“The Communist Taliban in Kerala – The Physchology behind the killing fields of Kannur”
The fight over ‘anarchist supremacy’ reigns over Communist parties across the country.
The American election campaign and the victory of Trump as president exposed the radical Marxist liberals and their intellectual hegemony over the global academia and media. They even proved that, if it is not for their convenience, they will even strive to thwart the electoral decision of a democratic society. The streets of America, as well as the rest of the world, testified that the systematic subversion of the western intelligentsia by the communist, anarchic ideas is at its peak.
The tale of the communist toppling of the academia and media is no different in India. The Indian intelligentsia under the cosy patronage of the establishment trained a genre of ‘useful idiots’ in the various state-funded institutions and media houses. Thus the leftist liberal order metamorphosed themselves into the thought police of India.
For decades, the ultra-leftists with just a handful of MPs even defined the agenda of the Parliament. Liberalisation of Indian economy and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the 90s changed the political and economic scenario in India. The lackey armchair intellectuals with an excuse of countering the ‘Hindutva’ politics transformed themselves into petty henchmen of the Congress government. On the other hand, Communist Party of India, formed in the 1920s, lost its bastion of Bengal after being in power for 35 years. The Bengali intelligentsia turned against the CPM-led government. Subsequently, the radical left, Maoists, who were spreading terror in the backwoods of Indian tribal region gained momentum in the elite universities and other institutions. Having no weaponry to fight TMC in Bengal and with little intellectual back up, the CPM has been sidelined.
Though diminishing, CPM still maintains power in Kerala. The killing fields of Kannur and coalition chemistry ensure that the party gathers some victory in the elections. However, the recent episodes point to a tomorrow in which CPM might lose its foothold in Kerala too. While the communists have always been resorting to the elimination of political opponents in Kerala, much of the crimes go under-reported by Marxist dominated media. However, the violent spree in its full might have killed a communist, T P Chandrasekharan, who had left CPM and formed his own party. With a far left ideology, he had won an election and support base in his area. Since the leftist intellectuals in academia and media cried for their comrade, TP Murder case drew great publicity. T P Murder can be identified as the ‘Nandigram’ moment of CPM in Kerala.
After Narendra Modi became prime minister with a historic saffron wave across the country, the leftist politics of all hues united to stop ‘fascism’. Please note that anything the liberals (alt left) don’t approve ought to be fascist. This unity was visible when the liberal media and academia, who had isolated CPM after T P murder, colluded to keep BJP off the fence during the Kerala assembly elections. This aggression, in turn, widened the base of BJP as the active opposition in Kerala.
Once, the ‘Stalin in Dhoti’ Vijayan was ordained as the chief minister; communist goons went on a rampage on the streets. Numerous BJP supporters lost their life and property. The Kerala government and the intelligentsia had willfully shut their eyes to the victims of political violence. For them hacking of many of ex-Marxists, who later joined BJP and other organisations, are ‘killing of cheats’ — a very common anarchist/leftist justification.
The circumstances changed when Kerala police’s ‘Thunderbolt’ recently killed two Maoists in an encounter. The liberal intelligentsia turned against the CPM. The Vijayan government has been on fire since then. The CPI, their ally in the government, has been in the forefront criticising Vijayan and the home department over this.
The future of Indian Communist party politics (if at all it exists!) remains in the Communist Party of India (CPI) — and that is the danger. CPI has always been a double gamer. They colluded with K Karunakaran of Congress during the emergency and sanctioned the murder and torture of students with an excuse of combating Naxalism. But their minions in the academia carefully projected Karunakaran, as the sole perpetrator of the violence unleashed by the state headed by a CPI leader. And the history repeats.
CPI state general secretary Rajendran openly criticised the killing of the Maoists. He blatantly asserted that “Maoism is not a law and order problem”. All CPI leaders took it to extreme reactions. After this incident, the entire intelligentsia of Kerala has been extremely critical of the Chief Minister. Interestingly, CPI even called Pinarayi Vijayan a ‘sanghi’.
CPI is a smaller political organisation in Kerala, compared to the BJP. But they could always get their representatives into Kerala assembly because of the left coalition (LDF). However, in national politics, the affiliate organisation of CPI, the All India Students Federation (AISF) is stronger than CPM’s Students’ Federation of India (SFI). The growth of radical leftist ideas in the Indian universities also has been at the cost of SFI. CPI’s role in the fake Dalit-Muslim combination was visible in the Azadi pursuits in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Aparajitha Raja, the daughter of CPI national secretary and Annie Raja, was one of the central figures in the Azadi sloganeering in JNU. We should also remember that Mohammad Mohsin, one of the prominent faces of the anti-national campaign in JNU, is now a CPI MLA in Kerala.
On the contrary, in Kerala, traditionally, CPI is considered as a moderate, party of good communists with their eloquent intellectual leaders with a thorough backing of the academia. The CPM, with the rough and unschooled Kannur lobby at the helm lacks this charisma of intellectualism. The SFI and CPM nurtured a Muslim support base by showing the threat of ‘Hindu Fascist’ BJP. CPM is worried that the Muslim supporters might abandon them after the Kashmir and Azadi posturing of Maoists. SFI is going to face the same fate they had to endure in JNU and other premier campuses and Bengal.
Neither the undivided CPI nor the post-split factions of CPM and CPI stood for a common goal of national interest. The split of the Communist party itself was about the question of allegiance to which foreign country, the USSR or China. CPI appropriated the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), the trade union formed by the Congress leaders, for their benefit. Both CPI and CPM has been opportunists and had several u-turns in history. The struggle of the communist outfits has now ceased in the fight against the Sangh Parivar. The notion of ‘anti-establishment’ has been duplicated as the hostility against the poor BJP workers in party villages. The concept of party villages, party courts and assassination techniques often resembles the murky Maoist empires in the Indian hinterland. They use fear and brutality on ground justified by the lofty propaganda pieces carried in leading media portals to strengthen their position. CPI substituted their insignificance in the electoral politics with intellectual and academic terrorism. The protest against the installation of the statue of Sankaracharya in the Sri Sankara University is a graphic example of the pressure AISF puts on SFI to further anarchic causes. National leaders of AISF including Aparajita Raja fought to block the installation of the statue. SFI, initially being reluctant to join the protest had to sloganeer against their own party’s government in the end.
CPM doesn’t want CPI to grow and occupy their space as the most prominent Communist organisation in Kerala. Instead, they wish to show the left liberals that they are the first comrades who fight the ‘bourgeoisie’, probably the role of Maoists in other states. For this, the best choice is to attack and harass the Sangh Parivar with whatever they can. The brutal murders and political violence should be examined in this context. CPM hopes that the brutality against the BJP workers will help them to prevent CPI and the Naxal allies in Kerala. They seek the support of the elite intellectuals by executing the common enemy. The intelligentsia — writers and artists support CPM for their uncompromising war against ‘class opponent’ aka ‘Hindutva fascism’. CPM is using violence to postpone its imminent demise in Kerala. The Palakkad massacre and Santhosh’s brutal murder were nothing but a desperate attempt to gain the support of the ultra-left anarchist intelligentsia.
Without the help of the intellectuals and media, leftism cannot survive. Of late, the Marxist intellectuals have been openly supporting the Maoists in other states. Only through an excessive physical strike against ‘communal forces’ the patronage of the intellectual Marxists can be earned. Marian Alexander Baby, a member of the CPM Polit Bureau, even demanded judicial enquiry over the Maoist shootout by the government led by his party, to make peace with the ultra-leftists. Hence, to regain the lost sympathy of the liberal intelligentsia, the CPM uses organised muscle-power against BJP workers. But then, the real fight within different Communist clans is in establishing their supremacy over championing the anarchist cause.
By Anjali George and Jayasankar
Courtesy: Vicharam.org
(Originally Published in Swarajya on Feb 16 2017)
