Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Congress ills behind VS' remarkable showing


Mail Today edit page, May 17, 2011
THE Left Democratic Front was defeated in Kerala’s assembly polls, but it also handed out a humiliating victory to the Congress- led United Democratic Front, and the photo- finish was hailed as an endorsement of chief minister VS Achuthananthan’s brand of Left politics. Too big a bundle of contradictions; too convoluted even for cynical chroniclers of Malayali lives and times. Worse, the seemingly simple twoseat majority of the UDF barely hides a massive communal mobilisation of Christians and Muslims.
Kerala while continuing its tradition of voting out the incumbent has also reflected the nation- wide anger against corrupt politicians and arrogant satraps.
Just a few months before the polls, Achuthananthan had won a big political battle when the Supreme Court convicted a former UDF minister in a graft case. Also, the re- emergence of the ice cream parlour sex scandal against Muslim League leader PK Kunhalikutty, this time in the garb of shocking allegations of corruption against two former high court judges, weighed heavily on the minds of the voter — enough to turn the tables against the Opposition and narrow the gap between the two fronts.
Achuthananthan
It was the no- holds- barred fight between the state secretary of the CPI( M), Pinarayi Vijayan and the rebellious chief minister that humbled the Left in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. VS, as Achuthananthan is popularly known in the state, did all he could to muddy the waters, always making sure that he appeared to be upholding Left politics, while tarring the Vijayan faction as a reactionary aberration within the Marxist fold. The old man knows well that politics is only about perception.
In the monolithic Marxist party of Kerala, VS introduced the politics of factious and fractious manipulation by decimating towering trade union leaders like E Balanandan and demoting incorruptible Marxists like KN Ravindranath at the state party conference at Palakkad in 1998. And the alternative leadership that VS propped up was that of Vijayan. The insecure leader’s insidious motive was clear: to remote- control the party organisation by promoting a green horn to the highest position.
But Vijayan soon outwitted the man by weaning away the VS faction and emerging as the strongest leader in the state party. VS, the backroom player, for the first time was without organisational props to stage his absurd theatre of empty slogans. But around this time, a clutch of Left intellectuals and activists began advising him to take a sharper Left- turn to address the issues of corruption, trafficking and to attack people in positions of privilege even if they were political friends.
That marked the birth of the biggest mass leader in contemporary Kerala politics. His connect with the masses peaked when he was hailed the best ever Opposition leader during his 2001- 06 stint. The mass upsurge against the party’s decision not to field him in 2006, prompting the leadership to reverse its decision, still remains the simmering undercurrent of his popular support. The apparatchik was asking the masses to bomb the headquarters, calling the party’s friends in the real estate business, ‘ despicable’. Whenever he was under attack from within the organisation, the people hailed his ‘ rebel’ image. His incompetence as a chief minister was blamed on the intransigence of the party bureaucracy.
So, a vote for VS on many occasions was also a vote against the party, against the official faction led by Vijayan and his chosen ministers in the VS cabinet who had openly defied the chief minister. Even while voting for VS, the people were voting out his government.
Travancore
The six southern districts that once made up the princely Travancore state normally determine the rulers of the state, particularly the three coastal districts of Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Alleppey. But this time around they favoured the incumbent, more precisely VS. This is being read by analysts as a Hindu consolidation against the Christian- Muslim gang up under the UDF banner. This reading of a Hindu consolidation is a bit juvenile for many reasons. Traditionally Christians and Muslims are exhorted by their respective clergy to vote against the godless Communists.
Some of these deeply communal constituencies are so impregnable that the Left candidates often contest as independents as in the case of Sebastian Paul in Ernakulam and KT Jaleel in Malappuram.
But southern Travancore districts seem to have seen a different convergence: the consolidation of the influential backward caste Ezhavas, the traditional vote bank of the Left, along with Dalits and other lower castes. After the expulsion of the legendary leader KR Gowri from the CPI( M ) in 1994, VS had emerged as the tallest leader of the party from the Ezhava community.
The Ezhavas, the single largest Hindu block in the state who form over 20 per cent of the state’s population, have other reasons too to vote for CPI( M). There were only 13 Ezhavas among the 82 candidates of the Congress party in the fray. And of these, just three have won the polls, making a mockery of representational politics within the grand old party. This only underlined the fact that the Congress largely remains the party of the old feudal interests, now represented by Nairs and the socalled upper caste Syrian Christians. No wonder the lower caste fisher folk, defied their Latin Catholic church and voted for the Left in Aleppey and Kollam.
Communalism
So, the results seem to be a thumbs- down from the Ezhavas to the KPCC president Ramesh Chennithala, a Nair, and Opposition leader Oommen Chandy, a Syrian Orthodox Christian, who in public perception represent their respective communities more than the people. The high command too decided to overlook the claims of veteran Congressman from the Ezhava community, Vayalar Ravi or the spotlessly clean idealist VM Sudheeran.
Apart from this blatant promotion of upper caste interests, the communal tag stuck firmly on Congress because of its old allies, the Muslim League and the Kerala Congress. A party solely for Christians in a state ruled by a Christian chief minister doesn’t occur to be an anomaly for the Church. Many Malayalis firmly believe that the Vatican directly intervened to get the Kerala Congress factions backing either front to merge to form one entity to take on the Left.
The merged Kerala Congress faction now has nine seats and this government with a razor thin majority offers great scope for Kerala Congress leader KM Mani’s temptation to be chief minister. Chandy can only pray hard to the saints and the Vatican to appear in Mani’s dreams and desist him from switching sides towards the ‘ Satan’. Chandy owes this victory completely to the Muslim League and its sullied supremo Kunhalikutty. The League won 20 out of 24 seats and helped UDF candidates in several other constituencies with a considerable Muslim population. Despite charges of having had sex with a minor and buying up high court judges to avoid a CBI enquiry, Kunhalikutty has won with a huge margin of 38,237 votes. Interestingly, his apologists attribute this stupendous victory to VS’ vendetta politics. He had vigorously pursued the cases against Kunhalikutty, probably fuelling a sense of insecurity among the Muslims who had already punished Kunhalikutty and the Muslim League in the 2006 assembly polls.
VS truly towered over the rest in every which way in these polls, at times helping the Left and often hurting his party. But he was always successful in addressing the masses in their language, upholding the politics of the powerless against people with privilege, however insincere the attempt may have been.
rajesh.ramachandran@mailtoday.in

4 comments:

Dr.RAJ said...

Brilliant narrative. It is time the minority and majority stop thinking about their respective caste/creed groups and vote for leaders who are clean and can perform. Its a shame that a leader like VM Sudheeran, the best candidate for a congress CM is sitting at home watching all the theatrics of kerala (non)politics.

athi said...

Wow! I'd never thought about the whole VS-side of the drama in this angle! Perspective turned out to be informative to me! :) I see that I have a long way to go ;-)

Rajesh Ramachandran said...

@Manu: Ezhavas, one of the biggest communities in the state, has been the most progressive one that shunned communalism and embraced modernity. Despite the tag of 'OBC' the community never allowed itself to be manipulated by upper caste saffron politicians or cynical OBC politicos as it happened in other Indian states like Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The great Dravidian upsurge was reduced to a 'quota' movement led by corrupt politicians in TN. It was turned into a mockery by opportunists like Lalu and Mualayam in Bihar and UP. Instead, look at the grand direction given to the community by Sri Narayana Guru and politicians like C Kesavan; look at the steadfast politics of empowerment of the community in Kerala, which refuses to get swayed by jokers like Nadesan. Despite the Christian-Muslim-Nair feudal gang up and lack of charismatic leaders after Gowriamma, the community refuses to stray from the mainstream political discourse of empowerment.

Rajesh Ramachandran said...

@Athi: Many thanks...