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By N P Chekkutty It is not by accident that the most violent clashes in Kerala in recent times have been the Muthanga adivasi struggle in Wayanad and the communal flare-ups in coastal Maradu. Kerala's famed model of development left the tribal-dominated hills and the coastal fisher communities socially, politically and economically marginalised, leaving the coast clear for communal forces to enter
The famed Kerala model of development has an ugly underside: the egalitarian social model that made the state popular with development economists left a few islands of poverty untouched, among them the tribal people of the hills and the fishing communities along the coast. Both have largely been ignored by the development process, leading to disastrous consequences over the course of time. It is not by accident that some of the most violent clashes in Kerala society have occurred in these two social segments, sharply brought into focus in recent years by the Muthanga adivasi struggles in Wayanad and communal clashes in the northern coastal village of Maradu. The Kerala model of development was a creditable achievement for a Third World society because it ensured First World standards in human development indices like healthcare, education, male-female ratio, mortality rate etc, even though in matters of economic development Kerala was a laggard like any other Third World economy. Amartya Sen, writing on the Kerala experience, points out that Kerala -- despite its low income levels -- has achieved more than even some of the most admired high-growth economies like South Korea and China. But economists remain concerned about the dismal state of affairs in stimulating economic growth. Kerala’s performance in this sphere has been poor, even compared with other Indian states, says Sen. Regional imbalances in social sector indices are another major problem. A study of the Hindu fisher community of dheevaras in the mid-’90s states that the literacy level in this community was 84%, at a time when the state was celebrating the achievement of total literacy. In higher education, the performance of this fishing community was poor compared with other backward communities. Literacy levels among the other dominant coastal community, the Muslims, were also comparatively low. Scholars who have conducted studies on social inequalities in Kerala say that artisanal fisherfolk, who constituted about 85% of fishing communities, have been both socially and politically marginalised. While farmers, workers and landless labourers are organised into trade unions and other progressive political formations, this has not happened among coastal communities. Jona Halfdanardottir, a scholar from the Netherlands, in a study on the social mobilisation of fisherfolk in Kerala, has observed that political parties, both left and right, showed no interest in mobilising fishing communities, nor did they even try to address their problems. This political vacuum was eventually filled by communal organisations that slowly began to dominate the lives of the fisher people. In southern Kerala, where fishing communities are predominantly Latin Catholic, the church and church-sponsored voluntary organisations took up the task of organising the community. In the north, where the Hindu dheevaras and Muslims dominate, this role was fulfilled by Hindu communal outfits like the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) and various Muslim organisations. And so, social life along the coast became a hotbed of communal politics, a tragic turn of events as these fishing communities, through generations, had developed their own effective system of self-governance that would have emerged as natural centres of secular social and political organisation. What happened instead was the destruction of these organic structures by the invasion of new forces. A classic example of this is the gradual disappearance of the kadakkoties, or sea-courts, a community-based quasi-judicial mechanism prevalent in the entire northern coastal region from Chavakkad to Mangalore. These courts adjudicated all kinds of maritime disputes within the community, and their verdicts were accepted by all, irrespective of social rank or community, as noted by V K Prabhakaran of Chombala, near Vatakara, who has studied the functioning of the sea-courts. The sea-courts, whose members consisted of boat-owners from each turai, or beach village, had jurisdiction over all disputes relating to the sea. They had their own way of taking in evidence, cross-questioning witnesses, appealing to a higher court, etc. They even enjoyed a measure of legitimacy during the British administration; the civil authorities in Malabar accepted their rulings in maritime disputes. After Independence, however, the new authorities failed to take note of the special nature of the problems of coastal people. They left them in the care of the revenue and police authorities, on the one hand, and religious groups and communal organisations on the other. This was evident even in the mid-’50s when the church and community leaders succeeded in rallying the fisher people in a ‘Liberation Struggle’ against the first communist ministry led by E M S Namboodiripad in 1958-59. Jona Halfdanardottir says that the Catholic church and organisations of high-caste Nairs mounted violent agitations against intended reforms in agrarian and school systems, bringing the fisherfolk out onto the streets. This was the first phase of the politicisation of fishing communities through communal organisations, a trend which later took firm root. This politicisation, says Halfdanardottir, can be described as “purely communal in character, stimulated by Catholic priests safeguarding the interests of the church and the vested order”. In the 1970s and 1980s, a new group of priests, some of them inspired by Latin American liberation theology, came to work on the southern beaches and took up a series of struggles for the uplift of fishing communities. Currently there are around a dozen non-governmental organisations working among the Catholic fishing community in the southern beaches from Ernakulam to Thiruvananthapuram. Many have been accused of running partisan and communal campaigns. The recent tsunami relief operations proved an eye-opener, with religious and caste-based charity organisations overshadowing government efforts. Their style of functioning and community or caste-based approach to the selection of beneficiaries served to further segregate society. Although trade unions have never been very powerful among fishing communities in the south, an independent trade organisation, the Kerala State Swatantra Matsya Thozhilali Federation (KMSTF), was launched in 1980 with support from the Latin Catholic church. A number of important functionaries of the organisation were church representatives, its leadership accused of taking a partisan position on many issues. In fact, Eugene Kulas, a key functionary of the federation, resigned from his post alleging that the dominant church-sponsored leadership was preventing the emergence of a genuine leadership from amongst the ordinary fisher people. The federation faced a split in its ranks over control by the church hierarchy in its decision-making and activities. Communal divisions in the south are evident in the Vizhinjam and Poonthura beaches in Thiruvananthapuram, where Christian and Muslim families now live as separate communities, their areas of operation demarcated by a virtual no-man’s land in between. If anyone crosses this boundary, the beaches go up in flames, as a series of incidents in recent years have proved.  In the north, where the Muslims and Hindu dheevaras are the dominant fishing communities, social life is controlled by Sangh Parivar organisations like the RSS among the Hindus, and the Jama-at committees among the Muslims. Maradu beach, where over a dozen people were killed in two incidents of communal clashes during 2002 and 2003, provides a graphic picture of the way the two communities are divided and separated on the same beach.
Maradu beach forms part of two wards of the Beypore panchayat, a traditionally left-dominated area in Kozhikode. The fishing village is separated from the mainstream by a road, the Old Maradu Road. Those who live on the western side of the road are fisherfolk, both Muslim and Hindu, while those who inhabit the eastern side are non-fishermen who eke out a living in other ways. Although the people who live on both sides of the road fall within the same economic category, a huge social wall divides them: on the beaches it is the politics of communalism that rules society, while on the eastern side it is mainstream secular politics that dominates people’s lives. The economic activities of the Hindu fisher people in Maradu are controlled by the Araya Samajam which provides loans to all its members, at very low rates of interest, to procure speed boats or new gear like nets. On the other hand, the Jama-at committee and the Muslim mosque committee, both of which enjoy financial support from community members in the Gulf, are able to give interest-free loans to their members.
Thus, communal organisations are able to dictate the terms of social life on the beaches of Kerala. Dr K N Ganesh of the department of history at Calicut University, who did a sociological study on Maradu after the 2002 carnage, points out that the secular space in the lives of the fisher people has been squeezed out, with even cultural and sports organisations marginalised and their activities taken over by communal outfits. The first serious outbreak in Maradu began with some minor incidents between youths of different communities during a football match. The subsequent string of events proved that even places of worship had become hotbeds of communal campaigning. A huge cache of arms was seized by the police from the local mosque immediately after the second major incident and there is strong evidence that a wide section of the community was involved in a criminal conspiracy that went on for many months. The breakdown of society in Maradu, where members of both communities once lived side by side, is a heart-breaking tale. As nine persons were killed within a short span of half-an-hour -- eight of them Hindus -- all the Muslim families had to flee for their lives. Around 400 Muslim families from Maradu were forced to live in relief camps for months before they were able to return to their homes. When they did return they found their homes ransacked, every household article destroyed or looted in an orgy of wanton destruction indulged in by their own neighbours. But this breakdown of social and community relations is not the handiwork of communal forces alone. It is the failure of secular forces at the political level, and the deliberate policy options exercised by these authorities at the economic level, that has left these poorest sections of Kerala society to their fate. To understand the real tragedy, we will have to look at the impact of economic policies on the lives of the people, throwing them into a situation of desperation and bitterness. These people are the abandoned children of Kerala’s famed model of development, left behind to fight for the few crumbs that come their way. (N P Chekkutty is a Kerala-based journalist. He is presently Executive Editor ofTejas. This is the second in a series of articles on the communal polarisation of Kerala’s fisher community, researched as part of the CCDS-InfochangeIndia Research Fellowships 2006.) InfoChange News & Features, July 2006
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