XOXO, Kerala

On November 2, Marine Drive in Kochi saw a large crowd of over 10,000. They fell roughly into three categories, out of which two were unfamiliar sights in Kerala: a group of couples, young and middle-aged, who had gathered to kiss in public in order to make a symbolic statement against moral policing; a hitherto unseen collaboration of diametrically opposite right-wing organisations marching to ensure the culture of the land is not tainted by the public display of affection; and the third group was perhaps the least unsurprising — people who came to watch people who came to kiss.

It is against such a backdrop, where a simple act of affection is still a source of voyeuristic pleasure to many, that Kiss of Love becomes a milestone for Kerala. Perhaps, I should clarify that it is not the event itself which deserves this accolade (although it saw encores in other cities like Delhi and Kolkata). While definitely the centrepiece of the stir, it suffered from poor organisation, which was expected given the constraints of the organisers, and was quickly smothered by the ‘protective custody’ of the police. The symbolic nature of the protest was lost on many, as evidenced by questions like “They want to kiss on the street today, what tomorrow?” But the public debate it managed to whip up on moral policing and personal liberty is its lasting legacy. In Kerala, there has never been a lack of provocative ideas, but for (a significant portion of) the general public to take a stand on either side, instead of being indifferent, signals an accelerating cultural shift.

There are many factors which contribute towards the increase in liberal voices in the state — the post-2000s Malayalee exodus to major Indian cities for higher studies and employment is an important one. This is not to say that living in metros or education in elite institutions is a magic wand, which makes individuals more liberal. Those who moved to these cities at an impressionable age became more open to, or at least were exposed more to things that they were socially conditioned in Kerala to consider scandalous — PDA, homosexuality, live-in relationships, women who drink and so on. Most of all, people began to appreciate the concept of personal space. Given that social media is ubiquitous and has increasingly replaced barber shops and tea stalls as a popular site for political and cultural debates in Kerala, non-resident Keralites effortlessly contribute to the zeitgeist in the state. Additionally, the people who returned to Kerala from the Indian metros and foreign countries — notably less-puritanical Gulf countries, such as Dubai and Bahrain — also added to the cosmopolitan texture of Malayalee society.

Mob in the Net

The internet has played a crucial part in enlightening us about more liberal as well as repressive lands, showing us where we stand on personal liberty. Before the internet, the average Malayalee relied on Mathrubhumi Azhchapathippu for weekly commentaries on world affairs. It has been discussed at length how cyberspace has amplified the less-palatable aspects of the Malayalee society — it did definitely provide a new outlet for the repressed tendencies of the Malayalee male, with the added dimension of mob mentality.

Safe in the relative anonymity of the internet, Malayalees are unconcerned by how they will be perceived outside the state. Occasionally, this has given rise to hilarious stories like when actor Mohanlal’s website was hacked by a Pakistani group, which mistook a page describing his connection to the Territorial Army as an Indian Army-related page. In retaliation, his fans hacked multiple Pakistani sites, including the website of Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO). The Malayalee hackers chose to demonstrate their dismissive contempt for their Pakistani counterparts by displaying on every hacked page one of the actor’s popular dialogues: “Nee po, mone dinesha (Get lost, dear Dinesh)”. Similarly, tennis star Maria Sharapova’s page was inundated with Malayalam comments after she revealed she did not know who Sachin Tendulkar was.

More importantly, the internet also quickened the shift towards progressive thought in the state. People who had a liberal worldview found out there were several others like them, and had the chance to read and share the thoughts of people who articulate better than them. The power of social media in creating mass movements and sustaining them on the ground can’t be understated. The Kiss of Love campaign was planned by a single Facebook community, Free Thinkers, and popularised almost exclusively via Facebook and Twitter.

Queering the pitch

Another heartening sign of social progress in the state is the measure of acceptance achieved by the LGBT community. Kerala hosted its fifth LGBT pride march in July this year, organised by the Queer Pride Keralam Group, consisting mainly of Queerala (a support group for the LGBT community) and Sahayathrika (a human rights organisation for lesbian and bisexual women in Kerala). These organisations hold workshops all over the state to increase awareness about homosexuality. The taboo of not conforming to societal sexual norms is still strong, but it’s a welcome change that the rights of the LGBT community are popping up in mainstream conversations more than ever. Recent mainstream Malayalam movies like Rithu and Mumbai Police had pivotal characters who are gay. They were not without flaws — the portrayal of the homosexual characters and the reactions to their sexual preference are perhaps too stereotypical. I believe that movies have a social responsibility when dealing with deep-seated taboos and should try to shape societal reaction rather than mirror it. But the filmmakers’ decision to include unambiguously homosexual characters was still commendable considering how mainstream Malayalam cinema has shied away from it for so long. In 1986, when Padmarajan made Deshatanakkili Karayarilla, a movie with strong lesbian undertones, the L-word was not mentioned in it even once, which was a testament to how taboo the subject was at the time.

The spread of liberal values that threaten the status quo is often derisively dismissed using the catch-all term ‘New Generation culture’, even though the attitude towards cultural liberalisation cannot be strictly demarcated along generational lines. It is true that broadly the younger generation are impacted adversely by the factors discussed — influence of life outside Kerala and the internet. But the ‘New Generation’ here does not literally refer to the newer generation, and instead comes from the term ‘New Generation Cinema’ used in Kerala to describe a fresh wave of movies that broke away from formulaic stories and used new narrative techniques to depict predominantly urban themes. These movies captured the cosmopolitan nature of the modern Malayalee and changed the way women were depicted on screen by overturning at least the more obvious sexist tropes.

She’s different on screen

Women who drink, smoke and flirt are not necessarily alien to Malayalam cinema, but they were mostly established as the ‘other’ — the brat brought up abroad; or the vamp who can barely speak Malayalam. The new movies boldly depicted the urban Malayalee woman as she is — not bothering to hide the bits the Malayalee public didn’t care to see in their women — sometimes for the sheer shock value. This doesn’t mean that they were all strong female characters who held their own against the male characters; a few female-oriented movies did stand out, such as 22 Female Kottayam, but if I were to administer the Bechdel test on all these movies, I have no doubt that less than five per cent would pass. But that is a different fight — the point is that the New Generation movies did manage to portray the changing social and cultural fabric of Kerala.

I thought about Kerala and the Kiss of Love when I watched a clip of comedian Aziz Ansari ranting about people who opposed LGBT rights in the US: “At this point, why is anyone against gay marriage? These are the same people that didn’t want women to vote, that didn’t want black guys to play football.” I can’t quote the rest because it is “unsuitable for our culture”, but you can look it up online. As a nation where Sec 377 is still in effect, we have a long way to go before Ansari’s words become relevant to us. But, to transplant his question to Kerala, just take a look at the people who think a couple kissing in public will tarnish our culture — these are the same people who opposed the right of lower-caste women to cover their breasts, the rights of dalits to enter temples. These are the same people who oppose the right of homosexuals to lead normal lives. These are the same people who post lewd comments on the photos of the Kiss Of Love organiser Resmi R Nair, demanding to know the colour of her innerwear and posting diatribes on their own walls against her immoral kisses ruining our sacred culture. The bottom line is: when a culturally progressive change is here, it is here to stay. Time will only reinforce it. Anyone who opposes it is on the losing side, even if they are the majority now.

(The writer is a software engineer currently based in Washington DC)

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