Review | ‘The Red Badge’ by Rajesh R. Varma conjures up a dystopian Keralam

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The novel is set in 1970s Kerala. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/ iStock

In the 2023 Booker Prize-winning novel Prophet Song, author Paul Lynch draws a chilling picture of Ireland under totalitarian rule in a dystopian future. In the Malayalam novel Chuvanna Badge (2017), author Rajesh R. Varma invents an alternate history where Keralam is under a similar regime. The past and future depicted in both books is equally terrifying, drawn as they are from contemporary times. Varma’s novel has now been translated into English by J. Devika as The Red Badge.

The narrative unfolds in the faux autobiographical format, told in the voice of a young boy (named after the author himself) from a middle-class family. The year is 1974, the place is Tiruvalla. Rajesh’s life is about to change with the shift to an English-medium school; Kerala is transforming as well, as it comes under a new ruler.

In his new school, the smartest student is Veeramani, deemed to be from a socially inferior class and recipient of the red badge given to the class topper. Rajesh covets this badge and yearns for it. His gradual friendship with Veeramani in no way douses this competitive fire or his disdain for his friend’s social status. Eventually, when he does get the badge, it is a pyrrhic victory.  

A fascist government from the north of the country brings Keralam under its control. The Vibhasis, as they are called, aim to build an undivided India called Vishala Bharatha. Their leader is a charismatic man given to self-aggrandisement. The author establishes the nature of the dictatorship that takes root by cleverly drawing from the past — the concentration camps of Nazi Germany and the forced sterilisation drive during the Emergency in India — as well as touching on obvious parallels that exist in present times.  

Author Rajesh R. Varma; and (right) translator J. Devika

Rajesh and his family, with the exception of his father, become ardent supporters of the new regime, as do others in their town. Gradually, the old way of life — what they wear, eat, consume as entertainment, or even, how they think — is erased.  

In the end, the true horrors of what such a despotic rule entails becomes clear to Rajesh. Even as he turns the clock back to a pre-Vibhasi time, with the help of a ‘Swami’, the ‘phantom history’ haunts him both as memory and future threat. 

The author makes an inspired choice in delineating who is othered and persecuted; instead of making the obvious religious minority the target, he opts to make it the Tamil population settled in Keralam. A chilling message is thus conveyed: nobody is safe, anybody can be tyrannised. All it takes is an authoritarian government to tap into the inherent prejudices people harbour about those who are different from them. 

The complexity of class and caste is also woven into the story. Varma and his family belong to a Kshatriya caste but there is a hierarchy even amongst them. They are suffused with caste pride and hubris even as they sense their authority waning. This is evident in the demeaning way they talk about the lower castes, and the derogatory lens through which they view them. It is precisely this class and caste consciousness that the Vibhasis exploit for their own ugly ends.

The book has been superbly translated by Devika. In her translator’s note, she talks of feeling “jittery” not only about the alternate history presented but also because she is familiar with the caste and class hubris that the book talks about. 

Urgent and powerful, the tale serves as both a cautionary tale for Keralam and a grim depiction of what is happening in the country.

The reviewer is an author, journalist and manuscript editor based in Bengaluru.

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