Modi, Kerala and the Christians who want to escape the present

PM Modi during his visit to Kochi in Kerala.

Narendra Modi's visit highlighted how much the party profits from sweeping, and generally positive, media coverage. During the visit, some news channels even altered their social media covers to BJP-related imagery.

However, the stark fact is that BJP is yet to win a Lok Sabha seat in Kerala despite over four decades of trying.

The BJP utilised the willingness of Church leaders to meet Modi to show it was getting closer to Kerala's substantial Christian minority. However, the Bishops were also wary of showing any overt support to the Saffron party after their meeting with the PM.

In his 20-minute meeting, Modi reportedly did not commit to address any of the issues the priests raised, dampening optimism.

BJP’s Christian Outreach

For some time, the party has been emphasising its desire to recruit Kerala Christians. This month alone, the PM visited Sacred Heart Cathedral in Delhi on Easter, BJP's Kerala-in-charge Prakash Javadekar and others held Easter feasts for Syro-Malabar Church vicar-general Varkey Attupurath and Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church's metropolitan bishop Geevarghese Mar Yulios, and a local party leader attempted the difficult 3 km trek up to the pilgrim centre Malayatoor Church, 609 metres above sea level.

In return, leading Church officials have leaned towards the BJP this month. Alencherry said in an interview that Modi protects Indian Christians. The archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Church's Thalassery diocese, Joseph Pamplany, also made headlines by pledging votes to BJP if it can boost the floor price of rubber in exchange for support for a parliamentary seat in 2024.

Kerala Christians & BJP: Much Synergy

Call it a marriage of convenience. Christians make only around 18 percent of Kerala's population, but they are powerful. They are first in per capita land ownership and second in remittances, which have reduced their inequality and expanded their mobility, compared to the rest of India, according to a land ownership census by the Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP) referenced in Maya Pramod's study on caste colonies in Kerala, and a comparison of remittances among religious denominations of Kerala by Center for Development Studies' KC Zachariah.

The Church in Kerala interacts with the laity not only through fate, but also through welfare and mediation between the ruler and the ruled. It requires power to do so and this naturally favoured the Church doing business with Congress or Kerala Congress parties, which were more amenable to such political relations unlike the Left parties.

Kerala Christianity also emphasises caste. Nearly 80 percent of Christians, according to KC Zachariah's study titled 'Religious Denominations of Kerala”, claim to be the upper castes and follow Syrian customs. Kerala's conservative Christian right has historically influenced anti-communist voters. Recently, the Christian right in Kerala has also started fighting Muslims.

The upper caste Christians recognise the BJP's electoral dominance across India, especially since their usual power route, Congress, has been losing electoral ground nationwide. For the BJP ideologues who believe their political success in Kerala is tied to tapping into dissatisfaction and scepticism about Muslims and communists, the Christian minority makes for excellent partners in Kerala.

But in Kerala's complex electoral landscape, translating this goodwill into votes is not easy. For one, these church leaders are divided internally. For instance, an influential Syro-Malabar Catholic Church splinter faction rejects almost anything their head Mar George Alencherry says. Alencherry is also heading into trial for a land scam, so churchgoers accuse him of backing the BJP to avoid jail.

Insipid State Leadership

There are some fundamental differences between both groups, too. The Church has trouble seeing the BJP as a secular organisation. Moreover, the religious philosophies of the BJP and the Church are at odds. Though the Church would like to improve its grip over power and rubber farmer incomes, there is worry that such assistance from BJP to it will help Hindutva outfits to thrive. However, pragmatism has triumphed over such hindrances in the past too. To fight Marxist labour unions, rich Christians and traders in Kerala had supported the RSS in the 1970s.

But the biggest issue for the Church, which is true for other communities too, is the BJP's lack of a strategy and a leader who can appeal to a wide range of Kerala voters. This is crucial for every political party to be seen as a potential winner in an election, but it is especially true for the BJP in Kerala because otherwise it has everything else a modern party needs to hit the ground running.

The BJP national unit, arguably, has given the Kerala wing money, access, and posts generously since Modi-Shah took power. It awarded three outside-Kerala Rajya Sabha seats to Malayalis – film star Suresh Gopi, former civil servant turned politician Alphonse Kannanthanam, and state leader V Muraleedharan – to aggressively interfere in the state on their behalf as MPs. It even made the last two Union ministers.

Three Malayalee governors – state politicians Kummanam Rajasekharan and Sreedharan Pillai and retired civil servant turned politician VK Ananda Bose – were appointed. It recruited AP Abdullakutty, Tom Vadakan, and Anil Antony, three notable Congress figures, which lends the party a symbolic upper-hand, even if these leaders don’t command large votebanks.

Christian Strategy Right, But

It has lavishly sponsored the state unit for events and publicity, brought famous campaigners like Modi and Shah every election, and erected a snazzy new state headquarters with a chamber for a future Kerala chief minister.

However, despite igniting Sabarimala protests and potentially expanding its base, the BJP lost the 2019 Lok Sabha election. K Surendran, its state unit chairman, lost two seats, including the Sabarimala movement's ground-zero. Kummanam Rajasekharan, another prominent candidate, lost by almost one lakh votes. Its overall vote share increased only by 4.78 percentage points.

In the subsequent 2021 assembly elections, the BJP failed to win any seats.

The PM's visit too revealed this leadership vacuum. Most Kerala leaders who shared the dais with the PM had lost state and central elections, some more than once. The stage was devoid of newcomers.

Moreover, the Kerala BJP unit is split between V Muraleedharan and PK Krishna Das, both past BJP presidents. Both lobby to get their loyalists elected to the top posts and their electoral failures have gone unpunished.

If “strategy” addresses the "how to do" question in politics, and “policy” or “vision” addresses the "what to do", BJP may have found the right strategy in wooing Kerala Christians but an electoral victory looks far away unless it has visionary leadership.

Until then, BJP might merely succeed in delivering another victory for the CPM by fragmenting anti-CPM votes, or in consolidating minorities frightened by Hindutva campaigns behind the Congress as a natural bulwark to the BJP.

Nidheesh MK is a journalist and analyst based in Kerala. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.