Discord mars goodwill season

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

On the eve of the Onam festival, when people rejoice in memories of a just society characterised by equality and fraternity, Kerala is under a cloud of distrust generated and sustained by acts motivated by political and religious considerations.

A popular myth links Onam with annual homecoming by a benevolent ancient king, Mahabali, whom jealous gods had deposed. Ballads hail his reign as a time when all were equal and there was no falsehood or deceit.

Although the myth connects Onam tenuously with the Hindu religion, scholars are agreed that it is the traditional harvest festival of the region, and followers of all faiths join the celebrations enthusiastically, making it the most important goodwill season in the Keralite’s calendar. In recent years, the state government has developed it as the tourist season.

Onam, which falls next week, acquires added sanctity this year as it coincides with the holy month of Ramadan. Muslims, who form about 25 per cent of the population, constitute the state’s largest minority.

The people of the state have always prided themselves in the region’s long tradition of communal harmony. India’s oldest synagogue, church and mosque are all located in the state. They bear eloquent testimony to this hoary tradition.

Kerala, still under Buddhist-Jain influence, extended a warm welcome to Jews when they landed here centuries ago to escape persecution in Israel. The local Christian community believes St Thomas, one of Jesus’s 12 disciples, came here and preached the gospel. An Arab, Malik bin Deenar, reputedly built the Cheraman mosque at Kodungallur in the lifetime of the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

In the early 1920s, violence erupted in Malabar in the course of the Khilafat movement launched by the Congress at the instance of Mahatma Gandhi. Although the event had communal overtones, scholars are of the opinion that it was primarily anti-British and anti-landlord in character. Thanks to the spirit of inclusiveness promoted by the social reform movements that had swept the region earlier, the trouble did not spread far.

The emergence of vote banks built around religious and caste identities promoted a degree of divisiveness after Independence. Sectarian groups gained political legitimacy as the Congress and Communist parties pampered them to win elections.

Communal sentiments grew in the 1990s in the wake of the Ayodhya temple controversy fanned by the Sangh Parivar. That was when Abdul Naser Mahdani appeared on the horizon. That was also when National Development Front, predecessor of the Popular Front of India, which is now under the scanner following a hand-chopping incident, took birth.

Both the Congress and the CPI-M vied for Mahdani’s favours but he eventually ended up as a pawn on the political chessboard. He spent more than nine years in a Tamil Nadu jail without bail or parole before being acquitted in a bomb blast case. As these lines are written, a police team from Karnataka is waiting to arrest him to face trial in a blast case in that state.

The murder of PK Mohammed Abdul Hassan Maulavi of Chekannur, whose reformist ideas infuriated orthodox elements, in 1993 and the communal riot that rocked the fishing hamlet of Marad in 2002 were rude reminders that fanaticism was on the rise. The warning signals evoked only a weak response.

The hand-chopping case shows how those who ought to act soberly are exacerbating the situation with short-sighted action.

In March, TJ Joseph, a college teacher in Thodupuzha, set a question paper in which students were asked to provide punctuation marks in a text, which was an imaginary dialogue between the Creator and a character named Muhammed. There was nothing in the text to suggest that the character was the Prophet (PBUH) but word spread that the teacher had denigrated the Prophet (PBUH). The college, the university, the government and the media implicitly endorsed the charge of denigration.

Religious leaders in Thodupuzha came together and brought communal sentiments under control quickly. However, elsewhere, some people were plotting revenge. On July 4 Joseph was waylaid near his home in Muvattupuzha while returning from church and his right hand chopped off. Six weeks later, he is back at home, the severed hand sewn up, but the social fabric remains torn.

The political parties have their eyes on the local self-government elections which are at hand and the Assembly elections which are not far away. The CPI-M, eager to live down the impact of its disastrous association with Mahdani in last year’s parliamentary elections, is taking a position close to that of the Bharatiya Janata Party on communally sensitive issues.

Organisations like the pro-CPI-M Democratic Youth Federation of India, the Indian Union Muslim League, the BJP and Jamaat-e-Islami have drawn up separate programmes to repair the damage to the social fabric. The partisan approach reflected in these efforts offers little room for hope.

The grand lottery loot

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Kerala now has the highest per capita income as well as expenditure in India. High-rise buildings and bustling shopping centres strewn all over the state are visible symbols of its prosperity

Official figures never reflected the state’s financial health fully and correctly. Academics were able to inject a measure of realism in statistics relating to income. However, there is no proper understanding of where the money goes.

After a long period of hand-to-mouth existence, the state’s fortunes turned as jobseekers started migrating in droves to the Gulf States in the wake of the oil boom of the 1970s. The savings they sent home boosted the state’s economy.

Since money flowing into banks from abroad did not figure in the government’s books, the state remained below the national average in income tables. Scholars at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, helped correct the picture by working Gulf remittances into the tables.

In the net state domestic product (NSDP) table Kerala is still at the ninth place among 22 states. In the per capita table, it ranks higher — at the sixth place. The NSDP includes income of non-profit institutions too. The Consumer Pyramid constructed by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), which presents a realistic picture of family income, placed the state first with a per capita household income of Rs63,000 in 2009, way ahead of Delhi (Rs55,000) and Punjab (Rs42,000), the other big earners.

Gulf remittances, which were around Rs3 billion a year in the late 1970s, have now grown to about Rs300 billion a year. Banking statistics indicate that domestic savings add up to almost as high a figure as non-resident deposits.

How much of the money that flows in from outside and is generated locally goes into construction and conspicuous consumption? There is no ready answer to this question.

The Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad, which conducted a survey a few years ago to find out how Kerala lives, estimated that each year the people of the state spent about Rs68 billion on marriages and Rs28 billion on medical treatment. The figures it rolled out leave a wide gap between income and expenditure.

There is no reliable estimate of consumer spending in the state. Each year the government conducts a Grand Kerala Shopping Festival with the active cooperation of commercial interests. It claims the festival is a great success but does not divulge any sales figures.

Jewellers are among the government’s major partners in the shopping festival. India, with a sales turnover of 900 tonnes, is the biggest consumer of gold in the world. Kerala, which accounts for less than four per cent of the country’s population, accounts for 25 per cent of the gold sales.

The huge turnover of the jewellers, unofficially estimated at hundreds of billions of rupees, is not reflected in the sales tax figures. Last year the government managed to push up sales tax revenue from Rs1.5 billion to Rs1.8 billion.

Kerala tops in per capita liquor consumption. The Kerala State Beverages Corporation, which has a monopoly over sale of Indian-made foreign liquor, reported a record turnover of Rs55.39 billion in 2009-10. This was 20% more than the previous year’s figure.

The biggest beneficiary of the spurt in liquor sales was the state government. The KSBC contributed Rs42.60 billion to the exchequer by way of sales tax, excise duties, licence fees and other levies last year.

Kerala also tops in the consumption of tobacco. According to the National Sample Survey Organisation, per capita monthly expenditure on tobacco products in the state was Rs.14.50 in the villages and Rs18.50 in the urban areas. The national average for both urban and rural areas was only Rs9.90.

The expenditure story will not be complete until we look at the loot by the lotteries.

Kerala pioneered the system of state lotteries. In 1967, the first year of operation, the state Lotteries department sold tickets worth Rs2 million and made a profit of Rs1.4 million. Over the past four decades, sales have risen to Rs4.84 billion and profit to Rs1.04 billion.

The state Lottery department has now been put in the shade by lotteries operated by private agencies under licences issued by the Sikkim state and the neighbouring country of Bhutan. They take away much more money than the state government.

Based on data relating to tickets printed and sold in the state by private lottery agencies, Mathrubhumi, a leading newspaper, reported last week that they are siphoning off about Rs157 billion from the state each year.

Apparently a large number of poor people in the state today pin their hopes for a better future not on the state government but on the governments of Sikkim and Bhutan whose agents have lured them with schemes that provide for several draws each day.

Controversy over judges’ remarks

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Talkative judges, testy politicians and sensational media can make a deadly combination. As the cacophony that reverberated through Kerala last weekend showed.

It all started with Justice S Siri Jagan castigating the government for failing to comply with a high court directive to act against illegal quarrying in the Malayattoor and Neeleswaram areas.

He had before him two writ petitions, including one filed by a citizens’ group named Grama Samrakshana Samithi, seeking action against those carrying on quarrying in land allotted by the government for agricultural purposes.

When the matter came up earlier the court had ordered cancellation of the patta (title) of land where quarrying was on. It also asked the government to recover from the land owners the cost of the granite that had been quarried and to ascertain whether the Mining and Geology department had quarrying licences unlawfully.

The government informed the court that the pattas had been cancelled but sought time to submit a report on the loss to the state and the role of Mining and Geology officials.

Giving expression to the court’s displeasure at the government’s tardy response to the court’s directive, the judge wondered whether it was working for the benefit of politicians and mafia gangs. In a pointed reference to the inaction of the police, he pointed out that the court could issue a directive to call in the army if the government was unable to maintain law and order.

Those were harsh words but, then, it is not unusual for judges to express displeasure in strong terms. The government was, however, upset as it had been subjected to such criticism often in recent times.

In a measured response to Justice Siri Jagan’s remarks, Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said judges should introspect on the propriety of such comments. His party colleague MV Jayarajan, who is already under the scanner for attacks on the courts, let loose another harangue.

In an unprecedented action, Advocate General Sudhakar Prasad called on Chief Justice J Chelameswar to convey to him the government’s displeasure over repeated adverse comments by judges.

The Supreme Court had recently expunged similar remarks made by two other judges of the Kerala high court.

While hearing bail applications of the accused in a case of attempted murder last year, Justice V Ramkumar had observed that law and order in the state was in a shambles and that many criminals came from the Home Minister’s constituency. On an appeal by the state government, the Supreme Court ruled last month that the comments were unnecessary, ill-timed and uncalled for.

Last week the Supreme Court removed from an order of Justice K Padmanabhan Nair an observation that the sandalwood mafia’s influence appeared to extend to the office of the Forest Minister.

The decision came on a petition by KP Viswanathan, Forest Minister in the then United Democratic Front government, who had resigned in the wake of the court’s stricture. The apex upheld his contention that the high court should not have made such an observation without hearing him.

While in the former case expunction came in just one year, in the other the process took more than five years. As Viswanathan has pointed out, had the decision come sooner he could have returned to the Cabinet.

Political parties generally take a narrow view of judges’ remarks which are incidental and not binding. The opposition sees them as a stick with which to beat the government.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist, which is crying hoarse over Justice Siri Jagan’s comments, had hailed Justice Padmanabhan Nair’s remarks against Viswanathan.

Such remarks by judges, referred to as obiter dicta, receive undue public attention in Kerala as the media, aware of their sensational worth, play them up. Many mainstream newspapers displayed Justice Siri Jagan’s comments under eight-column headlines at the top of the front page.

There is a case for introspection, as suggested by Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, but not by judges alone. The judges must certainly ask themselves whether the impact of obiter dicta was not diminishing as a result of overuse. The politicians must ask themselves whether they are not overreacting to them. Above all, the media must ask themselves whether they are serving the best interests of the society by dwelling too much on casual comments which have only ephemeral value. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, August 2, 2010.

Gearing up for a decisive poll

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Besides the long-established political parties, a host of smaller entities, many of them with no political affiliation, are preparing to contest the local self-government institutions (LSGIs) in Kerala, which is likely to be held towards the end of September.

LSGIs constitute the lowest levels of administration. They are bodies elected to exercise authority at the district, block and town and village levels.

As in the elections to Parliament and the State Assembly, the main contenders for power in LSGIs are the Left Democratic Front and the United Democratic Front. Traditionally, the LDF has had an edge over the UDF, thanks to the well-oiled election machinery of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, which heads the alliance.

In the last elections, held in 2005, the CPI-M got control of all five city corporations, all but one of 14 district panchayats, a majority of the municipal councils and block panchayats and nearly 700 out of about 1,000 village panchayats.

A series of reverses suffered by the CPI-M in by-elections to local bodies held during the past year point to erosion of its mass base. With a disastrous Lok Sabha poll behind it and new Assembly elections less than a year away, it has much at stake in the LSGI elections.

This is one reason why the CPI-M, which limited the role of small LDF constituents four years ago, is now willing to placate even the smallest splinter group. It recently decided to retain the breakaway P C Thomas faction of the Kerala Congress (Joseph) in the alliance and welcomed back the National Congress Party which had been shown the door earlier.

Originally, the panchayat system did not envisage division along party lines. However, lately local bodies too have become an arena of partisan warfare.

The last LDF government had initiated a programme of democratic decentralisation and people’s participation in the planning process. It generated a lot of enthusiasm, which evaporated fast. People’s interest in local bodies waned as parties which controlled them resorted to favouritism.

The coming elections are the first since women’s reservation in LSGIs was raised from 33 per cent to 50 per cent. When women’s reservation was introduced, the political parties drafted wives and daughters of their leaders as candidates. The CPI-M picked candidates from the ranks of its student and women’s affiliates too.

When elected, these candidates generally acted as proxies for male party functionaries. Those who refused to do so were reined in. As a result, women’s empowerment, the proclaimed objective of reservation, remains unrealised.

The Bharatiya Janata Party and the People’s Democratic Party of Abdul Naser Mahdani, which fought LSGI elections in the past and are holding the balance between the LDF and the UDF in some local bodies, are hoping to improve their position this time.

Several new players are also preparing to enter the arena. They include the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Social Democratic Party of India, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Dalit Human Rights Movement.

The BSP, a recognised national party which is in power in Uttar Pradesh, has only a small presence in Kerala. The SDPI is the political wing of the Popular Front of India, which is under a cloud following the arrest of several of its members in connection with the chopping of the hand of a college teacher at Muvattupuzha, allegedly as punishment for denigration of the Prophet (PBUH).

The Jamaat and the SDPI have done considerable groundwork in areas where they have influence. Both the groups are planning to field Muslim women in constituencies where the community has substantial presence.

A large number of civic groups involved in agitations over environmental and developmental issues are also likely to contest the elections. They want to challenge the stranglehold of the LDF and the UDF on state politics. CPI-M dissidents may also enter the fray.

All this invests the LSGI elections with unusual significance. The outcome of the election may well decide whether the present two-front system can survive for survive.
With many forces vying with one another, multi-cornered contests are inevitable. The resulting splintering of votes will work to the advantage of the two fronts. Realising this, the small entities are exploring the possibility of coming together on a common platform. All of them agree on the need to eliminate corruption and favouritism which are rampant in LSGIs today.

Of the party, by the party, for the party

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Forget Abraham Lincoln’s definition of democracy. Kerala has rewritten it to read ‘government of the front, by the front, for the front.’ Since Left Democratic Front constituents other than the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) are midgets, under LDF rule democracy gets reduced to ‘government of the party, by the party, for the party.’

Last week, George Mercier, a member of the opposition United Democratic Front, asked in the State Assembly how many cases of attacks on women had been registered and how many women had been killed since the present government took office.

Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan replied that police had registered 33,148 cases of attacks on women and 243 women had been killed during the past four years.

There is nothing to suggest that attacks on women have increased under LDF rule. Since the question was about cases reported after the LDF came to power, there was no occasion for the minister to provide comparable figures of the UDF period.

In limiting the inquiry to the period of LDF rule Mercier was following a pattern set by others before him. Members often use the question hour to ferret out material which may show the other side in a bad light.

How much has been spent by ministers of this government on entertainment, on telephone calls, on air travel? Such questions come up regularly in the Assembly.

The information the government provides may not be enough to decide whether the spending was justified but it will be enough to plant a suspicion in people’s minds that ministers are spendthrifts.

The change of government in 2006 may not have led to a growth in the crime rate or rise in ministerial extravagance, but there is reason to believe the tendency to misuse authority is increasing. Since many officials are aligned with the CPI-M through service organisations, it is easy for the party to help those whom it favours.

One of the earliest scandals of the present government relates to irregularities in the appointment of assistants in Kerala University. The Upa-Lokayuta, who inquired into the matter, concluded that there had been political interference. The beneficiaries were members of the CPI-M’s youth and student affiliates. The issue is now before the high court.

During the Upa-Lokayukta’s inquiry it came to light that the answer papers of 40,000-odd candidates who took the examination held for filling the post had disappeared. The external agency which evaluated the papers said it had returned them to the university but the university denied having received them. The university bodies are packed with nominees of political parties who are ready to do their bidding.

While revising the voters list of the Kannur constituency before the by-election to the Assembly last year, 9,357 new names were added. Many new voters were shown as staying in buildings under the CPI-M’s control. The Congress alleged that the party had fudged the list with the help of officials.

The Election Commission directed the district authorities to register a case and investigate. While they complied with the directive, the chances of effective prosecution of the guilty officials are thin.

Punishing deserters is as much a part of the scheme as rewarding the faithful. After the Janata Dal quit the LDF and joined the UDF, its president, MP Veerendrakumar, and his son, MV Shreyamskumar, MLA, have come under attack as land grabbers.

The CPI-M Wayanad district secretary CK Saseendran led a group of tribal people under the banner of the Adivasi Kshema Samithi and occupied an estate belonging to Shreyamskumar. The court ordered that they be removed. In a stage-managed show, the police evicted the squatters only to return after the cops left.

High court judges who watched a video of the eviction drama noted that legislators had tried to obstruct the police and asked the Advocate General to advise those concerned to respect the law.

The CPI-M justifies the encroachment on Shreyamskumar’s property saying he is in illegal possession of land that belongs to the Adivasis. The land was in his possession all through the two decades during which the Janata Dal was an LDF constituent. The party or its governments did nothing to reclaim it for the Adivasis during that period.

The most worrying aspect of political infiltration of the service is the reported formation of CPI-M fractions in the police. It was in the 1990s that the presence of party members in the police first came to light. Recently the media reported that policemen had been called to party offices in some places for meetings. – Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 19, 2010.

Degeneration of decentralised planning

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Kerala has a proud record as a pioneer of decentralised planning in India, having launched a programme for preparing development plans with people’s participation soon after the Indian constitution was amended to facilitate devolution of power to local self-government (LSG) institutions at the district, block and village levels.

While the state’s performance in this regard has won acclaim nationally, those who have been associated with the programme at one stage or another during the past 15 years are agreed that it is plagued by problems that defeat its very purpose.

The people’s plan programme was launched with fanfare by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government headed by EK Nayanar. The formation of a committee headed by EMS Nambooripad, the tallest leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), to propagate the programme testified to the importance attached to it by the party which heads the LDF.

The Nayanar government, while transferring control over institutions under several departments to LSGs, announced that one-third of the state’s annual budget outlay will be earmarked for them.

The Congress-led United Democratic Front government, which came to power in 2001, retained the decentralised set-up but rechristened the programme as Kerala development plan, presumably because the original name was associated in the popular mind with the LDF government. When the LDF returned to power four years ago, many people expected it to re-launch the people’s plan but it did not.

An expert team, headed by MA Oommen, a noted economist, appointed by the present government, said in a report presented last year that the programme had failed to achieve its primary objective of boosting agricultural production. Farm output which was growing at 3.42 per cent a year declined at 0.29 per cent a year after the introduction of decentralised planning.

It found that there had been a decline in people’s participation in the planning effort. Development seminars, which were conceived as a means of preparing people to participate in the planning process, had been reduced to a ritual. Plans were being prepared by officials. It cited the case of a junior clerk who prepared 120 projects for LSGs in just one month.

Dr S Mohanakumar, KM Shajahan and N Niyathi, who were involved in the programme in the early period, presented their assessment of its working at a seminar organised by the Kerala Vikasana Samithi in Thiruvananthapuram recently.

Mohanakumar, who is attached to the Institute of Development Sudies, Jaipur, is a CPI-M member. Shajahan, who was on the personal staff of VS Achuthanandan when he was Leader of the Opposition, was expelled from the party for alleged anti-party activities. Niyathi has no political affiliation. All three agreed that the expectations raised by people’s planning remain unfulfilled.

Mohanakumar laid the blame for the failure of the programme at the doors of the Kerala Sastra Sahithya Parishad, a non-governmental organisation, whose activists were involved in the preparatory efforts. He also said a section of the CPI-M was opposed to the programme.

He pointed out both LDF and UDF started distributing benefits under various schemes administered through LSGs to their members and supporters disregarding all parameters. As people’s participation declined, everything came under the control of the bureaucracy.

He alleged that only 35 to 70 per cent of the fund allotted for a scheme was spent. The rest of the money was shared by officials, contractors and politicians under an agreed formula.

Shajahan observed that decentralised planning had turned into decentralised corruption. The Comptroller and Auditor General had pointed out that several LSGs had failed to submit their accounts to the Local Fund Audit department for scrutiny.

Of the more than 18,000 LSG members about 12,000 belonged to the CPI-M members and many of them also held party posts, he said. They were handling the money allotted to LSGs. There were discrepancies in the statistics provided by the government about LSG spending. The mechanism created to scrutinise the accounts was failing. All this pointed to large-scale corruption under cover of decentralisation.

Niyathi pointed out that the commitment to transfer one-third of the state budget to LSGs was not being honoured. While the Nayanar government gave 29.6 per cent and the UDF government 28.8 per cent, the present LDF government had given them only 21.6 per cent. In the absence of effective coordination among various official agencies, projects often suffered. He cited the examples of hospital buildings remaining unused as there was no water or power or staff. – Gulf Today, Sharjah, July 12, 2010.

Vehicle Rally by Hartal Opponents in Kochi

Say No to Hartal campaigners on the road in Kochi on Monday

On Monday, about 25 citizens opposed to the hartal called by the Left parties and the Bharatiya Janata Party took out a Vahana Jatha (Vehicle Rally) in Kochi under the auspices of the Say No to Hartal campaign

The following is a message from Facebook friend Raju P. Nair who took the initiative in organizing the campaign:

Thank you for the support extended.

As informed, Say NO to Hartal held a Vahana Jatha to protest against the hartals. I am happy that almost 25 cars and some eminent personalities took part in the Jatha held today. Hon’ble Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer inaugurated the Jatha by handing over the flag to the Jatha Captain.

Rotary International, Chamber of Commerce and Travel Operators Association of Kerala extended their support.

Ms. Deepthi Mary Varghese, Fr. Roby Kannancheril, Director, Chavara Cultural Center and Mr. Mansour of the Chamber of Commerce led the Jatha.


Say No to Hartal campaigners offering transportation to stranded passengers at Ernakulam Jn railway station

The vehicles which took part in the Jatha proceeded to the Ernakulam Jn railway station and offered free transfers to stranded passengers.

The media extended great support to this movement.

Request your support to this campaign in the future. Please kick off a debate in the media about the bill presented by Hon'ble Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer against the bandhs and harthals.