Contested Space: Hindutva and humanism face off in Kerala’s temple grounds

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Part One

Part  Two

It was during the 1970s—when anti-caste, anti-communal, and grassroots values were gaining solid ground in Kerala society through the new cultural spaces set up in temple premises—that the Kerala Kshetra Samrakshana Samithi was formed under the leadership of the RSS. The Malabar Pradesh Kshetra Samrakshana Samithi, formed in 1966 and spearheaded by K. Kelappan to protect temples in the Malabar region, was later reorganized as Kerala kshethra Samrakshana Samithy by RSS leaders in 1975 and officially registered in 1977. One of its key objectives is to use temples as centers for the religious and cultural education of Hindus. Another aim is to promote traditional temple art forms. A major campaign of the Kshetra Samrakshana Samithi is to liberate temples from the control of the Devaswom Board.

The cultural ambition of the Kshetra Samrakshana Samithi is to shape a Hindu society rooted in the ideological framework of the RSS, particularly among marginalized castes, while projecting its mission through the language of faith and piety. Through the Kshetra Samrakshana Samithi, the RSS has succeeded in obstructing the broader spiritual tradition of human faith in Kerala—a tradition that transcends the religious–secular divide—by promoting a new form of ultra-religious, devotional politics that supports Hindu majoritarianism, particularly among marginalized communities through temple spaces. We have clear evidence before us that they have triumphed in restructuring not only local temples and sacred groves, but also the new temples—once praised by Sree Narayana Guru as a model site of fraternity—into the mold of the major temples dominated by Brahmanical ideology. It was only recently that Brahmin priests were invited to the Kandamangalam temple in Cherthala, where elaborate yagas were conducted.

The RSS’s policy is to bring about a complete religionisation of Kerala’s personal and social life—where traditionally there has been little distinction between the religious and the secular—by using temples as the primary vehicle. To fulfill this mission, they have actively targeted secular art practices staged during temple festivals, seeing them as obstacles to their agenda. Nowadays, in many festivals, ganamelas have been replaced by devotional music concerts. Socio-political themes have largely disappeared from kathaprasangam, which now mostly confines itself to Puranic stories. They have already succeeded in persuading many among the powerless castes to accept the position that only Puranic art forms should be allowed in temple spaces. Over the past 50 years, the activities of the Kshethra Samrakshana Samithi have focused on the religionisation of grassroots social life, traditionally marked by the absence of any strict divide between the religious and the secular. In many ordinary temples where powerless castes once conducted worship themselves, rituals are now performed by invited Brahmin priests.

When Brahmins—who once kept their distance from the lower castes to avoid ritual pollution—now come to perform worship in temples belonging to these very communities, and when this contributes to the religionisation of grassroots society, it simultaneously reinforces the domination of powerful castes in modern institutions like representative assemblies, giving new meaning to the subordination of powerless castes. What is happening in Kerala, therefore, is the religionisation of local festivals that traditionally made no distinction between the religious and the secular. That is why the RSS prohibits performances that do not narrate Puranic stories. 

The denial of stage access to dancer Mansiya at the Irinjalakuda temple because she was born into a Muslim family; the controversy sparked by singer Aloshi for performing a revolutionary song;  and most recently, the RSS mouthpiece accusing the rapper Vedan of ‘defiling temples’ through his shows—all reflect a deep fear that such cultural expressions by marginalized communities, especially when performed in temple spaces, could disrupt the Hindutva-driven project of religionising public life, which has been advancing for the past fifty years. The objective of the RSS, in transforming festivals into controlled spectacles, is to completely erase the enduring presence of grassroots humanism—a force that still shines brightly and makes it possible for artists like Vedan, Aloshi, and Mansiya to find space on stage, grounded in a worldview where the spiritual and material are not divided.

What the RSS does in Kerala — under the cloak of faith and devotion, turning temples into ideological outposts — is not limited to the slow killing of the humanism embedded in marginalized communities; it goes even further. There is also a conversion of grassroots humanism into Hindu majoritarianism — a construct deliberately designed as a shortcut to achieving authoritarian political rule. The social progress that dismantled untouchability and the taboo of physical distance, the educational, social, and economic positions gained by marginalized communities through reservation, and the emerging culture of equality — all these hard-won achievements are being repurposed by the RSS in Kerala as both proof and nourishment for its ideology of Hindu supremacism. As part of the temple rejuvenation projects — involving temples once abandoned by feudal families — the RSS recruits members of marginalized castes into the management committees. By offering them positions and placing them at the forefront, it systematically drains the grassroots humanism from these communities and converts them into carriers of Hindutva ideology. The appearance of signboards reading ‘Entry for non-Hindus is prohibited’ at public ponds and temple roads is part of the same process.

The key difference between white supremacism and Hindu supremacism lies in their internal structures. While white supremacism, despite its racism, often upholds a notion of equal opportunity among whites, Hindu supremacism does not recognize such equality even among its members — it is built on a deeply entrenched caste hierarchy that denies equal opportunity within the so-called Hindu fold itself. Therefore, Hindu supremacism opposes affirmative action (reservation), indirectly encourages honour killings to prevent inter-caste marriages, and fosters hardened minds that remain indifferent to the oppression of Dalits. Hindu supremacism does not convert its followers into defenders of social injustice by openly supporting the caste system. On the contrary, they often appear at the forefront, publicly criticizing caste discrimination. Hindu supremacism encourages puranic narratives that present the varna system and Brahminical superiority as divinely ordained by promoting them through temple-based art forms. By glorifying these stories as the essence of Indian culture, it cultivates an internal vigilance against inter-caste mixing.

It is through the Kshetra Samrakshana Samithis that the mission of establishing puranic narratives as historical truths within marginalized communities is being carried out. One of the key markers of the Samithi’s identity is its stance that only temple art forms based on puranic narratives should be allowed in temples. In the Purana, the killing of Poothana is referred to as ‘Poothana Moksham‘ — Poothana’s liberation. The ability to portray the act of destroying an enemy as the highest form of favour granted to that enemy is something rarely, if ever, seen in any other narrative tradition in the world. In the same way, Ravana’s killing is conveyed as an act of divine benevolence — a supreme gift granted by God to liberate his soul from the burdens of the mortal world. The Puranas emphasize that being born into one’s caste and marrying within it is a divinely ordained duty. In today’s world — where most forms of labour have been modernized — all that remains reserved for the powerless castes are the lower-end jobs, excluding priesthood, governance, and related domains. 

Brahmanical Puranas and legends simultaneously assign both status and subjugation to each marginalised caste. The Pancha Kammalas — Asari, Moosari, Kollan, Thattan, and Kallasari — are characterised in the Puranas as the sons of Vishwakarma. Viswakarma, according to the Puranas, is the son of Brahma. By granting this symbolic high status to powerless castes, a sense is created that they are an inseparable part of Hindu supremacism. However, the same Puranas deny them the right to attain power or priesthood on their own. While maintaining their lower-caste status, these texts ensure that even for intra-caste marriages and other rituals, the presence of a Brahmin priest remains indispensable. When Pulayas are renamed as Cheramar and Parayas as Sambavar, caste pride begins to take root in them. As they enter into the Brahmanical ideological framework, they experience a sense of upward mobility — but also feel ashamed of their lower position within the caste hierarchy. Yet, when a Brahmin comes to their homes to perform rituals, they are transformed into foot soldiers of Hindu supremacism.

The political authoritarianism of ruling castes within a parliamentary democracy is not possible without recruiting self-sacrificing cavalry into Hindu supremacism. By continuously organising Sapthahams, Nama-japa processions, yagas, puranic storytelling sessions, and ritual arts in temples, the disempowered castes are brought into a unified Hindu fold and gradually enlisted into the infantries of Hindu chauvinism. In the past, classical artistic expressions like Kathakali, Koothu, and Koodiyattam, performed in spaces like the Anapanthal (a broad pavilion constructed in front of Kerala temples) and koothambalam, were instrumental in culturally unifying privileged castes. Today, those same tales are diluted and repackaged into popular forms such as Gita classes, Bhakti sermons, Dashavatara stories, and Sapthaham readings. These cultural practices now serve to consolidate the marginalized castes into the ideological cavalry of Hindu majoritarianism.

From the 1980s onward, Hindu supremacist forces have advanced a myth-driven alternative cultural order by appropriating temple compounds and traditional art venues, systematically undermining the process of cultural democratisation. While they are reaping its full harvest, if Vedan, a rapper and songwriter from Kerala, shows up in that same temple yard and bursts into song —” ijan pananalla, pulayanalla, nee thampuranumalla, aanel oru myrumilla” ( I am not a Panan, nor a Pulayan; you are no lord either — and even if you are, it’s worth nothing, like a pubic hair.) — before a crowd of frenzied dancing youths, what greater disaster could befall the Sangh Parivar in Kerala? And so they call this young man a caste terrorist or a separatist — titles that are far more fitting for themselves. What greater blow could they suffer than this — that Vedan, through his rap, sets fire to the caste terror buried in oblivion by Hindu supremacists singing puranic tales, and ignites it in the raw awareness of Kerala’s youth? By questioning, right from the temple courtyard, the counterfeit nationalism fabricated to mask authoritarian politics, this young man fractures the very dream the Sangh Parivar clings to.

Art serves as a deeply human emotional medium for formulating cultural unity across tribe, race, and class. Hindu supremacism strategically applies stories, songs, and visual arts to absorb oppressed castes into its fabricated idea of unity. Cinema, as a modern mass cultural expression, has been closely linked to the rise of ultra-nationalist ideologies. Hollywood films offer a prime representation of how popular cinema can reaffirm American ultra-nationalism. An analysis of Malayalam mainstream films reveals how these films have gradually and indirectly reinforced caste hierarchies, eventually leading to the rise of Hindu chauvinism. In the past, this cultural strategy was carried out subtly through the film’s plot. However, since 2015, films like Malikappuram, The Kerala Story, The Kashmir Files, Article 370, and Swatantrya Veer Savarkar stand as clear examples of cinema being directly instrumentalized as cultural fuel to propagate Hindutva ideology.

Art history makes it clear: in Nazi Germany, cinema became the most potent tool for engineering the mass psyche. Under Nazi rule, the film industry was placed under intense surveillance, with every stage of production tightly controlled. Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda enforced scrutiny over all films. They directed films that glorified Hitler and the Nazis while portraying Jews in a dehumanized and negative light — all executed with astonishing technical brilliance. Even comedies and love stories that did not explicitly promote Nazi ideology subtly embedded Aryan supremacy, obedience to authority, and hyper-masculinity.

The autocratic politics of racial supremacy take root in people’s hearts by weaponizing the emotional power of art, sharpened by the full force of technological innovation. Art — born from the imaginative journey — is being distorted into historical ‘truths’ and repurposed as a tool for cultural homogenisation under Hindu supremacism. Vedan’s rap has achieved an astonishing victory by confronting, within temple spaces, the propaganda machinery of Hindu supremacist ideology — a machinery powered by stories, songs, dances, and devotional sermons — using the very popular appeal of art itself. Vedan’s rap is the second coming — the rebirth — of Kerala’s democratic tradition of faith and art in temple spaces, which had been subverted by Kshetra Samrakshana Samity. Recognizing this explicitly, the poet declares with unwavering self-assurance: ‘I will sing again in the temple grounds.”

The Malayalam version of this article was published in Truecopy Think

Cover Image: Theyyam,  a vibrant ritualistic art form and form of worship deeply rooted in the culture of North Kerala.