Ratheesh Kaliyadan
Prime minister in India is the supreme and the team leader in the Union ministry. The Chief Minister entertains the same in the states. Government of Kerala is under the left orientation under the leadership of Mr.V.S.Achuthanandan as the chief minister. The government took several decisions in association with the political motive of the left front. The major decisions in educational sector proclaim the government’s commitment to the laymen.
The first decision was to pass a bill to control the self financing educational institutions. The same decision invited grudge from the parts of private managements. The anti government feeling is promoted by almost all religious and castes organizations that run self financing professional colleges and other educational institutions. They declared their real commitments to the upper middle class society through various campaigns against the left government. Christian institutions especially the Catholics are on the fore front of the war against the government. They already released a lot of idayalekhanams (shepherd’s gospel).
I have a first hand experience in connection with the catholic priest’s row over the left parties. I was in a course at Rajagiri College of Social Sciences, Kalamassery in Kerala. This institution run by the CMI fathers is one of the pioneer institutions that offer courses in social work. The college has an outreach department and a research wing. The research wing conducts various studies on various social issues. They also conducted studies for the government of Kerala and its various organizations. Still they have right to criticize the government and personalities in association with the government; but not to insult them.
This exercise may be a mere joke; a joke of little guys. But it implies a lot of meanings, especially in such a context where priests are in a row over the communists and the morphed photograph is prevailed in the desktop of such a ‘reputed’ institution. Oh! is it part of your social science research? If your answer is YES, there will be multifaceted responses. On the contrary if your stand is “this is a mistake happened by a slip of intellectual shift”, please correct it and open up more judicious criticism and democratic dialogues on your feeling for or against the government and the communists. Otherwise it will be continued as an anarchic intervention in a pure democratic context
DEMOCRACY OF FASCISTS
Ratheesh Kaliyadan
Freedom of speech and expression is one of the fundamental rights of every Indian citizen. The constitution of India assures it for every Indians. Unfortunately certain organizations have not. The latest victim of such hard and fast rule of organizations is Mr. Jaswant Singh who was former minister and Bharathiya Janatha Party leader. Mr. Singh was expelled from his party only because of writing a book on Indian independence movement. He praised Mr. Muhammadali Jinnah the then leader of Muslim League which argued for an independent nation-Pakistan. BJP took a stand that it is against the policy of the party.
Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangham(RSS) leader clearly made a comment that the RSS will not tolerate with the ideological heresy, just before BJP’s Chinthan Bytak had started. The RSS leader’s words are accepted by the obedient leaders and took action against Mr. Singh. The former Union minister and one of the “fine” leaders of BJP has expelled from the party.
The action against Mr. Singh made the book popular. It is the other side of the expulsion. The publisher got maximum publicity and intensified circulation. The first edition of the book was finished in the very first day of its release itself. The business intensification is also possible through an expulsion.
The more interested thing in the Singh episode is his book’s ban in certain areas of the nation. Mr. Narendra Modi banned the book in his own world, Gujarath. The action was announced within seconds, the action against the author prevailed. The real expression of intolerance of a fascist. Mr. Modi once again scored in his aggressive pro-Hindutva agenda. But in the scoring; the fundamental right and scope for democratic dialogues become a nightmare. We can’t expect it from fascists.
Even though Mr. Singh’s ideology or points of views are not acceptable, unfortunately progressive activists could not to take part of the issue and exploit the situation in a better way by campaigning against the fascist’s anti-human approaches. The real face of fascist rulers is revealed through this episode. Similar to the Nazi ruler Adolph Hitler and fascist emperor Mussolini, BJP leaders and RSS ideologues took action against their own leader. Then what will be the case of an ordinary person who criticizes these ideologies?
