For foreign tourists visiting India, the prospect of about a billion voters readying to elect their representatives to Parliament is nothing short of a spectacle. Some of them who are on a tour of Kerala, braving the sultry weather, are particularly awed at posters bearing the symbol of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
Among them is Pierre, a 22-year-old postgraduate degree holder in agriculture from Belgium, who has been working at a farm in Puducherry. On a 10-day visit to Kerala, he was amazed at the sight of red flags and posters bearing the hammer and sickle symbol of the CPI(M).
“Back in Belgium, I’ve heard mostly bad things about the Communists of yore. It is interesting to know that a coalition led by a Communist party is ruling a State in India. I also saw what seemed to me both as a protest and a poll campaign with people holding flags and sloganeering while touring Kumily,” he says, seated at Vasco Da Gama Square in the Fort Kochi heritage zone.
