March 8: Merciless strokes and poignant prose had made .V. Vijayan, cartoonist, writer and cult figure in Kerala, a tormentor of the establishment in the 1970s.

Nearly a decade after his death, the defacement of a terracotta sculpture erected in his memory is now compelling Kerala to confront uncomfortable questions on suspected fundamentalism and the state’s celebrated liberal traditions.

The sculpture with Vijayan’s face embossed on it stood at the Government Rajas School in Kottakkal, Malappuram district, where the author had studied when his father was employed with the Malabar Special Police, headquartered in the region.

It was found with the nose chopped off and spectacles broken yesterday. Kottakkal police have registered a case but till this evening, had no clues to the vandals’ identity.

The surreptitious attack on a sculpture would not have drawn much comment outside literary circles but for an association with a legendary but imaginary place name.

The sculpture was an initiative of the Vidyarangam Kala Sahitya Vedi, a cultural body run by the pupils, which also carved a part of the school compound into a park and named it “Kooman Kavu” after a mythical village mentioned in Vijayan’s acclaimed work Khasakkinte Itihasam (The Legends of Khasak).

The original Malayalam version of The Legends of Khasak, which Vijayan himself translated into English, is considered a milestone novel in Kerala, challenging reading habits in the state and opening up a new magical world.

For Vijayan, Kooman Kavu was an imaginary town where Ravi, the protagonist in the novel which explores man’s existential puzzles, arrives finally.

Some have suggested that sections of the municipality, ruled by the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), may have been “offended” by the name given to the park. Kavus or sacred groves were green patches located alongside homes in the past and were associated with Hindu practices.

The novel also features some of the most beloved Muslim characters in Malayalam literature.

The municipality finds itself under the glare because of a controversy that stalled the unveiling of the sculpture on February 27, since when it has been under a tarpaulin sheet. The Kottakkal municipality opposed the event a day before it was to be held, citing the school’s failure to take the local body’s sanction.

A fury of criticism followed because of the stature of Vijayan, who drew cartoons and was mentored by the legendary Shankar before taking up writing full-time in his mother tongue, Malayalam. Veteran readers of The Statesman in Bengal will recall Vijayan’s cartoons, which shunned slapstick humour and were known for geopolitical nuances.

Vijayan penned five more novels, several short stories and essays before his death in March 2005, aged 74. Calcutta features in one of the novels, Gurusaagaram or The Infinity of Grace, the plot of which unfolds during the Bangladesh Liberation War.

The CPM, at the receiving end of Vijayan’s pen after the onetime Left sympathiser turned a bitter critic, slammed the civic body’s decision and equated it with Talibanism. Writers and cultural outfits too condemned the move.

Amid the controversy, former chief secretary K. Jayakumar, now vice-chancellor of Malayalam University, opted out of inaugurating the sculpture.

A Sangh parivar-backed think tank, Bharateeya Vichara Kendram, said it “suspected” the municipality’s decision was prompted by its “religious leanings”. “For a few years now, symbols associated with the nation’s culture have been steadily sidelined in Malappuram,” said A. Vinod, state committee member of the Kendram.

The Muslim League, the most powerful ally in the Congress-led coalition ruling the state, is known for its secular credentials but its pocketborough Malappuram has seen the rise of radical challengers.

“About four years ago, jihadi groups in Tirur had opposed the erection of a statue to Thunchathu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan (a 17th-century poet regarded as the father of the Malayalam language) at his birthplace Tunchan Parambu. They said it amounted to idol worship.... Finally, an inkpot and a brush were installed at the spot as a compromise,” Vinod said.

Municipal chairperson Bushra Basheer has dismissed such charges as “baseless”, saying: “Our objection was not to the statue but the school’s failure to take permission from us.”

As the protests swelled, an embarrassed municipality gave in. A February 28 meeting of the municipal council decided to forward the school’s request to the education department, saying sanction is required to carry out construction at schools.

The defacement, under the tarpaulin cover, was discovered by a news photographer while taking pictures for his file.

Basheer said: “The miscreants should be identified and brought to book. Someone is deliberately trying to create problems.”

“Vijayan’s credentials need no introduction; he was a humanist to the core,” recalled writer and critique B.R.P. Bhaskar, Vijayan’s colleague at the Patriot newspaper in New Delhi in the 1960s.

Vijayan, he said, had once travelled to Kerala to inaugurate a meeting of Simi, the now outlawed Students’ Islamic Movement of India. “That was when Simi was spreading its wings on the basis of provocative slogans. But that was Vijayan: he harboured no ill will for anyone though he would criticise all.”

Bhaskar described the vandalism as “part of our cultural degradation”.

K. Satchidanandan, poet and former chief executive of the Kendra Sahitya Akademi, told The Telegraph: “Whoever has done it has not understood him (Vijayan) nor tried to. It is clearly a fascist way of approaching culture.”

Novelist Paul Zachariah blamed the attack on a “cultural and civilisational deterioration” for which “we will have to pay a heavy price”.