If you are driving to Kerala from Tamil Nadu, you will likely cross the border at Walayar, a small town in Palakkad district. The narrow stretch of old NH 47 Coimbatore bypass (locally known as L&T toll road) pours into the 4-lane NH-544 after crossing a culvert near the border. Huge signboards lining the road welcome you to ‘God’s Own Country’. Truckers quietly slip into the left lane and vehicles slow down to escape surveillance cameras that will set you back by a few thousand rupees if you are not compliant. The terrain transforms magically into lush green paddy fields dotted with coconut palms and the odd ‘Toddy” shop tucked into the woods.
Attapalam comes next if you continue towards Palakkad town or Thrissur. The stretch from Walayar check post to Attapalam with its many watering holes hosts truckers and migrant workers round the year. Left-leaning Kerala has a perennial labour crisis where high literacy rate, shortage of willing local workers and attractive wages combine to act like a huge magnet for migrants, or “guest workers” as the egalitarian state likes to call them. During my innumerable visits to Palakkad, I have seen migrant workers fill every labour opportunity, from serving steaming idlis in roadside hotels to working at construction sites or tending to plantations.
In one of the narrow bylanes off the highway at Attapalam, migrant Ram Narayan Baghel was beaten to death on Dec 17. Having reached Walayar on Dec 13, Ram Narayan failed in his attempts to get any work and was loitering about looking to borrow a mobile phone to call his friends or family, possibly to arrange a return ticket to his home in rural Chhattisgarh. He was reportedly carrying a stick and some stones — not unusual in Kerala where people use it to protect themselves from stray dogs forever kept on the verge of starvation by apathetic locals. A mob set upon him at around 2:30PM, beating him mercilessly to the edge of his life. By the time law enforcement arrived and shifted him to the Palakkad District Hospital it was too late. The frail, emaciated Ram died of massive internal injuries and bleeding at about 7:35PM.
Who can deny that such lynchings, though rare in Kerala, have seen an alarming increase across India in recent times. One of the questions posed to Ram Narayan before his lynching was “are you from Bangladesh?” The ghuspethiya (infiltrator) narrative run on loop by the ruling party as a vote hook, among other instruments of hate, has planted itself in public imagination even down South. The recent condemnable spate of attacks against minorities, especially Hindus, in neighbouring Bangladesh was also weaponized by the right wing to mobilise their supporters against imaginary enemies. As luck would have it, the axe fell on Ram Narayan from Chhattisgarh against whom there was not a single registered offence. Sad but have to say this: even his religion couldn’t save his life in New India.
Allow me to bring in a personal anecdote at this point. About 12 years ago I was on the same stretch aboard a KSRTC ‘Airavat’ overnight Volvo bus service from Palakkad to Bangalore. Travelling with me was a close relative Mr. Keshavan (name changed to protect identity), a senior citizen, centrist and pacifist who wouldn’t hurt a fly. About thirty minutes after we pulled out from the Palakkad bus stand, the bus stopped by the side of the road near Attapalam. We could hear some commotion outside. I gathered from fellow passengers that a bunch of locals were thrashing a “north Indian”, as if that was an adequate explanation for unleashing violence. As I made for the door, Keshavan uncle restrained me pleading “don’t get involved; they may turn on you. Please don’t step out“. Of course his plea fell on deaf ears. With my limited fluency in Malayalam and Hindi, I confronted the cowards to let the migrant worker go. A passing beat patrol took it from there and we resumed our journey. Not a single person from the bus –all well-heeled folks from IT city Bengaluru–could be bothered. Keshavan uncle was mortified and launched into a sermon on what he called “unnecessary bravado” on my part.
Any bystander could have intervened and stopped Ram Narayan’s lynching on Dec 17. But twelve years down the line, we seem to have normalised violence and vigilante justice like some banana republic. There are far too many fault lines today to count. You can be lynched or assassinated for your looks, your beliefs, your caste, food choices, the dress you wear, falling in love, resisting rape or molestation, even for advocating rational thought or speaking truth to power. In a 2025 policy paper, Dr. Suparna Banerjee, Visiting Fellow at the Research Center “Transformations of Political Violence” (TraCe), points out that “members of mobs involved in lynchings often do not belong to specific political parties or radical groups; they are typically ordinary individuals emboldened by political rhetoric to harass minorities”.
That hate and mob violence has reached Kerala which boasts of 100% literacy and eradication of poverty should alarm us. The radicalisation of ordinary citizens along preexisting fault lines has found new wings thanks to big tech and social media. Add to this, movies that carry obscene displays of violence. One of the biggest grossers of Mollywood, Mohanlal-starrer “Drishyam” stretched artistic licence with its portrayal of brutal police violence against women, minors and children (remember the police station scene?). This is the same Kerala where superstar Dileep allegedly hired contract goons to get a female actor raped. Notwithstanding all its secular credentials and high social indicators, I have known women who were groped, voyeurs who escaped justice, victims of domestic violence & incest, and so on, even as a high-handed police department plays handmaiden to the ruling dispensation. Sanctimonious Keralites who twitch their noses at the latest travesty like it is some exception should really stop the slide with their votes. No UDF or LDF has been able to curb this menace. BJP’s hardcore Hindutva is hardly the salve Kerala needs.
What is truly alarming is how we have stopped standing for each others’ rights. All it needed to save Ram Narayan’s life was for one person to throw himself over him and ask “what is his crime and what is this punishment?” Instead, a bunch of apathetic educated folks looked on as scoundrels beat him “like an animal” (words used by the doctor who conducted the autopsy to describe his horrific injuries).
A speech delivered few years ago by Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayan at my son’s graduation comes to mind. During the solemn graduation ceremony, a student started to slip in and out of consciousness, finally slumping to the ground as other students looked on impassively (fainting episode; he received medical attention and was fine). Gopal, the chief guest for the evening, used the incident to flesh out our apathy towards fellow citizens under attack from fringe elements for their beliefs, race, caste or social status. “As you graduate from these hallowed portals to the big, bad world, you may no longer have the safety net that school provides. You have to keep each other’s back. When you see a friend or stranger fall, don’t look on or look the other way. Stand up for what’s right. Show up for each other. Don’t let the system override your conscience“, formed the gist of what he said. Brilliant words. Remember the classroom experiment in a high school in Palo Alto, California of 1969? What started as a teaching experiment by Ron Jones to explain to his students how Fascism took hold in Germany in the 1930s spiraled into a cult before the teacher ended the experiment with indelible lessons for the students of Ellwood B Cubberly High School. Look up the documentary ‘The Wave‘ if you haven’t already.
As I see it, the majoritarian call to arms, hate speech and vigilante justice is gaining ascendancy year after year. It would be foolish to assume this happens without state complicity or party sanction. The fringe is increasingly becoming mainstream even as law and order plays catch up, or worse, sides with the mob. Recent incidents bear this out. Anjel Chakma from Tripura was stabbed to death in ‘Devbhoomi’ Uttarakhand’s capital Dehradun for confronting rogues who hurled racial slurs on him and his brother. His last words, “We are not Chinese, we are Indians. What certificate should we show to prove that?” should prick those with any shred of conscience left.
This festive season, hired goons from saffron outfits roamed the streets with impunity, dancing outside mosques, vandalising Christmas celebrations and beating up those who make a livelihood from festive sales. Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi is one of the biggest social media influencers (over 200 million followers at last count). His name is practically on everyone’s lips. One word from him can rein-in the mob. But he simply doesn’t. His noble silence grants strength and impunity to the vandals while disenfranchising millions of minorities who are equal stakeholders in this democracy. Each year looks like a slow creep towards kristallnacht. Thanks to our duplicity, we are fast losing moral upper ground to preach to the world what we seem to be increasingly incapable of practicing. To be Vishwaguru, our actions must match our exalted exhortations from the pulpit. Leaders must lead by example, not hypocrisy.
About ten years ago, Keshavan uncle got WhatsApp on his phone, with an instant plug & play into the entire right wing propaganda machinery. He now believes ISIS has invaded Kerala and Hindus are ceding ground to Muslims by not producing enough children. In his advanced years, he constantly fears a Muslim takeover and quotes the Mappila Rebellion of 1921 even though not a single muslim has ever harmed him in any way. For each of his existential problems, there is a ready distraction “forward” that turns the narrative into ‘us versus them’. A mere mention of the word ‘Gandhi’ or ‘secular’ rankles him no end. He is no longer the centrist or pacifist I have known for three decades. What’s worse, I fear he may even join the mob he restrained me from confronting 12 years ago. This is not a work of fiction; just a finely crafted and curated propaganda machinery at work. I am sure you have your own Keshavans. A family friend confided recently that she had no hesitation in admitting that her parents have turned “closet Nazis” and that their metamorphosis “scares” her.
What have we become?
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©KP Sanjeev Kumar, 2025. All rights reserved. Views are personal. I can be reached at realkaypius@gmail.com or on Twitter @realkaypius. I welcome your views.
