“Even the Muslims would like to join us. But if they do, they will be excommunicated from mosques,” says K Vinod, a member of the RSS for over 35 years.

We are at a tea stall at Kannur’s Collectorate Grounds, where Hindu seer Swami Chinmayananda Puri is to deliver a sermon. Vinod is nearly 60, and paints houses for a living. He hails from the CPI(M)-bastion of Athirakam.

“It’s not the Muslim who doesn’t want the RSS to grow here,” Vinod says, narrating how a child from the community won a prize for a drawing competition during Srikrishna Jayanti festivities in his village. “It’s the CPI(M). The RSS’ growth is a threat to their survival.”

But isn’t the RSS’ vision of India exclusionary? Is it not of a ‘Hindu Rashtra’? I ask him. “Did Gandhiji not speak of Rama rajyam ? Isn’t that what the RSS is advocating too? Did he not speak of banning cow slaughter? ”

But surely, what one eats is one’s own decision, I tell him. “I wish to have venison. Is it possible? The other day, a porcupine got run over by a car. We got together — all of us, CPI(M), BJP, Hindu, Muslim; we don’t differentiate — and had a good meal. But someone complained (to the forest authorities), and we were fined Rs. 25,000.”

But beef is consumed by people of all faiths in Kerala. “Let them have beef. But not cow meat. That’s all we ask.”

Vinod asks why the murders of Hindus in Kerala are not considered communal? If they have been murdered solely because they are Hindu, then, yes, I concur. But every Hindu’s murder is not communal, I counter.

“But here, it is only because we are RSS workers that we are being attacked,” he says. “For the CPI(M), Marxism is just like a religion. Like Islam and Christianity, Marxism, too, has come from abroad.”

Islam has been practised in Kerala from the time of the Prophet, I remind him. “It is. In fact, I go the Kaatla mosque in my area; I am employed by Muslims; I have even given blood to Muslims.” It’s only the extremists fight each other, he adds.

What does he think of the Narendra Modi rule? “The Centre’s policies and programmes get stymied by the officials here. And look how the educated have to go outside the State to earn a living.”

I tell him the Modi government hasn’t created a fraction of the jobs it had promised. And what of the jobs lost during demonetisation? “Look at how many crores of rupees are being recovered. Linking Aadhaar to bank accounts has brought about a lot of transparency. The CPI(M) is resisting this because they have a lot of money stacked away in the co-operative banks.”

“Why don’t we have another round of chaaya (tea)?” he asks. And we converse on.