Repairing Kannur
The party needs to pro-actively engage with its political opponent to halt the killings The party needs to pro-actively engage with its political opponent to halt the killings
Political violence in Kerala is threatening to overshadow the state’s much-touted gains in the social development sector. An investigation by this newspaper has revealed that at least half of the political murders in the state since 2006 have taken place in Kannur, a district in northern Kerala, which also happens to be a stronghold of the CPM. And that there is a spurt in violence when the CPM is in power. Most of the violence involves cadres of the CPM and the RSS/BJP and nearly a hundred people have lost their lives since 1995.
As the party that dominates politics, and more importantly Kannur, and heads the government in the state, the larger responsibility of ending this bloody cycle of violence and vendetta lies with the CPM. The party needs to pro-actively engage with its political opponent to halt the killings.
The CPM-RSS/BJP clashes date back to the 1970s. These have not been triggered by communal factors, but by political reasons, the urge to physically dominate the discourse. They have continued for nearly four decades because institutional checks and balances are weak or absent. Over half the cases of political killings since 1995 are stuck at the trial stage.
Even in cases where there has been closure, only a fifth saw convictions. As The Indian Express series has revealed, the parties involved in the violence actively subvert the judicial process by stage-managing surrenders and manipulating investigations. The political authority duty-bound to uphold the rule of law has collaborated towards undermining it.
Victims of the violence, in the absence of state intervention, seek refuge and respite in patronage networks nurtured by the involved parties. As the party of government, the CPM must restore the task of protecting life and liberty and providing recompense to victims to state agencies. It must send out a message to cadres and local leaders that the party will not patronise violence or seek retributive justice. The police must be given a free hand in investigation and conduct itself as an impartial force. Fair and speedy trials and convictions will also act as a disincentive to violence. The government needs to restore the public’s trust in state institutions so that stray acts of political violence do not turn into blood feuds, as they do now.
Kannur cries out for a new political imagination from both the CPM and the RSS/BJP. Both parties must re-learn how to conduct politics within a democratic framework and allow each other the space to function. Democracy, after all, is a battle of ideas, and violence is the end of politics.
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