It was around 8am and 26-year-old Rahul K T K was busy offering training to his disciples at the kalari (martial art training centre) in Thacholi Manikoth temple at Vadakara. The place is known in the annals of history as the abode of legendary Kalaripayattu warrior Thacholi Othenan, the hero of ‘vadakkan pattukal’ (ballads of north Malabar). The period of wars and battles had long gone, but one can still quickly sense an undying spirit of the people of Vadakara questioning the authority and established norms. Amid vaaytharis (oral commands) that emanate from around 80 kalaripayattu centres in the area, there is a stoic silence which is the new politics of the common people of Vadakara.
“We don’t go around discussing politics in the open. But we have a strong stance and it will reflect in the elections,” says Rahul. Manikoth residents Pradeep P and Jayakumar N say though Vadakara is traditionally a Left bastion, mainly the CPM, it is the neutral voters who play a decisive role in the polls. “Only two types of people openly express their political support. They will either be staunch CPM activists or BJP workers. The majority of neutral voters fear to reveal their political stance in the open,” says Pradeep. Jayakumar says it is this political silence of neutral voters in the constituency that has given a shocker to the CPM in Lok Sabha polls when P Jayarajan lost to K Muraleedharan of the UDF.
Even the words of 60-year-old Vijayaraghavan T, a resident of Manikoth Narayana Nagar and writer of ‘Thacholi Charitham,’ reveal the concerns of a CPM follower who is not happy with gold smuggling and backdoor appointment scams that have put the party in bad light.
“Though the majority of the people do not openly discuss politics, they critically analyse the performance of political parties. It’s a fact that socialist candidates have been winning from Vadakara and it’s not because of the strength of such parties in the constituency but because of the strong base of the CPM which has been giving the seat to its LDF ally,” he adds.
At Onchiyam in Vadakara where the RMPI has emerged as a strong opposition to the CPM, residents are hesitant to openly discuss politics with outsiders. “We all have politics and will cast our votes accordingly. We are not ready to tell others about our political liking as it’s a risky affair. We don’t want to offend others and create enmity with others by openly revealing our likes and dislikes. We want to live peacefully without any trouble,” says 54-year-old Sathyanathan, a resident of Onchiyam.
Another resident Babu
Gopalan, 64, also echoes a similar concern but he hints at a growing acceptance of the RMPI as an alternative to the CPM. “What we see here is a rigorous electoral campaign undertaken by the IUML for the RMPI,” he adds.