The rise of Satheesan: What it means for the Congress, Muslim League and Kerala State politics

V.D. Satheesan has emerged as the unquestionable leader of Kerala. He has proved that he is no longer dependent on the Congress; it is the Congress that is dependent on him. In the immediate term, this will mean that Congress MLAs and Ministers will have little consequence or influence. In the medium term, how his singular command over the mass politics of Kerala will play out will depend on several factors. Now that he has established that the High Command is dependent on his largesse for its own personal Lok Sabha seat in Kerala — Wayanad — the order of precedence within the Congress hierarchy has changed forever. He might continue to pay the tributes and play the act of discipline, only as long as it is convenient for him.

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It is one thing to say that he is the leader of Malayali masses; but a bit of unpacking of that reveals the community dynamics at play. The Congress suffered in the 2021 Assembly election, among other reasons, due to a rift between the Christians and the Muslims, and within each community. A considerable section of both communities drifted away from the Congress and the UDF, which helped Pinarayi Vijayan win an unusual second consecutive term in the State. Mr. Vijayan’s politics catalysed this social dynamic. Mr Vijayan, while undoubtedly secular, catered to Hindu sentiments in this election, even presiding over a state-sponsored congregation of the Sabarimala Ayyappa devotees, while Mr. Satheesan – appointed Leader of Opposition after the UDF loss in 2021 — restored the minorities back to the Congress and the UDF, and how. Mr. Satheesan is now the unquestionable leader of the Kerala Muslims and Christians, who together constitute around half of the State’s population. Over the last five years, his carefully crafted political positions — which he can forcefully articulate with clarity and punch — were amplified by an outstanding reel factory that engineered the collective psyche of Kerala like nobody has achieved in the State’s history. When he took over as LoP in 2021, most observers were sceptical. Unlike K.C. Venugopal and Ramesh Chennithala, and the leaders before them such as K. Karunakaran, A.K. Antony and Oommen Chandy, whose networks spread across the State, Mr. Satheesan’s influence was limited to Ernakulam district. He overcame that limitation through the magic of social media. Even today he has limited personal connections with party leaders in the State, but he has bonded with the commoners who are now forcing the hands of MLAs and party functionaries to fall in line behind the new CM-in-waiting.

Mr. Satheesan has established a reputation for diligence in his legislative work and understanding of policy. But that, as in most other places, is not to the defining determinant of his popularity. At the heart of his popularity is the public perception that he is an uncompromising champion of secularism, which in turn is achieved largely from his now-predictable open spats with the two caste leaders of the State — Vellappally Natesan of the SNDP, a platform of Ezhavas, and Sukumaran Nair, General Secretary of the NSS. He framed his confrontation with them as a relentless battle against Hindu communalism, which endeared him to the Christians and Muslims. While confronting these two is a politically rewarding enterprise, Mr Satheesan – himself a Nair, is not equally strident with regard to minority communalism, which is not in short supply in Kerala. He appears with random Christian pastors whose messaging is rarely inclusive, and went soft on Jamaat-e-Islami — publicly defending the outfit’s electoral support for the UDF by arguing that it no longer advocated a theocratic state and that its backing was “purely political.” He can easily recite Bible verses and anecdotes from the life of the Prophet Mohammad. At each step of the way, he never missed an opportunity to establish the point that his positions were purer than those of the Congress, keeping himself on a moral pedestal above the party. Like all supreme leaders of the current era, most of his conversations start and end with first-person references to himself, and on occasion, himself in the third person. All told, he consolidated a consequential voting bloc solidly behind him personally — rather than the party — and the future holds how that dynamic plays out.

It is not only the Congress that is now tasting the consequences, good and bad, of a leader bigger than the party, but key ally, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML). The IUML pressed the Congress for selecting Mr. Satheesan not because its leaders preferred him, but because its workers rallied behind him. The reporting that the IUML intervened for Mr. Satheesan is only part of the story; the real story is how the IUML’s grip on the political attitudes of its own followers is weakening. What it means for the IUML is that the most popular Muslim leader in Kerala stands outside it. It appears that Mr. Satheesan does not need the IUML to connect with the Muslim masses of the State, and he does not need the Congress party to connect with the masses overall. That makes him an unprecedented and unique phenomenon in Kerala politics — the first one to harness the full potential of social media and reel politics. Only the trailer has been released; the blockbuster is awaited, with massive implications for the Congress, the IUML and State politics in general.