Oct. 28: Religion, described by Karl Marx as the opium of the masses, is giving the Left a searing hangover.

The outcome of the local body elections in Kerala, in which the CPM-led ruling front has suffered staggering losses, suggests both Christians and Muslims have deserted the alliance in droves.

The desertion is a worrying development for the CPM — whose Bengal unit is trying to woo back Muslims — a party that had always prided itself on its ability to connect with the community.

The results also indicate that the Kerala unit’s undeclared but widely perceived policy of minority-bashing failed to attract enough votes from the majority community to make a decisive difference.

Such was the Left debacle in the Bible belt of Kerala that the Catholic Church today virtually claimed credit, pointing to a pastoral letter read out in parishes before the elections that asked the congregations to shun “atheist parties”.

“They (the communists) had taken the Church and its leaders very lightly. They had boasted that the Church could not influence their voters. But the results have proved otherwise,” said Stephen Alathara, the spokesperson for the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC), which had issued the letter.

The Left, which had a stranglehold on Kerala local bodies, as it used to be in Bengal till 2008, has lost half of its seats across the board this time, although it has recovered some ground in traditional strongholds.

But what is taking shape as the big story of the small elections is the emergence of an “anti-Left minority corridor” of Christian and Muslim voters who seem to have en masse turned their back on the CPM-led front.

This corridor that favoured the Congress-led United Democratic Front runs through the Muslim-dominated Malappuram in the north, covers some other districts and touches the southern Kottayam and Pathanamthitta which have a considerable number of Christians.

The two communities together account for around 45 per cent of the population in the state.

The erosion also suggests the CPM has not been able to fill the vacuum left by the demise of E.M.S. Namboodiripad, the first head of a democratically elected communist government who could rally the Muslims behind the party.

The CPM always had an uneasy relationship with the Church.

Christians were at the forefront of the so-called “Liberation Struggle” that prompted the Jawaharlal Nehru-led Centre to dismiss the EMS government in 1959.

But many Christians had drifted away from the Congress after the party failed to stop the rise of the BJP in the nineties. The Left was a natural beneficiary of this shift in the two-coalition state.

However, a series of measures in education — ranging from the admission process in professional colleges to the school syllabus — by the current Left government alienated large sections of the Christians who have a significant stake in educational establishments.

In the middle of the standoff, another minority flank was opened when skirmishes and turf battles broke out between the Muslim League, which is part of the Congress front, and the CPM in the northern districts.

When it became clear in the Lok Sabha elections — the Left won only four of the 20 seats — that the minorities were looking up to the other front, the CPM berated the Christian clergy and sections of the Muslims.

The outbursts drew charges that the CPM was trying to play the majority card to offset the loss of minority support. Whether true or trumped up, the allegations served to create an impression that the CPM was desperate and running out of ideas, especially since the majority community in the state has rarely behaved as a monolithic political force.

The CPM rubbished the innuendoes but the disclaimers got drowned in uncharacteristic comments made by seasoned communist leaders.

Persistent attacks by CPM leaders such as state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan on the Christian clergy eventually brought forth the pastoral letter.

The letter did not name the ruling Left but asked people to be vigilant against “atheists” fielding “God-fearing popular persons” as Independent candidates.

“We lost mainly because Christians used the communal card against us,” said A. Vijayaraghavan, a CPM leader. Added another party leader, M.V. Jayarajan: “It is wrong to mix religion and politics.”

The KCBC defended its right to issue such pastoral letters. “The Church has every right to make its faithful conscious about the threats and dangers to the faith. When we see a trap, it’s the duty of Church leaders to warn people about that,” said the council’s Father Thelakkat.

Chop suspect

The Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) — the political arm of the Popular Front of India that has been accused of chopping a lecturer’s palm for drafting a controversial question on Islam — won a handful of seats. Among the winners was one of the accused in the lecturer attack.

Here, too, in an ironical twist, the CPM is facing flak. In five places where the SDPI opened its account, the Congress-led front became the runner-up, which has fuelled charges that the Left helped the new outfit to undercut the rival coalition.