The Party Gramams of Kerala

Each time I visit my in-laws in Mahe, which is 60 km north of Kozhikode and almost within Kannur, I find myself in a land that’s cosplaying a Communist utopia. Kannur is one of the bastions of the Communist Party in Kerala and is unique for the phenomenon of the Party Gramam (Party Village).

My father-in-law and his extended family are staunch supporters of the Party. Deshabhimani, the Party mouthpiece, is what they consume, and Kairali News (the Party channel) is what they stay glued to. The WhatsApp statuses of all my relatives from Mahe are mostly plastered in red. Blood donation camps, pond-cleaning campaigns, waste collection drives, solidarity marches for Iranians, Venezuelans, the people of Manipur, and UGC/NEET aspirants, Balasangam events (the CPI(M) has a children’s wing, which for me is nothing but indoctrination), Rakthasakshi Dinams (martyrs’ days commemorating the memory of mostly middle-aged men struck down in their prime by political violence), and lunch collection drives for ICU patients are all carried out with panache under the benevolent gaze of Che Guevara and Marx.

Though I’ve been amused by this ideological frenzy in display, I’ve always appreciated this phenomenon’s role in cementing the party’s hold, providing a sense of identity to its followers (remember that this is a state where underemployment is rampant), and keeping the opposition especially the right-wing parties at bay. The annual festival of the Puthalam temple in Mahe, managed by the same set of party followers, remains the most extravagant displays of Theyyam that I’ve ever seen till date.

On screen, the best portrayal of this Communist universe remains the 2007 Sreenivasan-starrer Arabikkatha. It captures the absurdity so well and also brutally showcases how hollowed-out the economic model of our state is. Remove the Gulf, and I wonder what would remain of our utopia.

Anyway, all this rambling was triggered by a tweet I came across yesterday and a paper shared there: “The Persistence of Political Power: A Communist ‘Party Village’ in Kerala and the Paradox of Egalitarian Hierarchies”. The authors, Kaul and Kannangara, argue that the Communist movement, which originally gained popularity by challenging feudalism, caste oppression and economic inequality, has paradoxically accommodated the very caste hierarchies it once sought to dismantle in its Party Gramams. The Party maintains its dominance through an extensive network of social, cultural and political organizations, the cultivation of loyalty across generations, welfare activities, revolutionary symbolism and, at times, intimidation and political violence. Everything that one gets to see on a visit to North Kerala. In these outposts, caste continues to shape marriage, religious practices, social relationships and political leadership.