUML), two each from the CPI and the National Development Front (now called the PFI), while the rest were from other parties. Notably, of the total 193 political murder cases that took place in Kannur during the period, 112 of the accused were from the Sangh Parivar and 110 from the CPI(M).
The RSS–BJP argue that the escalation of hostilities started with the killing of an RSS worker on 28 April 1969, but the Marxists aver that the death was a denouement to a series of clashes stemming from the RSS’s support to a beedi baron who refused his workers a justified hike in salary and shut his business before floating two new companies. Media reports often show that more communist workers have died in Kannur than those belonging to any other party. The greatest irony in the RSS–CPI(M) fights is that the pro-Hindu Sangh Parivar has had no qualms about targeting CPI(M)-dependent Hindus, while the Marxists, the much-touted saviours of the proletariat, vehemently, so the story goes, go after the working classes who happen to be aligned with the Hindu nationalists.
Along Payyambalam beach, not far from the grave of K.G. Marar, one of the RSS’s topmost leaders in the state, is a grave of a twenty-one-year old man. Too young to die, that’s what visitors to the place would say. Sachin Gopalan died from sword injuries in July 2012. Allegedly, he was hacked by members of the radical Islamist Campus Front, a feeder organization of the PFI against which the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has now sought a ban for its anti-India activities. Gopal died at a hospital in Mangalore where he had arrived after shifting from one hospital to another in Kannur for want of better facilities. A student of a technical institute in the district, he was attacked when he had gone to a school for political work.
In the darkness of a late windswept evening, standing alone in the forbidding graveyard at Payyambalam, one is filled with evocative visions from the region’s chequered past and a violent present caught in the vortex of vendetta politics.
When I studied in a boarding school in Thiruvananthapuram, my classmates looked down on my hometown as Kerala’s Naples, a thuggish backwater; but then the district had
contributed two chief ministers (and one more later) as well as several luminaries to the state’s cultural, social, professional and political spheres.
I also came to be known as someone from the ‘Bihar of Kerala’. Later, I invented a rather self-deprecating phrase of my own: ‘the Sicily of Kerala’, factoring in the local omertà-
like code the Italian region was once known for. Poking fun at oneself does make sense, as it’s an effort to tide over the mental fatigue that sets in on being judged as a violent people, who are puritanical and foolish. Deep within, however, it hurts like a migraine.
The waves keep breaking hard on the shore like smooth knives on raw flesh.
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Tag: Politics
5 Things You Should Know About the Power Couple, Rajat Sethi and Shubhrastha
Rajat Sethi is an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur and Harvard University. Shubhrastha is an alumnus face of Miranda House, Delhi University. Both of them are actively involved in impacting politics in various North-Eastern states of India.
Their book The Last Battle of Saraighat is the first-ever account of BJP’s landslide victory in the 2016 Assam legislative assembly elections.
Here are five things you should know about the power couple:
Aren’t they fascinating?
How Assam Happened—An Excerpt from ‘The Last Battle of Saraighat’
In ‘The Last Battle of Saraighat’, political campaigners for the BJP in the North-East, Rajat Sethi and Shubhrastha take you behind the scenes of the BJP’s landslide victory in the 2016 Assam legislative assembly elections. In the book, they provide details of the election strategies and explain the rise of the party in the North-East.
Here’s an excerpt chronicling the win of BJP in Assam.
Assam celebrates three different Bihu festivals, each one of which coincides with a distinct phase in the farming calendar. Kati Bihu, the first in the series, is observed in October and is marked by solemn prayers to save the paddy crop from insects and evil sights. Bhogali or Magh Bihu is all about food and is celebrated in January at the end of paddy harvesting period when the granaries are full. The last Bihu in the calendar is called Rongali Bihu or Bohag Bihu, which marks the beginning of the Assamese New Year when the field is prepared for the next season of paddy cultivation. It is the most widely celebrated and colourful festival in Assam.
Every five years, the Assamese farming calendar closely coincides with the campaign calendars of political parties. The body politic of Assam is promised new dreams every time. This interesting tradition was captured in a 1992 song by Bhupen Hazarika on Bihu. Sung to the tune of a lullaby, it makes a plea to Bihu: Please do come once a year and wake up mother Assam, and even in these dangerous times, please O Bihu, come and give the Assamese body and mind its ritual bath.
Bihu is indeed a ‘national birthday—the day of renewal when the Assamese polity takes stock of its past and future’.
In the Bihu of 2016, the electoral curtains were to drop and a new polity was to emerge.
Armouring for the Battle
By the end of December 2015, BJP had almost all the right ingredients in place to project itself as the sole and credible political challenger to the incumbent Congress government in the ensuing assembly elections scheduled for April 2016. Anti-incumbency against the Tarun Gogoi–led Congress government was quickly building up. The BJP now appeared stronger as an Opposition in Assam. It had a face. It had the narrative. The party also had the required momentum to oust the incumbent.
But a deep emotional connect with the people of Assam was amiss. BJP had so far been only a marginal political player in the state and electorate were still finding it hard to relate with the party as its political choice.
On the other hand, the Congress had a well-oiled foundation and a veteran leader in Gogoi, who had led the state peacefully for fifteen long years. Assam has traditionally been a strong Congress bastion. Out of the nearly seven decades of independent India, the Congress was in power in Assam for nearly six decades. Winning Assam would have meant that the Congress was able to hold on to its turfs after its decimation in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Losing Assam would have implied a nosedive for the party nationally.
With the political ground that the BJP had covered over the past two years, it could not afford to lose the Assam battle. The next four months of electioneering were critical to tilt the balance in its favour. After the humiliating defeat in Delhi and Bihar, Assam was a test of the BJP’s confidence. It would also signify if there was a sense of trust for the party among the masses and if the Modi wave still reigned high in urban as well as far-flung rural centres of India. For the BJP, it meant finding a foothold in North-east India and marking its presence in a sensitive borderland. For the central government under Modi, Assam, if claimed, would have become a pivot for the Act East Policy. So, for all reasons—political and developmental—Assam was a catch!
5 Things You Should Know About the North-East of India
The Last Battle of Saraighat looks at Assam as a case study to explain the rise of the BJP in the North-east and throws light on the key political issues of the region. In this book, Rajat Sethi and Shubhrastha outline the political history of the north-east region of India and provide details of election strategies employed by the Bharatiya Janta Party to win the 2016 Assam legislative assembly elections.
Here are five things you should know about the northeastern part of the country:
Fascinating, isn’t it?
6 Important Milestones of the India-China Relationship
Frédéric Grare in India Turns East reflects on India’s ‘Look East’ policy. The policy was initially aimed at reconnecting India with Asia’s economic globalization. However, as China moved to gain an assertive position, India’s policy has evolved into a comprehensive strategy with political and military dimensions.
Grare also throws light on India’s long and difficult journey to reclaim its status in a rapidly changing Asian environment increasingly shaped by the US–China rivalry and the uncertainties of US commitment to Asia’s security.
Here are 6 milestones that define the India-China relationship.
Tell us which aspect of the relationship between India and China astonish you the most.
5 Quotes that Show Indira Gandhi was the Iron Lady of India
Indira Gandhi is not only remembered as the only woman prime minister of the country but also as a political leader with nerves of steel. She broke the conventional, democratic ruling method that her family had been using and adopted a somewhat authoritarian way of ruling the nation.
Nayantara Sahgal in her book Indira Gandhi: Tryst with Power answers the questions everyone ponders upon about her rule.
Being Mrs Gandhi’s cousin, Sahgal articulately talks about her individualized style of functioning in politics and the changes the country went through during her rule.
Here are five quotes that show why Mrs Gandhi was called the Iron Lady of India:
Read more about Indira Gandhi’s political regime in Nayantara Sahgal’s Indira Gandhi: Tryst with Power.
‘A Bewildering Mosaic of Communities’: ‘Left, Right and Centre: The Idea of India’ — An Excerpt
Diverse discourses born from diverse cultures, histories and geographies of India come together in senior journalist, Nidhi Razdan’s book ‘Left, Right and Centre: The Idea of India’.
Author and Indian academic, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, discusses the inherent dichotomy in the celebration of this ‘diversity’ in India in his essay ‘India: From Identity to Freedom’.
Here’s an excerpt from Mehta’s essay.
India is a diverse country, a bewildering mosaic of communities of all kinds; its peculiar genius is to fashion a form of coexistence where this diversity can flourish and find its place. It has created cultures of political negotiation that have shown a remarkable ability to incorporate diversity.
This description of India is often exhilarating; and it is our dominant mode of self-presentation. But it’s very attractiveness hides its deep problems. The problem lies with the normative valorization of diversity itself. Diversity is something to be celebrated and cherished for often it is an indication of other values like freedom and creativity. But diversity has become a source of several intellectual confusions. Very schematically these are: Diversity is not itself a freestanding moral value. It makes very little sense to discuss diversity as carrying independent moral weight, even though under some circumstances, loss of diversity can be an indication of other underlying injustices. The invocation of diversity immediately invites the question: Diversity of what? This question cannot be answered without invoking some normative criteria about the permissible range of social practices. The limits to diversity cannot themselves be settled by an invocation of diversity.
The appeal to diversity is usually an aestheticized appeal. It is as if one were surveying the world from nowhere and contemplating this extraordinary mosaic of human cultural forms and practices. Such a contemplation of the world can give enormous enrichment and satisfaction and we feel that something would be lost; perhaps something of humanity would be diminished if this diversity were lost. But the trouble is that this view from nowhere, or if you prefer an alternative formulation, the ‘God’s Eye’ view of the world is a standpoint of theoretical, not practical, reason.
Most of us can conceptually grasp the fact of diversity; we may even try to recognize each other in an intense and important way, but it is very difficult to live that diversity with any degree of seriousness. From this theoretical point of view, cultures and practices form this extraordinary mosaic; from the practical point of view of those living within any of these cultures, these cultures and practices are horizons within which they operate. Even when not oppressive, these horizons might appear to them as constraints. It would be morally obtuse to say to these individuals that they should go on living their cultures, just because they’re not doing so might diminish the forms of diversity in the world. The imperatives of diversity cannot, at least prima facie, trump the free choices of individuals.
There is often a real tension between the demands of integration into wider society—the imperatives of forming thicker relationships with those outside the ambit of your own society on the one hand, and the measures necessary to preserve a vibrant cultural diversity on the other. What the exact trade-off is depends from case to case. But simply invoking diversity by itself will not help morally illuminate the nature of the decision to be made when faced with such a trade-off.
From this perspective, talk of identity and diversity is profoundly misleading because it places value on the diversity of cultures, not the freedoms of individuals within them. If the range of freedom expands, all kinds of diversity will flourish anyway. But this will not necessarily be the diversity of well defined cultures. It will be something that both draws upon culture and subverts it at the same time.
Diversity Talk is compatible with only one specific conception of toleration: segmented and hierarchical toleration. To be fair, India has been remarkably successful at providing a home for all kinds of groups and cultures. But each group could find a place because each group had its fixed place. To put it very schematically, it was a form of toleration compatible with walls between communities. Indeed, one of the major challenges for Indian society is that we have internalized forms of toleration that are suited to segmented societies. It is compatible with the idea that boundaries should not be crossed, populations should not mix, and that to view the world as a competition between groups is fine.
There is no country in the world that talks so much of diversity. Yet no other country produces such a suffocating discourse of identity; where who you are seems to matter at every turn: what job you can get, what government scheme you are eligible for, how much institutional autonomy you can get, what house you can rent. Conceptually, there is no incompatibility between celebrating diversity of the nation and refusing to rent housing to a Muslim just because they are Muslim. Such a conception of toleration does not work where the need is for boundaries to be crossed: people will inhabit the same spaces, compete for the same jobs, intermarry and so forth. Our moral discourse is so centred on diversity and pluralism that it forgets the more basic ideas of freedom and dignity.
Explore diverse opinions from some of the best minds in India with ‘Left, Right and Centre: The Idea of India’.
7 Things You Didn’t Know About the Law of Freedom of Speech
Freedom of Speech is one of the pivotal fundamental rights granted by the Constitution to the citizens of India. Abhinav Chandrachud’s Republic of Rhetoric brings to light the law of free speech in India and how it has transformed over the years. Also analysing the present law relating to obscenity and free speech, this book evaluates whether the enactment of the Constitution made a significant difference to the right to free speech.
Here are 7 things about the law of freedom of speech that will leave you stunned.
A closer look at its history and evolution reveals that the enactment of the Constitution made little or no substantive difference to the right to free speech in India.
The Indian Press Act, 1910, said that the government could not ask a newspaper to furnish a security of more than Rs 2000, while later, the Indian Press (Emergency Powers) Act, 1931, said that the security could not exceed Rs 1000.
This decision was perhaps taken because members of the Sub-Committee believed that non-citizens could not be trusted with the right to free speech because they would not necessarily have had India’s best interests at heart.
No person can show his film to the public without a certificate from the Censor Board.
After the enactment of the Constitution, laws relating to hate speech in India have only been strengthened.
The inclusion of the word ‘reasonable’ in Article 19(2) was an important compromise.
Judgments of the Supreme Court and the Punjab, Patna and Madras High Courts had made it difficult for the government to restrict hate speech or speech which promoted enmity between different groups
Which aspect of the freedom of speech surprised you the most? Tell us.
The Making of Pressler Amendment— An Excerpt
As chairman of the US Senate’s Arms Control Subcommittee, Larry Pressler advocated the now-famous Pressler Amendment, enforced in 1990 when President George H.W. Bush could not certify that Pakistan was not developing a nuclear weapon. Larry Pressler was adjudged a hero in India and a ‘devil’ in Pakistan due to his stance on giving military aid to Pakistan. In his book ‘Neighbours in Arms’ Pressler provides a comprehensive account of how US foreign policy in the subcontinent was formed from 1974 till today and ends with recommendations of a new US-India alliance that could be a model for American allies in future.
Here’s an exclusive excerpt from the book.
In December 1981, a new section was added to the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act. It allowed the President to exempt Pakistan from the original Symington Amendment ‘if he determines that to do so is in the national interest of the United States’. (It is important to note that Pakistan was the only nation specifically exempted by name from these restrictions.) Almost immediately, Congress also authorized a six-year $3.2-billion package of military and economic assistance to Pakistan. I was opposed to this move, as I knew it would further encourage Pakistan to continue the development of their nuclear weapons programme.
Many of us in Congress knew that we could not trust President Zia to be honest with us about his nuclear ambitions. Everyone knew that Pakistan was continuing to acquire material and technology
to develop a bomb. Despite this fact, the Reagan administration wanted a new law that would give him a permanent waiver from the Glenn–Symington Amendment. At the time, guaranteeing Pakistan’s assistance in the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan was more important than stopping Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons technology. The only way the administration could get Congress to go along with this permanent waiver was to include language in a new law that would punish Pakistan if it was determined that Pakistan actually possessed a nuclear weapon. This made the Glenn–Symington waiver more politically feasible to those of us in Congress who were working hard on non-proliferation issues. I was tapped to carry the ball and the Pressler Amendment was born.
My goal was to give this new amendment as much ‘teeth’ as possible. On 24 March 1984, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations introduced an amendment offered up by California Democratic senator Alan Cranston and Senator Glenn. This first amendment stipulated that ‘no military equipment or technology shall be sold or transferred to Pakistan’ unless the President could
first certify that Pakistan did not possess nor was developing a nuclear explosive device, and that it was not acquiring products to make a nuclear explosive device. On 18 April 1984, the committee instead introduced a substitute offered by me, Maryland Republican senator Charles Mathias and Senator Charles Percy.
My former staff member, the late Dr Doug Miller, recalled that Senator Cranston’s face appeared ‘crestfallen’ when his amendment did not pass. In retrospect, while Cranston’s amendment and my
subsequent amendment were very similar, I feel his amendment would have cut off aid to Pakistan sooner. But the Republican Party was in control at the time. They wanted a Republican name on the
amendment.
The revised amendment offered by Senators Mathias, Percy and me instead tightly tied the continuation of aid and military sales to two presidential certification conditions: (1) that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear explosive device; and (2) that new aid ‘will reduce significantly the risk’ that Pakistan would possess such a device. This text was further revised with a provision offered by me, Senator Mathias and Minnesota Republican senator Rudy Boschwitz that the ‘proposed U.S. assistance [to Pakistan] will reduce significantly the risk of Pakistan possessing such a [nuclear] device’. It forced the President to affirm that increased aid was reducing the risk of Pakistan
getting nuclear weapons. I thought at the time that this was going to be impossible for any President to certify—based on Pakistan’s past behaviour and what President Reagan had assured me he would do.
The final text of Section 620E of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 read:
No assistance shall be furnished to Pakistan and no military equipment or technology shall be sold or transferred to Pakistan, pursuant to the authorities contained in this Act or any other Act,
unless the President shall have certified in writing to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, during the fiscal year in which assistance is to be furnished or military equipment or technology is to be sold or transferred, that Pakistan does not possess a nuclear explosive device and that the proposed United States assistance program will reduce significantly the risk that Pakistan will possess a nuclear explosive device.
This text, which was signed into law by President Reagan on 8 August 1985, soon became known as the ‘Pressler Amendment’, even though I was not the only sponsor. I never referred to it as the Pressler Amendment. But when President George H.W. Bush later enforced it, the Pentagon wrote a series of worldwide memos and briefings explaining that Bush had to act in such a way towards Pakistan because of ‘Senator Pressler’s amendment’, mentioning me by name and making the amendment eponymous. It is important to understand that this legislation was passed at the request of and with the support of the Reagan administration. That is why I was so astounded when later Reagan never enforced it.
In summary, it made a law out of what had already been an official policy: our conventional arms assistance and financial aid to Pakistan would reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation. It used the power of the purse. It allowed us to pursue our communism-containment goals in the region, but it was also intended to force our leaders to proactively assert—on the record—that Pakistan was not making progress on its nuclear goals. Again, this policy seems counter-intuitive and, unfortunately, it had the opposite effect on Pakistan. And, with the help of the Octopus, Pakistan took our aid and flagrantly ignored the Pressler Amendment restrictions.
Politics and the Art of Branding
Political parties and consumer brands have more in common than you think, both have a set of target consumers and specific marketing strategies.
Here are a few things that political parties can learn from consumer brands
Leveraging Technology
Brand Proposition
Brand Ambassador
Youthful Brand Offering
Brand Slogan
Authenticity of Brands
Can you think of any more tips that political parties must bear in mind while planning their marketing campaign? Tell us in the comments.
