“The Saffron Tide Moves South: How Hindutva Is Breaking Old Barriers and Gaining Ground Across Southern India”, Stop Hindu Dvesha, February 22, 2026

“Kerala, the slender strip of paradise on India’s southwest coast, is often called God’s Own Country. It’s a deeply ironic sobriquet for a state that has had an enduring relationship with communism, which stems from its pioneering role as the first Indian state to democratically elect a Marxist government in 1957. Almost every Hindu family in Kerala has someone who is or was a card-carrying communist. Known for its plethora of rationalist clubs, it also ranks among the most atheist states in India[1].

However, Kerala’s seven-decade dalliance with communism has led to the state becoming an industrial wasteland. Most young people migrate because the trade unions have driven away all the good jobs; prospects for a good life are slim in Kerala. And yet despite decades of misgovernance, electoral violence, and blatant communal politics, the Marxists keep winning elections.

So, it was with a huge dollop of disbelief that most Indians greeted the news that in the December 2025 local body elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party of national revival, had ousted the Marxists from the state’s capital, Thiruvananthapuram. In the local body elections, the BJP emerged victorious in 50 of 101 wards in the city’s municipal corporation, enough to shatter the Left Democratic Front’s 45 years of uninterrupted rule. For the first time, the BJP, long dismissed as a northern interloper, would install its own mayor in the state capital…….”

Read full article at stophindudvesha.org