Since several months, I have been seeking an opportunity to congratulate Mr Pinarayi Vijayan, the Chief Minister of Kerala, a tiny Indian state, often regarded as God’s own country. The state happens to be my home though geographically we share the culture of Karnataka too. Nature has bestowed the state with an abundance of riches with regard to natural resources such as lush green and water reservoirs and the same is famed as an Indian state with 100 per cent literacy, though the majority of educated people are working hard for their livelihood in other states and in abroad.
It was quite recently the state government publicised through major newspapers in national dailies that Kerala is the ‘Number 1’ in many aspects, and today I have an opportunity to congratulate its chief minister although the context is different. Let me extend my heartiest felicitations to Mr. Vijayan, who secured second place in the list of chief ministers with most criminal cases.
The political scenario in Kerala is horrifying, especially with one of the major political parties Communist Party of India (CPI(M)) coming into power. The party, known for creating chaos in the society with its principles of violence, has been behind the brutal murder of a number of people, especially the young, in the state. The most shocking fact is about the way they carry out the murders – the so-called signature style of murder by CPI(M) is killing one with numerous slashes are often executed in front of the public after creating panic by throwing home-made bombs. They don’t forget to add this message to these murders – that this will be the fate of people who oppose our ideology. Perhaps this is the worst that could happen in a democracy.
The murderers who are termed as political prisoners often enjoy great privileges during their jail term. In a recent news, the convicted in the murder of a major political opponent TP Chandrasekharan who had left the CPI(M) to form a splinter communist party called Revolutionary Marxist Party, were found in an Ayurvedic hospital for therapies including massages who were later released on parole just a few days before the murder of another political opponent. The interesting fact the media found out was that they were back in the jail on the same day of the murder. Making use of the loopholes in the penal code and the inertia of the judicial system in India, the cold-blooded murderers enjoy freedom even in the jail.
While remembering the fact that the Communist Party has played a significant role in the Keralite community in bringing a few major changes in the society in the past it has to be noted that there were a few mighty leaders who selflessly worked to uplift the poor and downtrodden. However, the illusion that most of their victories were the outcome of physical violence, the party continued imposing bloodshed in even issues that has nothing to do with the society but to fulfil the propaganda of the party. We can see the party workers on the street with buckets for collecting funds where people were forced to drop money fearful about their own existence in the society ruled by the muscle power of a few goondas in the CPI(M).
The social menace caused by CPI(M) doesn’t end here, but have paused and can cause serious repercussions in defining a society. A majority of cooperative banks across Kerala are owned by this party through which National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) reach their assistance to the public in their project to expand their lendable resources and enable their diversification into a variety of business operations. If we examine, we can understand the employment opportunities are solely for people belonging to the party and beneficiaries are also majorly them alone. A number of projects by the central government are being reinforced by Kudumbashri, a women empowerment and poverty eradication programme, framed and enforced by the State Poverty Eradication Mission (SPEM) of the Government of Kerala which is once again a CPI(M) oriented. Unless enforced directly to the citizen, these central government projects would reach only benefit people belonging to CPI(M).This would once again force people to join and obey this political party with is more or less terroristic in nature.
There is panic among the community and people are afraid to question injustice that happens right in front of their eyes. Public places have been occupied with the flags and decorations that carry the colour of blood and that remind us of the murders of numerous lives in the state. A number of Communist parties are banned in India. The Communist Party of India (Maoist), Maoist Communist Party of Manipur, etc., are a few of them. While the difference between the banned Communist parties and the legal ones are that the latter adhere to the Indian Constitution and that they do not prescribe violence against the state and in general follow the laws, considering CPI(M)s activities in the state, it is high time to check their status and I am sure the close examination of their history in the state would lead to the immediate ban of the party. While they blame RSS for the so-called Hindu extremism, I personally believe that if ever there was a reaction from RSS, it should be considered as the mechanism of self-defence for the very fact that Hindus, since time immemorial behold the principles for peace and harmony in the society and in the world.
This is not a matter of a tiny state in India, nor it is about a few people living there – this is the question of the rights of a few people who still have not lost their faith in humanity. While the innumerable human rights organisations and even the Human Rights Commission fail to address the issue, to control or to ban the activities of this extremist political party, I earnestly believe that it is time for the international community intervene in this issue that effects millions of people belonging to a region that belongs to the same world.
Where there is blood upon the toiling men,
Tears rolling down through the cheeks of women,
Where my children denied their right to know,
The streets are noisy of screams of terror,
What is freedom, but a futile dream!
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