The Nadapuram Enigma

This paper delineates the social history of insidious communal political violence in north Malabar. It focuses on Nadapuram, a rural region in Kerala's Kozhikode District. The complexities of communal proliferation are products of entanglements of caste, conversion, economic mobility and land relationship. Political discourses at the global stage and efforts in building identity-based alliances have a direct bearing on this region. Changing politics of both the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) also has a direct bearing on the social life of the Hindus, while the communitarian politics of Indian Union Muslim League, Islamic doctrinal debates and neo-Salafisation are no less significant in the making of a new Muslim mindscape. These particularities then facilitate in the making of two oppositional and clannish identities in the region.