THE FACULTY JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND

SOCIAL SCIENCES
FJHSS
The Faculty Journal of
Humanities and Social Sciences
New Religious Affirmations: Vol. V (No.2) 73-83
Performances and Public Spaces in © The Author(s) 2014
Urban Central Kerala (ISSN: 1800-3486)

Mathew A. Varghese8

Abstract
The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork the author has been engaged with a few years back
(2004-2006) in the south western Indian state of Kerala. This is more a summary of a work grounded
on the author’s own research with brief statements or notes on the field, the problems, and the
methods; followed with an extrapolation into possible conclusions and theorisations. The major
concern of the work was the transformation of spaces with a focus on public space and new
religiosities. It enquired into the dialogues between the two processes and the significance of such
dialogues.

Keywords: Public Spaces, Religiosities, Space, Public Performance, Urban

8
Akkanad (Hill View), Union Christian College P O, Aluva 683102, Kerala, India

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1. Introduction

The economic structures and consequently, social life, were getting radically
reconstituted during the time. Cultural sites and practices illustrated the directions, scale,
temper, and manner of this reconstitution. In Kerala, religion has had a critical mediating
role and there have been significant radical changes during the time. The nature of religious
changes, their scale and mood have a relation to changes and shifts in the organization of
public space, particularly in relation to their disciplining and regulation. Moreover, new
forms of public space emerged, but within new types of restrictive and surveilled enclosures
such as new forms of gated communities, malls and theme parks. Previously unregulated
open spaces were co-opted and often privately regulated with regard to relatively innovative
social and religious activities. The unregulated open spaces were often taken over for new
utilities and structured activities.

My aim was to explore the character of the changes in the organization of public
space with particular reference to religious practice and their relation to recent
restructurings of the contemporary social and political order concentrating on central Kerala
district of Ernakulam and, more specifically the towns of Ernakulam, Aluva and Fort Cochin.

There had been a visible reaffirmation of religion (the religious) in Kerala post 1990s.
During the recent phase a sense of religious division emerged that got articulated through
organised religiosity. Many of the practices spilled over from the sacred and domestic to the
public spaces. The performative dimension of this new religiosity invited scholarly attention.

The field study focussed on the relationship between the performative dimension of
religious reaffirmation and the transformation of public spaces. Performance may include
the entire gamut of public manifestations (expressions), in the sense that performance is the
manner in which an idea and its accompaniments are given form and shape [For example
this may include street theatre, musical performances, advertisements, and even recitations
and exegesis of religious texts available for “consumption” by the general public.] This is
very often not a passive activity. The audience of such public performances, rather than
being on-lookers enter into a relationship with the performance to the extent of a
participation that shapes the performances in turn forming collectives or communities.

1.1 Definition of Public Space

Public Space may be defined on the lines of Public Sphere as expounded by Jurgen
Habermas (1974, pp. 49). Accordingly it is “a realm of our social life in which something
approximating public opinion can be formed.” The concept is clarified in terms of the
contributing conditions which include access to all, and freedom of assembly, association
and expression. The public space is a function of discourse and it surfaces whenever private
individuals engage themselves in unrestricted conversation about matters of general interest
thus forming a public body. This, he distinguishes from the representational/authoritarian
(monopoly of legal assertion-state laws) public spheres.

Habermas (1989, pp. 235-241) identifies certain common institutional criteria for the
realms of public sphere: “they preserved a kind of social intercourse that, far from
presupposing the equality of status, disregarded the status all together. The tendency

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replaced the celebration of ranks with the tact befitting equals. The parity on whose basis
alone the authority of the better argument could assert itself against that of social hierarchy
and in the end carry the day meant, in the thought of the day, the parity of ‘common
humanity’…not that the idea of public was actually realised in earnest in the coffee houses,
the salons and the societies; but as an idea it had become institutionalised and therefore
stated as an objective claim. If not realised it was at least consequential… discussion within
such a public presupposed the problematisation of areas that until then had not been
questioned…”

There is a liberatory promise that is said to lie in this public’s formal inclusivity and
more importantly, in its critical rationality that transforms the nature of power.

1.2 Field of Study

As mentioned earlier, the chosen area comes under one of the districts of Kerala, Viz.
Ernakulam. Ernakulam district was formed on 1st April 1958. The district is named after the
erstwhile Ernakulam town the name of which in turn is said to have been derived from the
word Rishinagakulam a tank in the famous Siva Temple in the town. The population is three
to four million. The Ernakulam district lies in the central part of the state and has an
extensive coastline. The region under consideration would fall along the stretch of land from
Alwaye to Ernakulam, which by road would come near forty kilometres.

1.3 Overview of Religious Composition

The major religious communities of the district are the Hindus, the Christians and the
Muslims with its different denominations, castes, sub castes and practices. In Cochin, for
instance, Gowda Saraswatha Brahmins form an important section of the Hindus. In addition
to the major communities the Buddhists, the Jains, the Sikhs and the Jews also formed part
of the cosmopolitan population. Historians say that the first Jewish settlement in Kerala was
soon after the Babylonian conquest of Judea in 586 BC. The Jewish temples in Kodungalloor,
Mattancherry near Kochi, Kollam, etc. are some of the silent proofs of this. The commercial
contacts between Kerala and Arabia led to the advent of Islam into Kerala around 600 A.D.
and the first mosque in Kerala is in fact the first in India. Buddhism has its roots in Kerala
even in the 3rd Century B.C. But these faiths merged into Hinduism and now it is very
difficult to find a practice of Jainism. Many of the present Hindu Kshetras (temples) may
have been Buddhist or Jain temples. Christian presence in Kerala is very often dated back to
the arrival of St. Thomas in 56 AD. True or false as this may be there were numerous trade
contacts with the Middle Eastern part at that time. But by 4th century AD Christian presence
was visible in Kerala. The point to be made here is the long line of religious evolution with
immense overlaps in the life-world of the population, of course with all the conflicts and
power struggles that ensued, but with accompanying internal dissent and social reformation
movements.

1.4 New Religious Assertions

The new religious assertions have a tendency to create homogenous blocks or new
communities out of a heterogeneous interlinked life world. This may find resonances in
other social performances like media and entertainments. The growing number of private
television channels that cater to different ‘religious ethos’ and the appropriation of symbols
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in popular entertainments (a Hindu way of speaking or a touting of an ‘essential’ religious
character in the movies being an instance) So what are the new definitions of community?
And how is ideological coherence build around the blocks that may be emerging? Thus an
analysis on the lines of a performance is done with an objective to understand the entire
range of transformations in public space. There would also be an analysis of ideological
content and organisational structure of performances in public space. Attempt is made to
understand the rationale of some of the performative aspects of new religious assertions
with an accompanying interest to know how they fit into the existing social structure of the
region in focus.

Very often the existing organisations assume certain roles in the background of
public spaces and this often forms a manner of relationship with public performances that in
turn create new narratives. The narratives in turn structure modern myths, norms and value
systems. Observation and analysis of new mediums of communication and social networks
that emerge could point towards the politics of the transformations in public space. The
approach involves an effort to understand the normative meaning of existing institutions,
rather than accepting them as system imperatives.

The coexistence of notions of ‘civic virtue’ through religious assertions along with
public consumption of services and a concomitant politics of ‘anti-politics’ in public spaces
require careful analysis. Focus on one of the contemporary manifestations viz. performative
dimension of new religious assertions in the context of transformations in public sphere
should provide insights into these questions of interlink and thus the socio politics. A
historical component needed to put things in perspective will be there as the backdrop but
this won’t necessarily entail a historical survey.

1.5 Overview of Social History and Evolution of Public Space(s) in Kerala

The social history of Kerala has been informed by social movements that structured
the secular landscape, though imaginations of Kerala were already present as expressed in
the art of Vallathol or in the conceptions of Keralam as the motherland for all Malayalis.
These imaginations/symbols also have a structuring significance on the state that was to be
Kerala. Many of the pre-independence notions were adopted by the independent state.
Movements like the temple entry movements which fought for granting access to public
road that led to the temples (Guruvayoor Vaikkom and Paliyam Sathyagrahas may be noted)
resulted in significant shifts in the way caste based hierarchies operated in the public space.
These movements in turn shaped the state legislations once Kerala was formed. The struggle
for a putatively egalitarian public – the rights of lower caste groups to walk public roads,
enter temples, go to school, and get government jobs was a major object of political
mobilization. So the public had constituted itself against the social structure that was in
existence as a critical watchdog. The social structure was reciprocally shaped by the public in
so far as the new legislations that came into existence with the formation of Kerala State and
consequent accountability that the state was to ensure. Similar movements addressed
discriminations in educational institutions and health institutions.

The role of Socialist formations especially the Marxist Party is noteworthy first for the
two pronged struggle launched against the social hierarchies in a caste base social structure
and the colonial establishment. Later the trade unions and such co-operative formations like

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the ‘Beedi Workers Union’ nurtured the development of a public space active with dialogues
and discussions. Chayakkadas (literal translation into teashops does not convey the picture)
with newspapers and discussions sprang up in every nook and cranny of the society9.

All these and many concomitant processes shaped the public space in Kerala which
rather than being islands in society were rather similar to one large interlinked public space.
The formation of the public space in Kerala may not be along the lines of the formation of
Bourgeois Public Spheres in those places, be it France, Germany or United Kingdom with
which Habermas concerned. For instance the role of social movements in the formation of
public space in Kerala may not find similar parallels in formative reasons of bourgeois public
spheres. But it is the character of the public sphere as portrayed by Habermas which forms
the basis for the definition of Public Space. His later conceptions of the dichotomous system
and life world or theory of communicative action that takes a rather transhistorical
dimension will not be drawn upon here.

What needs emphasis is the manner in which the public space institutionalised a
practice of rational critical discourse through the formation of state and civil society
institutions. What characterised the medium of critique as Habermas (1974) puts it was,
peculiar and without historical precedent: people’s public use of their reason.

The entry into public space though necessary, is not often sufficient for the
maintenance of public space. With the state formation the civil society institutions of
different dimensions also came into being (schools, hospitals, police, legal apparatus) which
slowly generated public spaces out of a one large interlinked space. The exercise of power
through these civil society institutions was very often slow and covert. This is akin to
hegemony or rule by consent. The lingering presence of an active public engaged in
communicative action slowly got transformed into norm driven islands. Thus the ambience
of many of the social institutions and structures also changed. Thus boards like ‘no politics
here’ began to be more common in Chayakkadas and educational instituted began to
propagate their private ethics. Public spaces increasingly became privatised in their
character though still claiming a public outlook.

Here though the formal inclusivity was realised, the general interest increasingly got
fragmented to competing interest claims. This is the context for the most recent wave of
socio-economic changes that redefined values and norms.

1.6 Methodological Issues

The present study analysed the relationship between the performative dimension of
religious reaffirmation and the transformation of public spaces with the systemic changes in
perspective. The thrust of this fieldwork was precisely the transformation or mutations in
the public space, as seen through something manifest in the society, viz. the new religious
assertions.

Reason for choosing the time period (2004-2006), is partly in lieu of the post nineties
developments in the country, especially the changes in socio economic structure with the
opening up of the market, the rejuvenated cultural nationalism and the consequent right

9
Works by Robin Jeffry (1987, 2000) may be noted
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wing national government; propagation of the ideology of hindutva (cultural nationalism)
through civil society institutions, laws barring political expression in the state of Kerala in the
recent years, especially in the educational institutions, the high social visibility of god
men/god women; an unprecedented presence of media; in social life and also the spate of
religious conflicts in the state.

The nature of public discourse is perhaps most effectively influenced by the

communal presence in the media. The liberal and secular character of the media in India,
developed as a part of the national movement, had been considerably eroded in during the
time. The space thus garnered by communalism in the secular media helped impart certain
respectability and legitimacy to it. The communal media performs three well defined roles:
the slow communalization of the civil society through the production of a counter discourse
to the secular; the creation of conflict situations by distorting events, spreading rumours and
pandering falsehood; the denigration of secular and liberal intelligentsia by attacking their
integrity and undermining their professional competence. The social dynamics of the
aforementioned features of the contemporary period may or may not be interlinked.

The work involved a discussion of new religious modes of manifestation (expression).

This includes:

Study of movements /practices of youth affiliation in detail

Analysis of newspapers for advertisements /announcements /launching of
religious/commercial products.
The domination of professional education by religious formations; hospitals
under the aegis of communal groups; and aggressive religious interventions
promoting religious dependency.
Contemporary Gita recitals and Cult activities in the Hindu domain10
Pujas in public spaces 11, church/religious leaders emerging as advocates of new
economic transactions
Religious institutions that have come up recently.
Pentecostal movements and activities of god-men/women.
Land-ownership by religious groups in the area.
An analysis of the performative aspects was accompanied by an attempt to demystify
the coexistence of moralising claims like renunciation/spirituality (rather than the
materiality) with the acquisitive/commercial in the new global economy. This threw light on
the transformation of secular (public) space and the social hegemony of religious discourse
that produced divisions.

Public performances were subjected to careful scrutiny to yield evidence about the
values and motivating forces of performers. The performative behaviour will not be seen as
peripheral to the dynamics of socio-historical changes in Kerala, but at its very heart.

10
The nexus between godmen/godwomen, politicians, and corporations, and their ability to command and
engineer a public spectacle
11
Puja refers to a paradigmatic form of Hindu worship. It is directed to a deity and consists of onomastic praise,
offerings of food, and redistribution of that food); selective use of kerygmas (The proclamation of religious
truths, especially as taught in the Gospels. A narrative can be constructed as interpreting a kerygma, which it
brings to language by articulating it on the level of narrative

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Methodologically this called for a careful consideration of the full range of activities taken
collectively. This possessed the capacity to speak through their shared symbolism and
general ambience of the public spaces they occupy, and also through the methods whereby
the performances were mobilised/generated. A consistent pattern of performances or
symbolic expression through performances was arrived at by analysing the characteristics
shared by a variety of performances. The rationale of examining various types of public
spaces with various forms of performances by different groupings within the regional
parameters avoided the limitations of case studies and to emphasise the phenomenon
(performances) and the social arena (public spaces) rather than a particular group or a
particular practice.

The methodology included participant observation which I did along with a

situational analysis, media analysis (with a focus on how communication occurs in public
spaces) and interviews/casual talk. Fieldwork was conducted with the systemic processes as
a backdrop. So there has been an effort to understand the normative meaning of existing
institutions [for instance very often the ensemble of civil society institutions form the
channels through which hegemony –rule by consent-is exercised by ideologically distorted
spectacles]. This left the door open to new channels of thinking.

1.7 Discussion: Power, Religion, and Reconfiguration of Space in an Urban Context

The normative context of neo liberal globalization, changing state structures and
relationships of production weave an architectonics where people and places are in
continuous engagement and new logics are in the making. The politics and economics
influencing the course of urbanization mediate urban centres with global markets and in the
process reproduce social inequality and exclusion. The neo liberal modes of production have
de territorialized the extraction of surplus value in an earlier capitalist system. This may be
seen in the case of Cochin’s remapping in relation to new forms of urbanization through the
language of tourism or heritage. The urban has come to represent the spectacle constituted
by a language of different forms of commoditisation (Consumerism/tourism/heritage).

New Urbanisation is the spatial manifestation of new forms of state that steer places
(with different ontologies) into broadly similar directions, viz. that of spaces for profit. The
process itself as a spatial abstraction is an important part in the spatial practice of the place.
Hence “established relations between objects and people in represented space (the urban)
are subordinate to a (common) logic” (Lefebvre 1991 (1974): 40). Shopping centres, exotic
eating places, heritage zones and ‘prime spaces for living’ constitute themselves as the
‘urban spectacle’ that normalises subjectivity to a new power structure. In this new scenario
places like Cochin or Ernakulum must appear as innovative, creative, exciting, and as safe
places to live, to visit, to play or to consume in. "The task of urban governance is in short, to
lure highly mobile and flexible productive, financial, and consumption flows into its space"
(Harvey 1989, pp. 462).

The post colonial urbanisation of Ernakulum as a bureaucratic centre further

transformed Cochin (already reduced to a ‘fortified’ colonial enclave), into an outback and
‘living museum’. Processes of neo liberal globalisation have deconstructed the territorial
state and rationalised it to new forms of governance (new urbanisation). New urbanisation is
the perfection of “universal tendency of capital” of Marx. Ernakulum and Cochin are now

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segments organised in accordance with the new needs of capital. Public spaces (early
commercial spaces or those generated by social movements) are perceived as spaces lying
waste and vacant and ‘available’ for consumption in its different forms.

The showcasing of places for tourism, splitting up of spaces for real estate business
and the processes involved in the peripheralisation of urban centres, are modes of insertion
of places into the global system of production. In what may be called post-modern
urbanisation, there is a relative decline in the state’s investment in urban processes when
compared to the post colonial modernisation phase. Instead, the state takes the
entrepreneurial role of aiding the consolidation of power based on privileged centres of
wealth. The new role of state may not be always negative like power that says no. It may
creates a subjectivity that makes the individuals part of a normalising force by an active
engagement with the urban processes (e.g. as consumers).

The different kinds of public spaces reflect political and social processes and the
articulation of urban centres into larger regional and global political and economic relations.
The public spaces were the result of people appropriating/producing spaces for their own
purposes. These symbolise what Lefebvre calls “the right to the city”. The privatisation of
public spaces have excluded people from places and produced increased surveillance and
control. The spaces have been homogenised to the extent that every person one meets on
the street is a fellow consumer, every person one meets by the river is a pilgrim tourist, and
every person one meets at a tourist space is a traveller who tries to consolidate his/her
everyday life through consumption of heritage. The erosion of public spaces symbolises the
invasion of consumption over production as part of global geopolitics.

The responses to the transformations and their dominant discourses (Foucault 1970,
pp.138) of social and political control is structured by the relationships and values attributed
to places (ibid, pp. 40-45) over time. Thus public spaces are both the product and the
reasons of social resistance to forms of power.

1.7.1 Crisis of the New Order

In addition to de territorializing/decentralising tendencies, neoliberal processes

centralise the controls of production with those who control the means of payment (Arrighi
1994, pp. 365). In a modern world system of sovereign states the intellectual and moral
leadership of the centres of power is facilitated by this control over the flow of money. To be
in control it is important to be on the supply side of the means of payment. Being on the
demand side (ibid, pp. 366) results in uninhibited circulation of capital sans borders into
productive avenues represented by tourism, real estate or other consumerist practices.
State remains powerful, but more as a facilitator of this new capital. The ‘private’ and
‘public’ increasingly work together. The resultant activities are speculative in execution and
design and is dogged by all the difficulties as against a more rational, planned or co-
ordinated development in a pre-neo-liberal environ. Unlike previous systems the public
sector absorbs more risks (for instance by providing the basic infrastructure). In the
speculative construction of places, “the structures of public assistance and distribution,
which were constructed through public funds” get “privatised and expropriated for private
gain” (Hardt and Negri 2000, pp. 301). Tendencies of unemployment, curtailment of

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workers’ rights, cutting of welfare measures, or increase in violence; spells crisis in everyday
life.

1.7.2 Need for Space

The realisation of exclusions like the rigid caste hierarchy in the context of changing
production system, towards the end of colonial period led to strong reform movements that
fought spaces of exclusion/hierarchies and generated public spaces. The left wing
movements and trade union movements politicised public spaces through opinion
formation. Public spaces were the product of the social realisation of exclusion and were
spaces of representation that appropriated the colonial/feudal representations of spaces
(Lefebvre 1991 (1974)).

The present subjectivities have also created the conditions for, alternate or counter
spaces and the questioning of the normative context of different forms of exclusions. There
“are no relations of power without resistance” (Foucault 1980, pp. 142). So moves to actively
take space (Mitchell 2003, pp. 231) is always a struggle that has to contest normalisation of
power assertions, (e.g. ‘equality as consumers’) and realise places amidst the heteropia:
spaces of heritage and public spaces, depoliticisation and commercialisation, or spiritual
homogeneity and heterogeneity.

New religiosities coincide with changing state forms, different forms of exclusions
and crisis and the search for counter spaces. The new state form represents the
institutionalisation of the neo-liberal power system whereby the state as the facilitator
sheds its welfare functions. People are increasingly excluded from the decision making
process. It delegates welfare functions like health or education to non state actors. Many of
them are religious bodies and institutions of charity like the ones mentioned in the work.
The institutional networks of such bodies also help them to gain social legitimacy in the face
of, and against, the receding welfare state. The networks of commoditisation have a free
hand in creating new configurations and they try to co-opt or absorb conflicts and
contradictions (Lefebvre 1991 (1974), pp. 404) like the resistance towards tourism projects
that cordon off public spaces in Cochin. Resistances like this and others produced by the
realisation of marginalisation/exclusions from the social structure (like student movements
against privatisation, or anti-globalisation movements by workers) generate a “spatial
duality” (ibid, pp. 374). These struggles may be “violent or non-violent in character; and
some combat the tendency to separate (exclude/marginalise) while others combat the
tendency to confuse (homogenise)” (ibid, pp. 418). They threaten the equilibrium of the
normative order and expose the contradictions and conflicts generated by ‘forms of
exclusion’. The latter tendencies get portrayed as ‘disruptive’ in the discourse of dominant
media or in the response of the state. These also activate moves towards negotiation or
compromise, or get repressed, very often brutally, by a policing state apparatus. The new
religious assertions, on the contrary, co-exist with the new configurations or state and new
urban spatiality. The reasons for the dichotomy in response along with the relationship with
the social structure can be found in the spatial engagements of new religiosities.

Religious assertions, like the resistance movements, are produced out of the needs of
changing social relations. Common to all the forms of new religious assertions; whether they
be represented by god-women or god-men, community consolidations or spiritual exercises;

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is the promise of alternative spaces. They offer prophylactic for crisis, social disintegration,
decadence or disenchantment in the shape of universal love, sense of solidarity, or promise
of moral order. They counter-pose spiritual spaces against the social structure.

The new religiosities constitute themselves as liminoid states against the social
structures. But the inclusive icons like Narayana Guru of the reform phase now create
exclusive communitarian spaces. The feeling of communitas in early pilgrimage took the
sting of the social structure away. The language of pilgrimage is used in pilgrim tourism to
invade public spaces, homogenise and commoditise them. Spiritual icons constitute
themselves as limen through promises of universal love and define themselves against social
anomies. But in their very functioning as sovereign states of exception (Agamben 1998)
these organisations represent the global juridical system, the violence of which they promise
to ward off and the crisis in which they constitute themselves. The growth and
reinforcement of organisational apparatus gains them state-like potencies with no reciprocal
obligations (Kapferer 2005, pp. 9) and hides the exclusion of people de facto and de jure
from the decision making process. The spiritual exercises and the art of living discipline the
sick social body by asocial rationalisations and optimisation of time and space, whereby they
exercise bio-power (Foucault 1979, 1978). They school people in self-government that
produces individuated bodies that fit into new demands of work and consumption. The
liminoid states of new religiosities legitimate social structures through opposition.

The metaphors used in spiritual exercises caricature the state as a sovereign entity
that corrupts the everyday life. The stories of victimisation establish a break with the past
and undermine any form of analysis. The innovative religious formations obscure the
political and economic forces which underpin them. They hide sources of power and portray
exclusions as universal truths lodged in individuated consumers (ibid 1978: 60). The liminoid
space offers distantiated rationalizations in states of communitas, “undifferentiated
comiatus, community, or even communion of equal individuals who submit together to the
general authority” (Turner 1969: 96).

In contrast to the religion, which as a way of thinking and acting characteristic of the
shared life stands opposed to individualised life (Durkheim 1954 (1912), pp. 46-48), new
religiosities cater to individualised existence. The life shared is one of the globalised
consumers. Though it still offers a transfer into another (world) in which imagination is more
at ease, the liminoid spaces assert the social structures, in states of separation. The religious
spaces in their different forms (exclusionary, exceptional, rationalising) appear as standard
bearers of particular conceptions and social expediencies of the new class configurations,
relations of production, and constitution of places in a neo-liberal world. They may still
provide ‘moral communities’ (ibid, pp. 426-428) in the context of exclusions and
disenchantments, but the moral fabric itself has undergone gross transformations and
become another commodity along with competing religious spaces represented by
respective icons or propaganda

New religiosities have become the spatial extensions of the new urbanisation which
invades public spaces and transform them into productive zones of consumption. Along with
the market and the state they have functionally delegated the spaces. This is why they often
find a cosy existence in the changing social order, unlike the subversive movements that
contest spatialities and reveal disparities, heterogeneities and exclusions.
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