"Kill him," yelled the mob as they lunged towards two men with a black banner shouting slogans against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The protest by activists of Sree Narayana Vedi erupted at noon on December 6 as the bus carrying the CM and his cabinet colleagues passed by shortly after the Nava Kerala Sadas concluded at Kaipamangalam in Thrissur district.
Nava Kerala Sadas, a constituency-level governmental outreach programme, began on November 18 at Kasaragod in the state’s north end. Through the slogans, the protesting men, Prashanth and Vipin Das, flayed the economic reservation brought in by Pinarayi and the failure of the state government to conduct a caste census in the state.
Though two policemen, who anticipated violent reactions from the workers of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its youth wing, the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), tried to shield them, they were beaten up and had to seek treatment at a hospital.
The Nava Kerala bus had been attracting reckless black flag demonstrations by Congress party workers ever since it began its juggernaut-like journey through 140 constituencies. But the political protest first met with a violent response on November 20, the day the Sadas was held at Taliparamba in the CPI(M) heartland of Kannur.
Youth Congress workers who jumped into the front of the bus with black flags were mercilessly beaten up by CPI(M)-DYFI workers. A video showed a furious lynch mob at work with one person crashing a helmet on the head of a hapless worker and another raising a flower pot. The video went viral exposing the goon-like behaviour of left supporters even as police officers stood as mute witnesses or behaved as if they were intimidated by men who outnumbered them. A camera person belonging to the Media One channel was also manhandled and asked to delete the footage he had shot. The incident happened right in front of the police station at Pazhayangadi.
But the spin given to the video by the Chief Minister himself the next day was jaw-dropping. For him, whatever the left cadres did that day was noble, life-saving work.
“We were witness to what happened. One person jumped towards us. Some youngsters were seen pushing away the person jumping (towards the bus). Their motive was to save a life. When someone is attempting to jeopardise their own life, they need to be saved through the use of force. This was what happened. I was seated at the front of the bus and was watching everything. It happened before my eyes. They were all pushing away the man, a scene we all were privy to. It's a transgression and whatever was done was to protect him and save a life. At that moment, there's no point in thinking whether this will cause pain to him, what is important is pushing the person away fast. If we find a person lying on the railway track as the train approaches, we may have to fling him forcefully. Do we ponder whether this causes him harm? Isn't saving life more important? What the DYFI adopted was a strategy to save lives. It was exemplary. I request that such exemplary practices be continued,” he said, smiling as if amused by the irony of what he had spoken.
Certainly, as the state Home Minister, the perspective he was privy to was not limited to the front-side view of protesters jumping in front of the bus and being forcibly removed. For anyone seeing the video, it was clear that the CM was lying through his teeth and unconscionably allowing a lumpen narrative to unfold.
The Home Minister of the state had given the lumpen elements in the party the free hand to continue with the ‘exemplary work’ of saving lives. Since then, multiple incidents involving party workers, mostly belonging to the DYFI, playing a vigilante role against black flag-weaving protesters and beating them up have been reported.
Media persons have become the target of their ire in some of these incidents. On December 7, Vishnu Prakash, a reporter with The Fourth, a digital outlet and camera person Mahin Jaffer were beaten up by DYFI men wearing t-shirts of Nava Kerala Sadas volunteers as they filmed the assault on a youth who passed by on a bike and was identified as a black flag protester. Shortly before the incident, workers of the Kerala Student Union (KSU) were treated the same way. In all these places, police looked the other way or were outnumbered.
The latest among these incidents happened at Marine Drive in Kochi on December 8 before the Chief Minister arrived. Two youngsters, Mohammed Haneen and freelance journalist Rejaz Sydeek, who are activists of the Democratic Students Association (DSA), protested by throwing pamphlets. The protest was against the state government for targeting him for authoring a news report which called out the anti-Muslim bias of Kerala police. There were hardly three police personnel, including a woman officer, when the incident happened. The victims have alleged that the police virtually handed them over to the mob, who rained blows on them and kicked them even as they lay helplessly on the ground. A third person, identified as Rayees, was also beaten up by DYFI workers as he took out a mobile phone. The men who beat him up didn’t realise he was a committee member of the party’s Thammanam East branch.
On December 8, merchants in Aluva market protested by shutting shops after a 75-year-old shop owner was allegedly manhandled by Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) workers for criticising Nava Kerala Sadas. Police in Thrithala also slapped section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) of the Indian Penal Code against Youth Congress state secretary OK Farooq for posting a meme with the picture of the Nava Kerala bus, which allegedly referred to the CM and his cabinet colleagues as Alibaba and 41 thieves. The CPI(M) supporters who complained against him said the post caused enmity between different groups.
So how did a “forward looking and progressive youth organisation inspired by anti-imperialist, democratic and socialist ideas,” as DYFI’s own constitution identifies – a feisty youth brigade which earned high praise for the many blood donation camps and free food parcels to patients – turn into a murderous lynch mob? Maybe because they no longer have pitched battles on the street to pick on the commercialisation of education and the advent of private varsities in the state, which once they opposed but are now gagged, because their dear regime is spreading a red carpet for whomever they opposed.
MB Rajesh, a former national president of the DYFI, made light of the CM’s ‘exemplary life savers’ comment when journalists questioned him about its propriety. He meant it as a troll, was the justification he offered despite its bearing on the law and order situation. In a video interview with 24 News, the CM said he wasn’t opposed to black flag demonstration and that he now waves at the protesters. But not even once did he ask the party supporters not to take the law into their own hands. AA Rahim, Rajya Sabha MP and the current national president of DYFI too, has maintained a conspicuous silence.
This can only mean one thing. These cadres have the tacit approval of their political bosses to be the ‘first responders’ against any display of democratic dissent. The growth of the anti-democratic youth brigade, which behaves similarly in the digital ecosystem, is also a reflection of how left politics in the state has evolved over the years. From being ideologically driven to one based on identity and cult worship of a mass leader—it is a mirror reflection of the fascist forces the state wants to keep at bay. To see the pits into which these reactionary elements, which could shift loyalties the moment there is a regime change, can drag parties down, one only needs to look at West Bengal, where the left is no more a force of reckoning.