Kerala is discarding centuries of religious harmony to become like the rest of India

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Kerala's syncretic society may be under threat. (Reuters/Sivaram V)

WRITTEN BY
Harish C Menon
May 13, 2016 Quartz India

Kodungallur is a bustling temple town of 94,000 at the mouth of River Periyar in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

It is believed that, till around 675 years ago, this was the site of Muziris, an ancient port city that was the funnel through which Islam, Judaism, and Christianity entered South Asia. For centuries, it was also a Buddhist pilgrimage centre. Muziris was wiped out in a cataclysmic flooding of the Periyar in 1341 .

However, vestiges of such a remarkable past are alive here: Muslim households carry Hindu names, Hindu festivals are ritually linked to non-Hindu entities and Christians follow Hindu traditions.

But this syncretism that has defined Kodungallur, and indeed much of Kerala, is at risk of being torn apart by widening religious schisms in the state. These divisions, accentuated by hardening identity politics, could even influence the results of the Kerala state assembly elections scheduled for May 16.

http://qz.com/679937/it-is-election-time-and-a-dangerous-tide-is-rising-again-in-kerala/