Indigenist Mobilization: Confronting Electoral Communism and Precarious Livelihoods in Post-Reform Kerala by Luisa Steur

Indigenist Mobilization: Confronting Electoral Communism and Precarious Livelihoods in Post-Reform Kerala by Luisa Steur

Author:Luisa Steur [Steur, Luisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00


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There is a type of biographical trajectory that is relevant to understand the shift from Communism to indigenism that I have not yet discussed in this section, which is that of Adivasis and Dalits who joined Naxal groupings in the 1990s and 2000s. There are a number of new Naxalite splinter groups (each of probably no more than about twenty people), such as Porrotam (Struggle), the Adivasi Vimochana Samithi (the Adivasi Liberation Front), and the CPI(ML)-Red Flag, which function in contemporary Kerala and occupy a small place in the political scene. The reason I cannot give detailed biographical accounts of activists in these groupings is that since they are followed and sometimes even wanted by the police, establishing contact with them was much more difficult. Usually I could only speak with them for about half an hour before they felt it was no longer safe for them to stay around and for obvious reasons they were usually reluctant to share personal information or open up—often presenting me with rather wooden ideological statements instead. The stories of these contemporary Dalit and Adivasi Naxals showed similarities to those of Janu, Geethanandan, and Soman, except for the fact that they had come to see the CPI(M)’s commitment to parliamentary democracy and the constitution as the main problem and saw the AGMS as complicit in this by searching for agreements with the government.

A Cheruma (Dalit) woman whom I will call Thankamma, a leading activist in the Adivasi Samara Sangam—a branch of Porrotam—told me, “We do not believe in the parliamentary system. We are convinced that, following the constitution, there can be no radical changes. The governments in power have made sure that by following the constitution nothing is possible in terms of changing the existing social setup. We strongly disagree with the Gothra Sabha’s decision to work shoulder to shoulder with the constitution. Our ideology is that of Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism.” The CPI(M)’s Adivasi Kshema Samithi, likewise, in Thankamma’s view, worked “hand in hand with the parliamentary system. It will not be able to liberate the proletariat. Even after fifty years of independence, all these problems still exist. We look forward to a revolution that brings a sea change in society. We want the hegemony of proletarians.”

She herself had become part of Porrotam only after breaking with the CPI(M), which in the late 1990s had sent her to Wayanad to organize Adivasis there under CPI(M) leadership. In 2000, she left the party for what she claims were “ideological reasons.” Soon enough, clashes with former CPI(M) colleagues became violent—twice they reported her to the police: one time after Porrotam had attacked a mobile food distribution unit (a Mobile Maveli Store of the Kerala State Civil Supplies Corporation) to distribute the food among starving people; the other time after Porrotam besieged a local bank office and destroyed the documents it used to reclaim farmers’ loans.

In stark contrast to AGMS activists and sympathizers, the contemporary Naxalites I interviewed would hardly mention issues of caste, identity, or culture and would generally get rather uncomfortable with questions along these lines.



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