• Sanjose A Thomas

Malayali boasts almost umpteen times about the civilizational greatness of Kerala. We feel proud and express great belongingness to our cultural identity, which has become our hallmark in the real sense of the term. Whenever we are in campuses outside Kerala, students belonging to other states use to tell about their Malayali counterparts with a certain sense of distinctness which sets them apart from others. What are the socio- cultural factors responsible for giving this distinction to Kerala? This is perhaps worth pondering, especially in this new millennium. The decisively crucial role played by our social reformers and Christian missionaries right from the 19th century contributed heavily to the development of renaissance in Kerala, which is often designated as the ‘Kerala model’ of socio – cultural emancipation, which weakened the deep rooted caste system and ushered in the idea of equality in various walks of life. This created an equally strong attitude/current of compassion, magnanimity, fraternal affection, & harmony, which developed into the very language of inclusion and empathy over the past many decades or more. But today. the stories we hear from Kerala, once known for its hospitality and magnanimity, is quite disheartening and sad, which remind us about those older times based exclusively on brute force and animalistic instincts. We are now responding to things with heightened emotionality, and irrespective of justice or fairness, we started joining with the crowd, which is dominated by ‘majority’ and not guided by impartiality or objectivity. We may be reminding ourselves with a shudder the brutal mob killing of Madhu, a tribal youngster, on the charge of stealing food. We are now hearing stories of planned gruesome murders from Kerala, even committed by women, may be either ‘Jolly’ or ‘Greeshma,’ which seriously make us brood regarding what is going wrong with our public conscience. Newspapers are flooded with cases involving youngsters ranging from narcotics to acts of violence and the proliferation of alcohol-induced crimes. Dowry deaths has bounced back again after a long time, with Vismaya hitting the headlines, followed by a shocking spree of incidents either involving dowry killings or violence committed on young brides for money. Kerala has been studiously aloof from crimes or murders linked with black magic, but very slowly we are now hearing atrocities committed at the instigation of sorcerers and black magicians for wealth and material prospects. Misogynistic practices are slowly resurfacing again, with the number of anti–women atrocities on the rise. Women and children become soft targets of many forms of crime, and the recent episode of child abduction and the missing cases of children, especially girl children, is a serious concerns. Kerala has a public space free from casteism which is exclusively based on equality that often refrains from anti–Dalit upsurge, but nowadays we see many political as well as non-political comments, specifically targeting the dalit community. Taking the social media to quote, Youtubers as we call them, are increasingly crossing the space of public morality, and the recent ‘Thoppi’ episode is a definite testimony to this. Kerala’s social atmosphere, known for its communal harmony and well-being, is increasingly maligned by hate speeches and communally sensitive verbal spit spats, which hamper our brotherhood and weaken our solidarity.
All this clearly vindicate the point that our public conscience and public morality is becoming increasingly immune to those values of harmony, solidarity, and brotherhood, and as a society, we are becoming more tolerant to the culture of crowd – induced behaviour. As our demography is also changing with a large influx of other state workers or ‘guest’ labourers, we must read the warning signs on the wall and must show the courage to chant ‘Ma Nishada’ to our erring brethren.