If there is a defining moment in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, it is when Miss Gates at Maycomb Elementary School speaks passionately about the plight of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany. America, she says, doesn’t believe in persecuting anyone. In private conversation, she says—blissfully ignorant of the raging hypocrisy—the African-Americans [in segregated south US] need to be shown their place.
What connects the literary classic to Kerala—a prosperous, verdant state sandwiched between the Arabian sea and the Western Ghats in south India? Sprinkle in some sanctimony, a complete lack of self-awareness, and an over-inflated ego, and Miss Gates becomes indistinguishable from an average Mallu. On his good days, an average Mallu updates his Twitter bio as the proud denizen of a 100 per cent literate, politically aware and progressive state. Any other day, they call Maria Sharapova the Malayalam equivalent of the b-word, and spam The New York Times with vile abuses for an ill thought out cartoon on the Mangalyaan launch. The average Mallu bro is arrogant enough to proclaim “Kerala No 1”, and just graceful enough to acknowledge that their uncivilised counterparts in the Indian Union did not set the bar too high. They are horrified by the spate of lynching incidents over consuming beef in north India, pointing out the communal jungle raj in states like UP and Haryana, but claim a videographed mob killing of a starving tribal man, or the brutal murder of a dalit boy who dared to love an upper caste girl, as mere aberrations in the state’s continuing search for utopian existence.
An average Mallu Twitter-initiate retweets a photoshopped image of Modi as Hitler, and decries the barbarity of Akhlaq’s murder; for him, the spate of brutish WhatsApp-fuelled murders across the country are but a disgusting manifestation of this cow-belt mindset. He does not know of, or care about, Kailash Jyoti Borah, a migrant worker from Assam in Kerala’s Kottayam, who was chased down by a bloodthirsty mob that shackled him and left him out in the sun for a slow death. The Mallu beta bro sneers at the sight of Sallu bhai fans going berserk at every shitty new holiday release. The same guy slut-shames female actors for daring to call out their Lalettan (actor Mohan Lal) for inaction against a fellow actor accused of conspiracy in molestation and abduction. The whole #MeToo movement? A feminist conspiracy that only north Indian duffers like Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar support.
Mid-September, enlightened Kerala Twitter got its kicks from proudly retweeting allies, who compared and contrasted the behaviour of Kanwariya pilgrims and Sabarimala pilgrims. There were many tearful tales of well-behaved Sabarimala pilgrims on board public transportation, as opposed to drunk and rowdy Kanwariyas who created nuisance wherever they went. Learn from Kerala, they chided. Cut to present, as the whole ‘we are Dr Jekyll, you are Mr Hyde’ tango headed to its humiliating climax. The state waited with bated breath ahead as the Sabarimala temple opened on Wednesday, the first time since the Supreme Court allowed women of all age groups to enter the shrine, under the shadow of ominous warnings of 'mass suicides' and threats of disruption. 'Progressive Kerala' could as well have been a slogan cooked up by the satirist Jonathan Swift. On live television, elderly women spat caste insults at the OBC chief minister, the son of a toddy tapper. Women formed vigilante groups, laying siege to the capital city. Caste and religious organisations, which raise their head in reformist Kerala only when it is time to lobby for political spoils, openly banded in protest against the Supreme Court ruling. The famous Mallu argument of ‘even our fringe is much better than your fringe’ was shown to be in vain, as mobs started raiding public transport vehicles in search of females to assault, in the off-chance they were heading to Sabarimala.
Is it the first time that rampaging mobs took over an Indian city? No. Does it in any way nullify the superior social indicators, or the relative lack of communal conflict, that rank Kerala slightly better than the rest of the country? No. But, it betrays certain shortcomings we have all grown blind to. Where was the law enforcement when criminals massively defaced public property en route Sabarimala temple? In the same vein, where was the law enforcement when it waited for more than a month to arrest Bishop Franco Mulakkal accused of raping a nun? Where was the progressiveness of the state when religious heads from (mainly) Kerala brazenly came out against the landmark Supreme Court verdicts on homosexuality and adultery? When PM Modi visited Israel, we celebrated the fact that Pinarayi Vijayan was the only chief minister who criticised any association with an apartheid state. But have we uttered a word against Saudi Arabia, where a major chunk of Kerala expats are employed, for its blatant human rights violations in Yemen? At least, when our chief minister schmoozes up to the sheikhs? The political constraints, to ensure the well-being of the citizens of the state, are understandable, but so should we realise that our moral pedestal is as sturdy as a glass house.
It is time we contemplate on our reflection. It is not Che Guevara (the state’s unofficial logo) that stares back, but Rahul Easwar. Slick, sneering, fake, and the worst conservative ideas in a garb of modernity and Karl Marx.
-Inputs from PTI
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK
