The peculiar happiness exhibited by this phalanx of shoppers has an unusual backstory. The supermarket is located in a countryside village, called Kizhakkambalam, which has been under the grip of a silent revolution over the past five years. The dusty common corners have turned into neat wide roads lined by several freshly painted, new houses, as a race is on to turn it into a world-class—and the country’s No. 1—village by 2020.

According to some, however, the village is racing towards the 21st-century by back-pedalling towards the 19th century. It has effectively renounced some facets of democracy in order to be ruled by a billionaire businessman and the corporate company which he heads.

There are benefits, of course. The new houses for the poor, for example, built at a cost of roughly ₹10 lakh is a better deal than anything on offer from either a state or central government scheme at the moment.

The supermarkets are another symbol. At a time when prices of household items are skyrocketing in other parts of the country, the woman, quoted above, who described the outlet as “heaven", managed to purchase onions, coconut, oil, fish and chicken at an incredible 60% markdown from the retail price.

Behind these deep discounts is one man, Sabu Jacob.

One of the few Malayali businessmen who regularly finds a place in the annual Hurun list of billionaires, Jacob’s father founded Kitex Garments Ltd, and its associated Anna Group, with just eight employees in a small factory in Kizhakkambalam.

But it has now grown into an enterprise with an annual turnover of ₹1,000 crore, making it one of the world’s largest infant wear producers. The company also supplies to global brands such as Walmart and Amazon.

In 2013, after marshalling together a set of welfare schemes, Kitex rolled out a welfare arm fully financed by its corporate social responsibility funds. It was called “Twenty20", symbolizing the aspiration to turn the village into a world-class model by 2020. In 2015, the outfit captured power in elections to the local administrative unit, Kizhakkambalam Grama Panchayat.

Since then, Kitex has gained a virtual monopoly over every aspect of public life in the village—from laying roads to directing the electorate to vote for a particular party in parliamentary elections. Its high form of populism is driving out politics from governance... that is, every strain of politics except that of its founder, Sabu Jacob, who is known simply as “Sir" or “Company Chairman" or the man who built the supermarket.

In the corporate utopia he runs, laws are malleable, personal autonomy is, at times, a luxury, and traditional political parties are often compared to polluted rivers. Yet, many inhabitants still love the model, since there are giveaways and goodies, like the heavy discounts at the store.

But in 2020, the radical experiment is about to face its first real test. Panchayat elections are around the corner. And there are at least a few unhappy murmurs in the village about how many of the well-paved, new public roads have come up in the vicinity of Jacob’s company. The discounted supermarket was also shut for six months, say residents, after the village en masse voted against Jacob’s wishes in last year’s parliamentary elections.

The year in which Kizhakkambalam was supposed to achieve its milestone also got off to a rough start, when the panchayat’s president K.V. Jacob quit on New Year’s Day.

“He (Sabu Jacob) has become a dictator," said K.V. Jacob, who was one of the most public faces behind the Twenty20 movement. “The governance here is in violation of all established practices of administration in a democratic system," he told reporters while quitting on 1 January.

“Twenty20," he added, “will end in 2020."

At a time when many of India’s big cities are placing their bets of public-private partnership models in governance, the chronicle of this unfolding rural drama raises many puzzling questions. How much of governance can be privatized? What are the costs and benefits? And what happens when a private company uses democratic means to get its own members elected to public office?

THE POLITICAL ENTRY

Kizhakkambalam used to be a microcosm of Kerala’s politics. Every five years, the communists-led Left Democratic Front and the Congress-led United Democratic Front, the two dominant alliances in the state, returned to power in village elections since the early 1990s.

As a perception began growing about how traditional political parties—with their iron grip over trade unions and the panchayat—were throttling businesses, companies such as Kitex began to look for a workaround.

In the early 2000s, Kitex and its associated Anna Group were hit by 400 days of militant trade union strikes. In the next 10 years, Kitex bounced back from the brink by turning into a fully export-oriented firm and by heavily relying on migrant labourers.

However, in 2013, Sabu Jacob met with intense public protests over allegations of pollution by his firm, which he has since alleged was fuelled by a bitter rival within the family, who happened to be ruling the panchayat as a local Congress leader.

Unlike the earlier approach of a direct confrontation with the public, Jacob opted for a fresh start.

He set up Twenty20, which promised a set of lofty solutions to some of the village’s most pressing economic, social and environmental problems.

Nearly 80% of the village’s estimated 36,000 residents enrolled as members in the movement, which, at that point, was a non-governmental entity. They were all given an electronic card based on economic status. Several benefits, from free medical treatment to discounted groceries, were delivered based on this categorization, undertaken solely based on the company’s internal surveys.

In 2015, probably for the first time, a corporate house directly entered the electoral arena in India. It was Kitex. Despite a unified opposition, Twenty20’s candidates won 17 of the 19 gram panchayat seats, cornering over 70% of the polled votes.

THE BUSINESSMAN

An eerie silence resounds inside Jacob’s office, which resembles a royal durbar hall. Sitting inside his sprawling factory in Kizhakkambalam, Jacob explains that he started Twenty20 to end what he describes as political and economic oppression of the people.

“They (politicians) are looting the country. Simply, they’re fooling the people. And they are all making money," he said.

On the other hand, he funnels money into public projects. Jacob claims that in 2019 alone, he pumped in ₹1.5 crore from his personal fortune into Twenty20. That is roughly the same amount a panchayat in Kerala gets from the government annually to fund development.