There were two consecutive incidents in Kerala that expressed hatred toward Veer Savarkar the Indian independence activist who played a major role during the fight for the independence of the country and politician who formulated the Hindu nationalist philosophy of Hindutva. Surprisingly both incidents were reported when Kerala was celebrating one of the major Hindu festivals in the state named Pooram.
The Paramekkavu section of Thrissur Pooram withdrew its ‘Azadi’ umbrellas following the controversy over the inclusion of Savarkar’s picture in it. The picture of RSS founder VD Savarkar was included along with the picture of freedom fighters and social reformers.
At the same time, the fact that the picture of Sree Narayana Guru was not there among the portraits of Gandhiji, Vivekananda, Subhash Chandra Bose, Mannath Padmanabhan and Chattambiswamy sparked another discussion.
The controversy over Savarkar’s picture first erupted on social media. There are indications that Ministers K Radhakrishnan and K Rajan have directly informed their discontent with Devaswom following which the umbrellas were withdrawn.
The second incident is the seizing of balloons and masks in which Savarkar’s images were printed. The Kerala Police seized and destroyed air balloons and masks with the image of freedom fighter Veer Savarkar distributed in Thrissur during the legendary Pooram festival. Hindu Mahasabha state president Kishan CJ was arrested and held in preventive custody in connection with the incident. The visuals of the incident have gone viral on the internet.
Both incidents show how intolerant the Kerala government is towards Veer Savarkar highly revered by RSS leaders. While laughing at BJP’s inability to secure even a single state in the state, it is evident that the communist party in the state have a feeling of insecurity that someday, BJP led NDA will become a major opposition for them. When Congress becomes insignificant in the state and a third front is inevitable in the state, the possibility is for NDA though they have so far failed to accomplish anything except increasing the percentage of votes.
The rise of Hindutva is the end of communism in the state. People of the state, with the anti-people projects in the state, are already against Pinarayi led communist government. While Hindus are gradually uniting against the autocracies in the state, Christians are coming closer to BJP. All these are reasons why communists get violent even while seeing a piece of saffron cloth somewhere on the pavement.
However, this enmity shouldn’t be at the cost of disrespecting a freedom fighter revered by millions of people in the country. The ongoing actions against Savarkar signs in the state have created a picture among the people of the country he was rather a ‘terrorist’ which may cause a serious impact on the present generation in the state. There should be an urgent intervention from RSS and the BJP led union government to address this issue.
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