Kerala’s long history of political violence is often reduced to slogans, party statements, and disputed numbers. What tends to disappear in that process are the individual lives, the families, and the moments of extreme brutality that defined entire phases of the state’s political history.
A brutal episode of political violence unfolded in central Alappuzha on 13 June 1982, when a couple, Dharmajan and his wife Yashoda, were beaten and hacked to death in broad daylight, in what later came to be cited as one of the most gruesome political killings in the state’s history.
Dharmajan, an ex-serviceman, had earlier been a sympathiser of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) but later shifted his political allegiance to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was serving as a mandal committee member at the time, while his daughters were active in the Rashtra Sevika Samiti. His political defection is said to have heightened tensions in the locality, with repeated threats issued against him.
On the morning of June 13, around 9 AM, Dharmajan and Yashoda were confronted in a busy part of Alappuzha. They were first assaulted with cycle chains and then hacked to death using daggers and swords. The attack took place in full public view. Their daughter Girija sustained injuries during the assault but survived.
The violence did not end there. The following day, June 14, Dharmajan’s son-in-law, Kaladharan, who had intervened during the earlier attack, was chased by assailants and killed inside a nearby temple.
The killings shocked the region and came during a period marked by frequent political clashes in Kerala. Despite the scale and brutality of the violence, the incident received limited sustained coverage in mainstream media at the time, even as it became emblematic of the deadly nature of political rivalries during that era.
Source: Aahuti
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