Silence as Strategy? CPI(M) and the Normalisation Of Anti-Muslim Rhetoric

When Mahatma Gandhi met Sri Narayana Guru in 1925, their conversation ranged across spirituality, religion, and the entrenched practice of untouchability. Gandhi asked the Guru whether adherence to Hinduism alone could lead one to moksha. Guru’s response was strikingly radical for his time: liberation, he said, was not the preserve of Hinduism alone—every religion offered its own path to moksha. At a moment when many Indian seers were asserting the supremacy of Hinduism, Narayana Guru stood apart, affirming the ethical and spiritual worth of Christianity, Islam, and other faiths.

By questioning the foundations of Sanatana Dharma and articulating the emancipatory ideal of “One Caste, One Religion, One God for humankind,” Narayana Guru laid the moral groundwork for Kerala’s social modernity, helping dismantle caste hierarchies and the practice of untouchability.

History, however, has played out with a deep irony. The organisation he founded to propagate his teachings—the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP)—is today led by Vellapally Natesan, a controversial businessman with pronounced political ambitions and shifting alliances. Claiming to represent the Ezhava community—the largest group within Kerala’s Hindu social bloc and a key OBC constituency that has long formed the backbone of the CPI(M)’s support base—Natesan has maintained a close relationship with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan since the Left returned to power in 2016. Yet the political party floated under the SNDP’s patronage, the Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), is an ally of the BJP-led NDA in Kerala, placing the organisation at the intersection of competing political currents that are at odds with Narayana Guru's universalist legacy.

Vellapally Natesan has for years made derogatory remarks targeting Muslims and Muslim organisations, echoing a familiar Hindutva refrain that the minority community is being “appeased” by the state at the expense of the majority. His repeated attacks on Malappuram—arguably the only Muslim-majority district in the country outside Jammu and Kashmir—were widely condemned as communal and divisive.

What has raised sharper questions, however, is not merely Natesan’s rhetoric but the CPI(M) 's studied silence, coupled with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s public endorsement of him as a man of virtue and a true follower of Narayana Guru. The contrast is stark. In 2015, it was the same Pinarayi Vijayan who branded Natesan the “Kerala Togadia” after a series of communally charged statements against Muslims. What, then, has changed? As one observer put it, “Vellappally has not changed; the politics—and the CPI(M)’s reading of it—has.”

The answer, to some observers and even party fellow-travellers, lies mainly in electoral arithmetic. The Ezhavas, along with the Thiyyas, form the core OBC base of the Left in Kerala and have historically been its most dependable social constituency. The communists’ anti-feudal struggles of the last century and their role in dismantling caste oppression forged a durable bond between this social segment and the Left, particularly the CPI(M). Yet over the past decade, this relationship has begun to fray.

The emergence of the Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS), the political arm of the SNDP, and the steady penetration of Hindutva ideology into sections of the Ezhava community have contributed to a gradual drift of this vote base away from the Left.

“There may be several reasons for Hindutva gaining influence among the Ezhavas. The canards being spread by the Hindutva forces, that the Muslims are the reasons for all their problems, have gained currency,” says Dr T S Shyam Kumar, author and cultural critic.  “But the fact is that it is not the Muslims, but the savarna caste system that imperilled the social mobility of the OBC community. Even now, an Ezhava can’t become a priest in many temples, including Sabarimala. This is not because of the Muslims but because of the caste system perpetuated by the ‘higher castes.  The only antidote to the Hindutvaisation is to lay bare the history,” he adds.  

The CPIM, which was on the receiving end of this drift, was forced to address the issue. According to Shyam Kumar, the polarisation of Muslim votes in favour of the Congress-led UDF, and the drifting away of Ezhava votes might have prompted some of the leaders of the CPIM to shut their eyes towards the Islamophobic statements of Vellappally Natesan. However, when political parties fail to address communalisation, civil society must step in. I don’t think that the Congress is in a position to address these issues seriously,” he added.

Observers, however, point out that neither Vellapally Natesan nor the SNDP exercises any decisive political control over the Ezhava community. Despite Natesan’s overt support for the CPI(M) in the 2024 parliamentary elections and again during last month’s local body polls, the party reaped little electoral benefit. In the Lok Sabha election, a significant share of these votes gravitated towards the BJP, while in the local body elections it was the Congress that emerged as the principal beneficiary. If Natesan’s endorsement has repeatedly failed to translate into votes for the Left, why then does the CPI(M) persist with its silence on his vitriolic statements?

“The CPI(M) has always failed to understand the Muslim psyche,” says senior journalist and columnist P T Nasar. “The communists have had a long-standing Muslim problem.” Recalling earlier political strategies, Nasar points to how global events such as the US invasion of Iraq and the execution of Saddam Hussein were turned into local electoral issues during the time of CPI(M) ideologue E M S Namboodiripad. “Apart from the party’s anti-imperialist position, these issues were deliberately foregrounded to attract Muslim voters,” he says. “While such tactics occasionally helped electorally, they never succeeded in winning Muslim confidence in a sustained way. Today, no Muslim organisation in Kerala wants to be seen as having a soft corner towards the CPI(M).”

The party, for its part, rejects the charge that its criticism of Muslim organisations or Muslim political formations amounts to hostility towards Muslims as a community. CPI(M) leaders argue that there is a concerted attempt to brand the party’s anti-communal stance as anti-Muslim. The party maintains that minority communalism feeds into majority communalism, and insists that its ideological position is to oppose both with equal firmness.  The leaders, but refrain from criticising Vellappally Natesan for making controversial, communally loaded statements.

Yet critics argue that, under the rubric of opposing minority communalism, the CPI(M) is attempting to arrest the erosion of Hindu votes in general, and Ezhava votes in particular—an approach shaped less by principle than by electoral anxiety.

Political observer and senior journalist N P Chekkutty cautions against viewing the party’s indulgence of figures such as Vellapally Natesan merely as an electoral tactic. “To see this only as an election strategy is an oversimplification. The issue runs much deeper,” he says. “There has been a consistent and subtle attempt by certain leaders and cultural figures associated with the Left to introduce elements of cultural nationalism into the party’s ideological framework. The current leadership’s soft approach towards someone like Vellapally Natesan suggests that these efforts are beginning to yield results. This goes beyond electoral calculation. This will have serious consequences for the left in Kerala,” he warns

Muslims constitute roughly 26 per cent of Kerala’s electorate, and in several constituencies—particularly in North Kerala—their votes decisively shape electoral outcomes. In many others, the degree of Muslim vote polarisation is a critical determinant of victory or defeat. In the last two elections, Muslim votes have largely consolidated behind the UDF, placing the CPI(M)-led LDF in an increasingly precarious position as it simultaneously seeks to retain its traditional OBC base. Whether the party’s silence—and, in some cases, tacit accommodation—of communally polarising figures such as Vellapally Natesan will help it navigate this contradiction remains an open question.