Another side to the story

Kerala's story is now part of folklore. Amid the Brahminical influence gripping north India, the southern state comes across as a liberal enclave of beef-eaters.

- Suraj Yengde

As one of the earliest post-colonial communist states in India and the colonies, the Kerala story is prefixed with the influence of communism. Like any well-crafted piece of propaganda, there is another side to things, but we are unsure of where to find a credible version of the complete picture.

Dalithan, a memoir of one of the state's finest literary critics and activists, might serve us well in this regard. Written in Malayalam, it begins with the childhood story of the author, KK Kochu, growing up in Madhuraveli, Kottayam. To get a grasp of the character and complexities of Kerala, the reader must understand the land reforms of the 1960s that created a new class of middle-caste landowners. Dalits such as Kochu, however, remained on the margins.

Unlike many Pulayas and other Dalit castes who worked in the fields of the Namboodris, Nairs and Syrian Christians—the dominant castes around whom the historiography and sociology of Kerala is built—Kochu's father owned a piece of land that supported the family.