The Tamil Nadu voter who views the BJP as a threat to the education system

In 2014, the year Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power, Elaiyakumar boycotted the general election.

At the time, Elaiyakumar, who goes by one name and is known as Elaiya, had just started studying for his BTech at Anna University in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu. In college, he was associated with the cultural wing of Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People’s War. Elaiya wrote and performed songs for the organisation, fundraised and even campaigned for the boycott of elections.

As Maoists, he and his comrades “opposed the BJP”, but also saw voting as unnecessary because they believed that a “revolution would come soon”, recounted Elaiya, who is 28 today.

But over the course of his college days, Elaiya’ attraction to Maoist ideology faded. This occurred largely as a result of conversations with his professors and reading that they recommended – specifically, work by anti-caste thinkers, including Annihilation of Caste by BR Ambedkar and Why Women Were Enslaved by Periyar. Among other arguments, these professors noted that it was unjust that insurgent leaders kept their identities and locations secret while students like Elaiya were at risk of being arrested.

Elaiya also realised that his comrades were from relatively privileged backgrounds – in contrast, he came from a family of Dalit agricultural labourers in Kelapparai...

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