Kerala murders:  Are films and drugs the real culprit?

The recent gruesome murders in Kerala have left the state in shock and mourning. In Venjarammoodu, a 23-year-old man killed five members of his family including the unsuspecting girlfriend, by hitting them on the head with an iron hammer.

His mother narrowly survived, but told the police that her injuries were due to a fall. The man told the police he was in huge debt and that led to the murders. However, the public conscience couldn't accept that a seemingly ordinary Kerala man could come up with such brutality and the best explanation was he acted under the influence of drugs.

Just the other day, in Kozhikode, a class 10 student was killed in a pre-planned operation, in a nunchuck attack by students of another school. Not an isolated incident in Kerala, where scuffles between students of different factions are common. 

Violence as media fodder

In Kerala, a state with more than a dozen news channels, each murder case is dissected in detail by the media with hourly updates and nightly discussions - all of these are devoured in total by an eager public. This cycle continues until the next, even more gruesome murder emerges. This pattern of violent deaths and the public's intense consumption of the news creates a strange sense of excitement, until the violence hits close to home. Unfortunately, there are no easy solutions.

During these public discourses, the tendency is to point fingers at violent films, drug use, and other societal ills as the root causes. If the perpetrators are young, the "Y2K kids" are blamed, who then retaliate with accusations of toxic parenting and overbearing "dad vibes”. Yes, a generational blame game is a clear subtext to the violence in the state.

Coming back to the films: There has indeed been an explosion of violent films in recent times. Malayalam films like "Marco," a tasteless macho film marketed to a pan-Indian audience, and "Rifle Club," a cunning film that glorified and normalized violence, drug use, and gore through a veneer of comedy, are examples. The horrific scenes, depicted in gruesome detail, risk normalizing a level of brutality that would have been unacceptable in the past.

Outside of the film world, there is also the brutal reality of increasing drug use among youngsters. If reports are anything to go, many are exposed to drugs like MDMA from a young age.

But are these the sole reason behind the rise in violent crimes?

The paradoxes

Kerala has long been hailed as a model of social development, boasting high literacy rates, top-class healthcare systems, and a relatively high Human Development Index.

However, beneath this veneer of progress lies a troubling reality: the state has always grappled with high rates of suicide, mental health issues, and crimes against women.

This paradox of high social development coexisting with significant social challenges is often glossed over in the rush to find convenient scapegoats. What it warrants is a deeper study into the social realities, of depleting family structure, the migration of people out of the state, the influx of people into the state, the “money order economy”, the cost of living, and the passive aggression typical of Keralites often masquerading as witty criticisms, toxic jokes, or trolling, the evidence of which is rampant on social media.