The BJP’s Rise Has Nationalised Politics In Kerala

In the recently inaugurated second edition of the Kashi Tamil Sangamam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi became one of the first leaders to use artificial intelligence (AI) for public communication.

Instead of a human translator that would translate his speech in Hindi bit by bit to Tamil, the Prime Minister used Bhashini, a real-time, open-source initiative of the government to reduce language barriers using AI.

This meant the speech could be heard both in Hindi and Tamil in real-time by the attendees of the Sangamam. 

This is not just a milestone in the possible exciting future in using AI to reduce language barriers, but it is also likely to transform the politics of many states, including that of Kerala.

The language barriers that existed for prominent leaders from other states in the country will likely be eliminated through the introduction of real-time AI language tools.

Already, the rise of social media and instant messaging services have resulted in the proliferation of content that was earlier limited by the biases of Malayalam media. The integration of Kerala’s political dynamics with the rest of the country means the current alliances in the state is just not sustainable. 

How 2014 And 2016 Changed Kerala

Since 2014, Kerala politics has become increasingly ‘national’. The voter may easily discern between the nature of the contest — whether it is to the local body, state assembly or the Lok Sabha and vote accordingly.

However, the nature of the issues and the dynamics are no longer purely local or regional. From 1982 till 2014, the nature of the elections was two-sided: the Left Democratic Front (LDF) led by the CPI(M) and the United Democratic Front (UDF) led by the Congress.

These two fronts had little separating them; the newly founded Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in its first elections in Kerala (1982 legislative elections) polled a mere 2.75 per cent, and varied between 5-7 per cent in assembly elections since then.

The other major parties worth a mention are the parent party of the CPM, the Communist Party of India, whose influence in the state has diminished significantly since the late 70s, and the Indian Union Muslim League, the major constituent in the UDF that (as the name indicates) has a hold on the votes of the Muslim community.

Filling out the field are the Kerala Congress parties, that have represented the interests of Christians, and to a smaller extent, the Nair community in Central Kerala. 

In a microcosm, Kerala is a contest between the outwardly socialist and “revolutionary” LDF and the coalition of communitarian interests and groups aligned against the Communists through the UDF. 

There was never any major disruption in the two-horse race between the fronts until 2014.

Small parties, who commanded exceedingly low bases of even 20,000 votes in certain constituencies, can and have bargained for much larger slices of the pie, and even today, the various iterations of the Janata Dal parties and Kerala Congress(es) form an important part of both fronts.

The electorate continued electing alternate governments every five years, and this cycle was only broken in the 2016 Assembly elections. 

As had been the nature of things, the LDF won a stupendous victory in the 2016 election, but the electoral landscape had been transformed permanently.

The BJP in the state had breached the 10 per cent vote share landmark and for the first time ever, won a seat in the Legislative Assembly. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in Kerala in fact breached the 15 per cent share in the state for the first time.

The NDA’s vote share increase mostly came from the Congress and a minority from the Left. This dynamic also played out in the 2021 Assembly elections.

While the vote share of the front dipped, the NDA’s vote share played enough of a role in the elections as well to boost Pinrayi Vijayan to a historic second term. There are many other factors of course, but NDA’s major presence as a spoiler cannot be denied.

The BJP had, in fact, made its first inroad towards ‘breaking’ the two-front cycle in Kerala in the 2004 General Elections. As can be seen below:

As seen above, the NDA in 2004 actually won one (overturned) seat, and O Rajagopal finished second in Thiruvananthapuram.

This gain, however, could not have been consolidated as the BJP had lost the General Elections, and the standard path for Kerala Politics was restored for the next cycle. The Modi wave in 2014 represented the first real ‘break’ from the usual, with NDA crossing the 10 per cent barrier and 2016 cemented this transformation.

In the razor thin vote shares that decide Kerala elections, the emergence of a third pole in the BJP and its impact has fundamentally changed day-day politics.

Firstly, competitive anti-Hindutva has become a factor for both LDF and UDF in elections, to polarise votes of the Muslim and Chrsitian community.

Second, the flow of BJP votes from Congress and CPM, combined with the more visible presence of Hindu polarisation has led to a shift in the Overton window. The Malayalam media may be super toxic to the BJP, but it could no longer ignore it.

(A note of caution would be that the massive dip in performance of the LDF in 2019 is a one-off explained by the Sabarimala issue and the candidature of Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad. In 2024, the former is no longer a factor.)

A More Integrated Polity

Historic decisions such as the removal of Article 370 or the foundation of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple has meant that public discourse in Kerala, much like the rest of the country, is no longer siloed.

National issues have become talking points even in local elections, with varied impact. For example, Malayalam media, much like national media, was focused on the apparent ‘controversy’ over the naming of the landing spot of Chandrayaan-3’s Pragyan Rover as ‘Shiv Shakti’ point by the Prime Minister.

The “Sanghification” of universities, or some other completely random non-issues that can polarise opinion against the BJP in the state has also been taken up time and time again by Malayalam media. This may appear as a pure negative for the BJP, but it is not.

The rapid digitisation and rise of social media has led to a litany of pro-BJP Malayalam media flourishing and emerging as alternatives to mainstream media.

Moreover, the agenda set nationally by the BJP has the highest disproportionate impact on discourse in Kerala, where both LDF and UDF try to out-compete in making outlandish statements in opposing the BJP.

Even when comparatively regional issues or incidents, such as the recent comments by the Kerala Speaker occurred, they were no longer limited to random chatter in the state, but were matters of national attention.

Much like the DMK that has flourished in the shadows of national discourse, the pro-Islamist stances of the Congress or the CPM were not paid attention to by national news. Now, these issues are debated and dissected at a larger stage than before, and more importantly, this affects the politics in these states.

Social media discourse has also shifted significantly since COVID-19, and the release of ChatGPT and its popularity has boosted the use of AI tools.

The Prime Minister’s voice has been a staple for some content creators on platform such as Instagram — they depict the Prime Minister's AI-generated rendition of various popular Malayalam songs or even film dialogues. This may merely be for some fun and popularity, but has the effect of creating a familiarity to the Prime Minister.

The use of such AI tools in giving an audience a real time understanding of the Prime Minister’s eloquent and passionate speeches in Hindi rendered in Malayalam can prove a game-changer for the BJP. After all, the Prime Minister has a popularity that is almost the double the vote share of the NDA in the state.

Linguistic barriers, so far bridged by the BJP state accounts or supporters using subtitles or stunted translations, can possibly be eliminated or reduced.

There are of course, valid ethical concerns on the use of such tools, especially if it used to resemble the voice of the head of government. But the bridges these tools can possibly fill are not limited.

A Permanent Shift In Kerala Politics

There has been significant conversation on how General Elections to Lok Sabha are no longer ‘Parliamentary’ but 'Presidential’.

While the commentariat might well be displeased that it displaces their vision of India’s polity, the integration of politics and political culture has been a long time coming.

Kerala, whose two main fronts were functionally the same at the national level until 2019, have now literally become the same with the creation of the I.N.D.I. Alliance.

When the Keralite voter goes to the polls in the summer of 2024, the choice between the LDF and UDF is a non-choice; the real one is between the two and the NDA.

In the seats where the BJP is remotely in contention, either the LDF or UDF’s presence is merely that of a vote cutter, that either boosts the BJP to victory or does not and pushes them to be the perpetual might-have-been (again).

Competitive anti-Hindutva may rule the roost in Kerala for a long time to come, but the two fronts have become two-and-a-half fronts already.

The wooing of the Muslim League by the CPM has been taken to a new level since 2021, and will likely only increase. If the League moves to the LDF, there is no telling how the dynamics of politics in the state changes.

Either way, the BJP’s rise has nationalised politics in Kerala, and it is their apparent success or failure in national governance that is going to be a feature of Kerala politics in the times to come.

Kerala’s politics has been ‘nationalised’, in a good way.