PROLOGUE

The opening paragraph of a January 2021 article in the Organiser, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) mouthpiece, is striking in its effusiveness: “Blessed are these people by the entry of Sridhar Vembu with his IT behemoth ZOHO with a determination to transform the scenario. Poverty, illiteracy, caste tensions, migration & lack of self-sufficiency will be things of the past if honest Swadeshi Sridhar’s ongoing plans aren’t challenged by the forces responsible for perpetuating the listed/unlisted evils.” 

The “blessed”, whether they know it or not, are the residents of Govindaperi, a village in Tenkasi district in interior south Tamil Nadu, over 600 km from Chennai. Many of its residents are farm labourers and daily wage workers, their poverty framed by the startling beauty of acre upon acre of verdant paddy fields, with the imposing Western Ghats looming in the background. On a Wednesday........

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