The Communist rule in Kerala is a comedy of errors. While State welfare takes a backseat, the kith and kin of leaders enjoy plum posts
Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the USA (1981-1989) was well known for his sense of humor and innocent observations about global affairs. One of his pastimes was to collect anecdotes associated with the then Soviet Union and Communism..
One of the anecdotes quoted by him was about a conversation between a US citizen and his counterpart from Soviet Union. In the course of the discussion, the US citizen told his Russian friend: “Do you know that we have democracy and freedom in our country. Any US citizen can enter the Oval Office of the White House (office of the US President), bang his table and tell the President that Mr. Reagan, I don’t like the way you run this country. We have that much freedom in the US.”
Pat came the reply from the Russian. “What’s the big deal in it? We too can barge into the Kremlin (the center of power in Soviet Union), pound on our President’s table and yell at him that "Comrade Gorbachev, I do not approve of the way President Reagan runs the US”.
The Communists have their own meaning for democracy. The best examples are the Peoples' Republic of China, and Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (North Korea). Though these countries used to swear by democracy, the fun is that people in these countries do not know the meaning of democracy!
The official mouthpiece of CPI-M is People’s Democracy!! Party workers and activists read only Deshabhimani (CPI-M owned newspaper) in Kerala. In party villages in north Malabar region (districts of Kannur, Kasaragod and to some extent in Kozhikode district) only CPI-M approved newspapers and periodicals are allowed. Party villages are those villages where the writ of the party only runs. There is no father-mother-son-daughter relations in these villages. Those who violate party diktats better leave the villages or they would end up as dead bodies. This is not exaggeration but the real facts which are happening in these villages.
The Muslims who had voted for the UDF in the 2019 Lok Sabha election hoping a big win for the Congress were let down by the massive win registered by the BJP. They cast their lots with the Marxists in the 2021 assembly election.
From Day One of their second tenure in 2021 nothing was working right for the CPI(M). The precedence of the State has been that whenever the Marxists come to power at Thiruvananthapuram, they jampack all government, semi-government and autonomous bodies with party cadres and their relatives. While P Sadasivam, the former Governor, danced to the tunes of the CPI-M, the present incumbent of Raj Bhavan, Arif Mohammed Khan, turned out to be a tough nut to crack.
He put a spoke on the moves by the CPI-M to appoint party leaders/cadre/ and their relations as vice chancellors and faculties which made chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his sidekicks furious. Though the governor earned a lot of goodwill from the people of the State, for whom he was the true Leader of Opposition, the CPI-M government approached the Supreme Court asking for a directive to the Governor to sign the Bills passed by the Legislature and the council of ministers. Meanwhile the Supreme Court declared null and void the extension given to Gopinath Raveendran as vice chancellor of Kannur University. Raveendran, a fellow traveler of the CPI-M and a resident of the chief minister’s village was appointed based on the pleas and persuasion of Vijayan and his minister for higher education Bindu (wife of CPI-M polit bureau member A Vijayaraghavan).
It is an open secret that the names of vice-chancellors and faculty members have to be cleared by the State Committee of the CPI-M before they are appointed.
The PhD degrees are awarded to scholars based on the recommendations made from AKG Centre, the imposing State head quarters of the CPI-M. Most of the Ph Ds awarded in arts and humanities have become a laughing stock in the academic world of Kerala. The PhD scholars themselves do not know the topic in which they have been awarded the doctorates.
There was a time when job seekers from Kerala had made a beeline to Calcutta, Chennai and Mumbai to earn a livelihood. Now, fortune seekers from Bengal are flooding Kerala’s job market since the Left Front rule reached its zenith in Writers Building at Calcutta.
A small town like Perumbavoor in Kerala has nearly two lakh Bengali migrant laborers working in plywood manufacturing units, timber mills, eateries, and hair dressing saloons. The State Government has no records of the migrant laborers from other States working in Kerala. It could be said with guarantee that there are no commercial or business establishments in Kerala where there are no migrant workers from Bengal and Tripura.
Last heard, more than 1,000 persons which include students and job seekers, are leaving Kerala shores per day to Europe, America, Australia, Africa according to Father Alexander Koodarathil, director, Dr K M Cheriyan Institute of Heart Sciences. They will not come back to Kerala and are migrating for good, said the respected spiritual leader while addressing a public meeting.
(The writer is special correspondent with the Pioneer; views are personal)
