CPI(M) campaigners recalled Swami Vivekananda’s characterisation of Kerala as a “lunatic asylum” because of thenotorious caste divisions prevailing in the state, and they called for a genuinely secular Kerala in a genuinely secular India. This (1987) campaign touched a sympathetic chord in the minds and hearts of tens of thousands of people outside the influenceof the LDF. Many different kinds of people began to support the LDF: Congressmen who treasured the traditions of struggle for secularism, Muslims and Christians who realised that the interests of their communities would be safer in a secular set-up thanin a communal one, and common people belonging to “forward” and “backward” Hindu castes who realised that a secular democratic set-up was the best guarantee for the advancement of every caste and religious community. Such people constituted the major political capital of the CPI(M) and the LDF, and it was on them, among others, that the LDF and the CPI(M) relied for their electoral victory.

– EMS Namboodiripad after the 1987 assembly elections

Whichever way the results are viewed

– some less charitable observers say Kerala’s electorate did not really vote in the LDF, rather, they voted out the UDF. There can be no denying the clear and unequivocal majority and mandate that Kerala’s citizens have bestowed on the LDF. Even though the outgoing chief minister, Oommen Chandy, has said that the people’s verdict was not against his government, it is difficult not to apportion much of the electorate’s disaffection towards the poor performance of the UDF during its past stint. That explains why seven ministers were given the boot by the state’s voters, three of them from the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), which received such a drubbing at the hustings that it may well change forever the nature of Muslim politics in Kerala. And among those who were voted out, some were handling key portfolios like agriculture, education and public works. Added to that, the resounding defeat of P K Kunhalikutty, general secretary of the IUML, former industries and information technology minister, trusted confidant of Oommen Chandy and the force behind most of Kerala’s industrialisation efforts, only drives home the point that the electorate was far from happy with the way the UDF had advanced the state’s development agenda.

Thus, it was not really surprising to read one aspect of the pre-election findings of The Hindu-CNN-IBN Poll conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). Apart from predicting a comprehensive win for the LDF, the poll came out with one intriguing finding on how the respondents reacted to the issue of development. They were asked to rate the ruling UDF on the following key indicators of infrastructural and social development: roads, electricity, drinking water, government schools, government hospitals and law and order. On all these indicators, the respondents rated the ruling UDF very positively, giving it scores above the 50 per cent mark, rising to 78 per cent for both roads and electricity, and 63 per cent for drinking water.

According to The Hindu-CNN-IBN pollsters, “With this kind of rating on key developmental issues, any government could have hoped to come back to power. This rating is not very different from that received by the Left Front government in West Bengal in the survey conducted by CSDS. The UDF seems set to lose in Kerala. It is an irony that despite similar ratings, the political fates of the two governments could not be more different.”

Perhaps it is easy – and rather facile – to tote that up to the unending list of ironies and contradictions that make up the “Kerala model” of development. However, a more careful analysis of The Hindu-CNN-IBN poll findings on voter perception of Kerala’s development experience would suggest another more plausible explanation. All the indicators used by the pollsters refer to basic social infrastructural

Economic and Political Weekly May 27, 2006 development – roads, electricity, water and hospitals. These – in most areas, other than the very remote parts of the state – are of fairly decent standards. It is in the area of industry and business that the state is still found lacking. Thus, what Kerala’s voters seem to want are more jobs, and more opportunities for a variety of sources of livelihood for themselves and their families. These, clearly, are unlikely to emerge substantially from social infrastructural projects. They will be produced only by a dynamic and widespread industrial revolution. Such expectations would thus explain the apparent dichotomy of a thumping yes for a ruling government’s development achievements and an equally decisive thumbs-down for its return to power.

And, as if adding salt to the wound, it was Kunhalikutty, the IUML (ex) supremo, who had first suggested that the UDF back the wrong horse by entering into electoral alliances with DIC(K).

Yet, these strategic moves were nearly dangerously stillborn, given the factional feuds within the CPI(M), the “big brother” in the LDF. The group linked to Pinarayi Vijayan, the party’s state secretary, was reportedly miffed with the manner in which V S Achuthanandan, the then leader of the opposition in the legislative assembly, was being prominently projected as the next chief minister of the state. Pinarayi’s group

The image of VS, as projected by the media and hammered home by the UDF, was that of a dyed-in-the-wool, unrepentant, unreconstructed hardliner of a communist, someone who would rather have the state remain pristinely backward, rather than give in to the demands of capital out to rape and plunder the natural resources of Kerala. If he was seen as stubbornly “antidevelopment” – witness the charges against VS for protesting against the smart city information technology (IT) project proposed to come up in Kochi as a collaborative venture with the Dubai Technology and Media Free Zone Authority – the electorate clearly did not seem to think so. True, at one time, VS did come across, both in personal body language and speechifying rhetoric, as a crass, harsh and rather irrationally backward-looking politician, given also to some uncompromisingly lethal politicking to further the interests of his coterie within the party.

Nonetheless, VS’ stints as leader of the opposition allowed him to focus on peopleoriented issues, ranging from the exploitation of women, especially underage girls, and other gender matters, to environmental issues like the destruction of river-beds and forests by powerful interests masquerading as “industrialists”. VS, the hardliner soon metamorphosed into VS, the green activist, VS the feminist (or, at least, women’s rights advocate), VS the human rights campaigner, and VS the one-man-army against misappropriation by the timber, liquor and sand-mining mafia.