As the election campaign enters the last phase in Kerala, which votes on April 26, most surveys by local dailies and television channels have given the upper hand to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF).
The ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF), which won just one of the state’s 20 Lok Sabha seats in 2019, has a slender chance of improving its tally this time, the surveys suggest.
But all eyes are on the BJP, which is pushing as never before to open its Lok Sabha account in God’s Own Country.
That a marginally Hindu-dominated society (Muslims and Christians make up almost 47 per cent of Kerala’s population) inhabited by God-fearing, temple-going people with chandana kuri on their foreheads has never sent a BJP candidate to Parliament has baffled many within and outside the Hindutva party.
State BJP president K. Surendran, who is contesting against Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad, says Prime Minister Narendra Modi has confided in him that without an MP from Kerala, he would not consider it a victory even if the party crossed the targeted 400 seats.
Kerala has the highest number of RSS shakhas — over 5,000 — in the country, and the organisation remains the backbone of the BJP in the state. However, an over-dependence on the RSS has been the BJP’s bane in Kerala. The party has failed to throw up a popular leader from its own ranks.
Even during this election campaign, no state leader has come to the fore, with Modi remaining the party’s only star campaigner in Kerala. But Modi’s Hindu rhetoric has not had as much impact as his spectacular road shows.
Not that the BJP lacks presence at the grassroots level. In the 2020 local body elections, the NDA won majorities in two municipalities and 19 panchayats. The BJP is the main Opposition in the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation.
As academic and political observer Rammohan K.T. said: “Though the BJP has not yet emerged as a major electoral force, it is a powerful political force at the ground level.
“It plays a significant role in local power dynamics, often forcing the CPM to imitate its strategies (such as securing control of temples or celebrating Sri Krishna Jayanti)…. What’s more, at the higher level of state policy-making, the government is forced to factor in the stance of the BJP and soft-pedal on secularism, as borne out by the issue of women’s entry into Sabarimala.”
Despite the growth of RSS shakhas, Hindu culture politics has not taken root in Kerala.
A senior RSS ideologue underlined that the upper castes like Nairs, Menons, Panickers and Namboodiris had remained loyal to the Congress for generations while the Ezhavas and the Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste communities had come under the spell of the communist ideology.
According to the 2011 census, Ezhavas made up 23 per cent of Kerala’s population and were its largest Hindu community.
There has, therefore, been little room for the BJP to manoeuvre. Besides, the UDF and the LDF have succeeded in branding the party a political pariah.
Educationist and social commentator M.N. Karassery said the influence of caste organisations like the Nair Service Society and the Ezhava community’s Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP) had made Hindu consolidation difficult in Kerala. While the Nairs are long-time Congress supporters, the SNDP backs the communists.
Karassery believes that Kerala’s “renaissance”, secular ideology, and the growth of movements such as the Vaikom Satyagraha and communism too have posed a challenge to the BJP in the state.
The spread of Christianity in the state too had in a way stunted the growth of Hindu politics. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was hard to find student organisations like the CPM-backed SFI or the RSS-affiliated ABVP at missionary-run schools and colleges.
The BJP believes that it has of late succeeded in wooing sections of the Christians who, it hopes, will bring it close to victory in at least the three seats of Thrissur, Pathanamthitta and Thiruvananthapuram.
The party’s earlier attempts to woo the community by rewarding virtual nobodies such as Tom Vadakkan and Alphons Kannanthanam had spelt political suicide. The same is likely to happen with Anil Anthony, son of Congress veteran A.K. Antony.
The RSS has always derided this “myopic” tendency within the state BJP. At best, the state BJP has succeeded in driving a wedge between the Christian and Muslim communities, but the party has so far not gained anything from it.
The BJP’s vote share in Kerala now hovers around 19 per cent. But what the RSS and BJP leaderships will not say openly is that the party is biding its time. It’s in no hurry and will not consider it a setback even if it fails to win a single seat from the state this time too.
Perhaps Narendra Modi will be disappointed, but Kerala can’t help it.