The Strange Case of Kerala and its Politics

"Politics is the art of the possible". In today's world, there are nuances to this idea. The world politics and as a result democracy, is now trickling down to appeasement and populism. Recently many of us have been asking questions like, "Is it the end of liberal democracy?", "Is this the watershed moment in our political history?", "Is this the 21st Century 'Fukuyama' moment?" and so on.

Political pundits have often talked about the phenomenon in politics called 'The Overton Window'. The Overton Window according to the author Momus(Nick Currey), "is the sort of centrist agenda a politician may embrace without any danger of being called a crank or an extremist, and the ways he may shift that window of acceptability a few degrees to the left or right". He says, "The dogged pursuit of consensus and compromise based, precisely, on a lack of any fresh or original thinking may be crucial for a career politician, but it spells death to anyone who’s mentally alive". The “mentally alive” according to Momus is someone who goes beyond the Overton Window, someone who transgress against common sense and accepted morality, and breach taboos.

Naturally in today's society, all politicians make themselves an Overton Window and work within it. For Momus, he never uses the term "mentally alive" for the commonfolk here. This is because it is common understanding that the commonfolk is too absorbed in their busy life, that they don't care to be "mentally alive". So it becomes very relevant to ask a question similar to what Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak asked, 'Can the commonfolk think(be "mentally alive")'?

Of course, the commonfolk can be "mentally alive". But we often like to think ourselves us more of people with no agency, at the mercy of politicians. Strangely, this is also the same thought that promotes to the freedom that help politicians set Overton Windows in today's politics! The many strange ways by which our representational democracy works, we also try to outsource our thinking ability. In other words, the politicians that represent us should also represent our ideas, not vice versa! But this won't happen as in a democracy as there is always a minority and a majority, and majority always wins, always!

As the eminent French philosopher Alain Badiou has written:

“If democracy is a representation, it first of all represents the general system which sustains its form. In other words, the electoral democracy is only representative insofar as it is first the consensual representation of capitalism, which is today renamed ‘market economy'". Badio says here that representational democracy as it is today is flawed and that people are unaware of it. Just like Slavoj Zizek wrote in a recent Oped, "For today’s politics holds what German philosopher Theodor Adorno said about psychoanalysis: “nothing is more true in it than its exaggerations.”"

This is where Kerala and its politics comes in. With all power we have transferred to our politicians in this representational democracy, it seems we have also given them our right to protest too! To check if something has merit to be taken up for protest, it is now up to the political parties to decide, not the people. When was the last time we saw mass movements in kerala without any backing of political/religious institutions.

And yes, the commonfolk can think but they often choose not to think. One of those examples is where people in Kerala believe the 'communist' party to be fighting social evils. This is where the strange case of Kerala is being written without the "mentally alive" people, as contrary to the popular belief that Keralites are more politically enlightened.

Just take the Kerala society in its entirety. Kerala has a significant history of Enlightenment of the last two centuries, where our heroes fought against regressive casteist forces. Today many of us are really proud of this history. But within this pride, also lies the key to our hypocrisy. When we proudly talk of how we eliminated casteist practices like untouchability, we tend to say without saying that we have eliminated casteism. This is common with the communists in Kerala. They just wont accept that caste is still a social reality. This is why the Marxian politics and Dalit politics are said to never converge but only intersect at some points!

The real tragedy of Kerala is the political parties in the state which goes to bed with corporates and are for establishment. This is why I mentioned the Overton Window at the start. The ruling coalition, LDF is actually a mockery of the ideas and values the left actually stands for. The opposition bloc, the INC led UDF are also politically left-centrists and has an Overton Window for themselves. Here I'm focusing on CPM because it currently is the ruling party. The strange thing is that every charge against CPM can also be levelled against INC proving the actual state of affairs.

For what's at stake become truly evident only when we analyse the so called 'left' government's doing in the state. The ruling 'communist-left' government recently gave its official nod to the EWS reservation without even approaching the supreme court. Only the Muslim League from Kerala has approached the court. There is precedence in the verdict of the '1992 Indra Sawhney' case and still the government didn't want to make a case out of it. This is tragic as it comes from a government that spends lakhs in money for cases that are not even meant to exist in the first place. With the EWS, many liberals who actually voted for CPM were shocked but they have no right to be because CPM has been batting for EWS reservation even before the BJP started it. EMS always wanted EWS reservation to happen. To be truthful, EMS was actually against caste reservation and was for class reservation! He allegedly said that caste reservation would only make caste system more strong and normalised. This is where the Dalit politics in Kerala comes into spotlight. Two Dalit girls were brutally raped and murdered in Walayar and still this issue hasn't transpired into a social movement in itself. This shows the divided Dalits and their loyalty towards the Anti-Dalit mainstream politics.

Another issue is the EIA and the farmer laws. The two main issues which caused widespread protests across India against the Modi Government. The Kerala government took it lightly and what could have been a great mass movement became politically unimportant. Here again it is the political parties that decide the merit of the issue. The commonfolk believe that they do not have the power or agency. This is also similar in KSEB's Anakkayam SHEP project where the government plans to cut down trees, destroying biodiversity in one of the most protected, crucial parts of the Western Ghats. One should also note the fragility of Kerala's landscape earlier revealed by the floods. Across Kerala, many people protested against this project two days back. But this was clearly taken out of prime-time debates, liberals turned a blind eye and as I'm writing this, the project continues to be a threat to environment and to the tribal people.

There are many issues. The controversial amendment in Police Act (118a) and sponsored Maoist hunts are just among the few. All in all, the bottomline is unaccountability. Even the so called 'firebrand' of CPM, M. Swaraj comes in and talks whataboutery when asked about these issues in TV debates. The biggest threat to Kerala today is not the BJP, it is the hypocrites that are ruling us. Not a day goes by where I think of those damned souls in the party who do not even muster the courage to discuss these issues in lower party forums and try to correct their top brass leadership.

Finally, there are the people who are bothered with the criticising of the CPIM. They often ask why should one criticise CPM and not the BJP. Well, BJP doesn't deserve criticism. It shouldn't be criticised, it should be ridiculed. Criticism in itself is a way to correct the corrupted. It's about making the political parties hold their ground. I personally believe BJP can't be corrected. Therefore, the hope is with criticising the so called 'left-centric' parties who is into the making of Overton Windows. This can be changed; they can be changed and that is where our political loyalties should lie!