There is a method in the ugly, no-holds-barred saffron assault on Kerala!
The other day, a nonentity made national headlines in the only way he could – by making an outrageous public statement in sync with the saffron party's sustained communal disinformation mission. Nitesh Rane, a junior minister in the BJP-led government in Maharashtra, summoned the gumption to label Kerala "a mini-Pakistan" and accuse Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka of getting elected from that State on the back of support from terrorists nee Muslims: "They have become MPs after taking terrorists with them." He went on to allege that a significant number of Hindus in Kerala were being converted to Islam through "love jihad." His diseased mind has even conjured up a new acronym for EVMs that targets Muslims: "Every Vote against Mullahs."

This uneducated man has clearly followed the dictates of his lord and master, who has scaled the political heights by demonising a community, uttering communal slurs and fuelling hate at every turn. The PM has, time and again, striven to muddy the multi-cultural, egalitarian ethos in Kerala by raising the bogey of terrorism and linking it to that State.

The milking of dubious but powerful cultural ephemera is integral to Modi's strategy of divide and torment. He knows that cinema is still one of the foremost enablers of political power and propaganda. To this end, he plunged into the debate on the contentious film "The Kerala Story," which tells the tale of Hindu and Christian women lured into joining the Islamic State (IS) group. The film is flagrant propaganda, and as noted by The Hindu's film critic, "its thoughts about Islam and conversion seem to have been sourced from hate-filled WhatsApp groups." And yet the PM – hate-monger nonpareil – commended the film for "exposing the new face of terrorism ... especially in a state like Kerala."

To set the record straight, according to the official figures for 2020, of the 506 people who registered for change of religion in Kerala, 241 or 41 per cent of Malayalis converted from Christianity or Islam to Hinduism, whereas a total of 144 persons converted to Islam and another 119 became Christian. Clearly, in the game of numbers, ghar wapsi has trumped love jihad in Kerala!

The stigmatising of Kerala by the saffron brigade does not stop there. Never shy of purveying falsehoods, Modi has criticised the Left and Congress for nepotism and corruption, for running Kerala to the ground financially and for allowing free reign to the drug mafia. He even panned Kerala's social development indicators, once claiming that the "infant mortality rate among the scheduled tribe community in Kerala is worse than Somalia." Absolute BS! Kerala has the lowest infant mortality rate in India.

The facts are overwhelming. Kerala scores over other states in almost every development index. It has the country's highest physical quality of life index (PQLI) and lowest levels of poverty. Kerala tops or is thereabouts in literacy, life expectancy, access to healthcare, low infant mortality rates and a lot else. Why then is Kerala being targeted by the ruling dispensation?

Kerala is living repudiation of all that the Sangh Parivar stands for. It represents the best of an egalitarian India that values all its citizens, irrespective of caste or creed. Although not totally free of casteism and bigotry, Kerala still retains the secular democratic spirit that is discomfited by the rabid right-wing ideology of hate and divisiveness.
Steadfastly faithful to our constitutional commitment on the right to freedom of religion, with no religion being given preference over the other, Kerala has resisted enacting an anti-conversion law. The social solidarity is evident from the fact that in the frightening new India crafted by Modi and gang where one can get lynched for carrying beef, in Kerala, beef is sold like any other meat and served in restaurants, though one must admit that cow urine is not the favourite elixir!

Kerala has the distinction of having among the first democratically elected communist governments in the world in 1957 (after San Marino) through the political mobilisation of the most disadvantaged sections of society. It was also first off the blocks in India to introduce land reforms that empowered the poor.

Kerala, alongside Tamil Nadu and, of course, Kashmir, represents the last frontier that the saffron marauders have yet to breach. Everywhere else, the BJP is a formidable presence, including West Bengal, where it is the major opposition party, and the predominantly Christian North-Eastern region, where it holds power on its own or in alliance in six of the seven states. It's no wonder that, unlike in earlier elections, Modi held several rallies and road shows in Kerala during the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.

Of late, though, Kerala has shown worrying signs that it is buckling under the onslaught of the forces of Hindutva. For the first time ever, the BJP won a Lok Sabha seat in Kerala in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. Suresh Gopi of the BJP won by over 75,000 votes from Thrissur, and from all accounts, the Christians, who comprise over 20 per cent of the electorate, voted overwhelmingly for the BJP stalwart. This brings me to the dangerous nexus between a section of Christians and the Sangh Parivar.

The Modi modus operandi for dealing with the Christian community is breathtakingly Janus-faced and perfidious. In the vast Hindi heartland, the persecution of Christians goes on apace with barely disguised official sanction. The United Christian Forum (UCF) has documented 834 incidents of violence against Christians in 2024, involving attacks on churches and prayer meetings, false cases against 'forced conversions', and limited access to common resources. At the national level, Christian institutions are targeted under FCRA; anti-conversion laws are being extended and strengthened.

On the other side, in the Christian-dominated North-Eastern region (barring Manipur, where he has got the plot horribly wrong) and in Kerala, which has a weighty Christian presence, Modi has been on a charm offensive, genuflecting before the baby Jesus and holding convivial photo-ops with the bishops and senior clergy. The two-faced strategy seems to be working. Today, the BJP has the highest number of Christian MLAs in the country.

Apart from the abject bowing and scraping before Modi, what's truly disturbing is that influential sections of the Christian clergy in Kerala have been abetting the communal agenda of this regime. They have joined in the Muslim bashing with baseless allegations of love jihad and narcotic jihad against that community. Moreover, by playing footsie with this majoritarian dispensation, they are helping the BJP obfuscate the truth of its many crimes against Christians across the country. At this critical life-and-death time for the nation when our constitutional commitment to secularism is in peril, this section of Christians is doing significant damage to the nation and to their community. Have they forgotten Pastor Niemoller's dire warning in similar circumstances: "... and then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me?"

One wonders what the Christian Church's grandees make of Mohan Bhagwat's recent speech proclaiming that India gained "true independence" on the date of the Ram temple consecration in Ayodhya, the definitive undertone being that it inaugurated the Hindu Rashtra and Hindu hegemony. And what of his purported conversation with then President Pranab Mukherjee suggesting that, but for ghar wapsi, the Adivasis would have become "anti-national," i.e. by embracing a faith that did not embrace India as their holy land (punyabhumi) and as the land of their forefathers (pitrabhumi).

Can't they see the writing on the wall?