Shades of political violence

The author suggests that this has, at least in part, to do with the district's long history of vendetta as memorialised in traditional ballads

Kannur

Inside India’s Bloodiest Revenge Politics

Ullekh N P

Penguin Random House

232 pages; Rs 499

The story of Kannur in the Malabar district of Kerala raises some basic questions about the reality of Indian democracy, where politics of ballot and universal adult franchise comfortably co-exist with the politics of violence and murder. Of course, political violence has been the leitmotif of Kerala’s politics since the 1960s. The author, a journalist and political commentator, conducts interviews and field studies and adds his experiences to demonstrate how the nature of political violence has changed through the prism of Kannur.

This hitherto little-known town has been