Red alert: Pinarayi Vijayan is giving BJP a free pass into Kerala

A few months ago the BJP led a march from Kannur to Thiruvananthapuram. Amit Shah himself came for the padyatra but was shocked to see the lukewarm interest shown by the public. Today thousands are marching under the banner of Save Sabarimala yatra spearheaded by the BJP state president Sreedharan Pillai. And there lies the failure of the Congress and the CPM.

Just think of it. The BJP was, in a way, instrumental in getting women entry into the temple. They needed to show they were fair, especially at a time when they were pushing for laws to ban triple talaq, obviously targeted at the Muslims. Tripti Desai was backed to the hilt by the RSS and the BJP which helped women get entry into the Shani temple in Maharashtra. She also had to take a stand on Sabarimala.

Once the Supreme Court gave its verdict allowing women of all ages entry into Sabarimala, the BJP acted shrewdly. They have conveniently taken a U-turn in Kerala and launched a movement against women’s entry into Sabarimala, while the central leadership has sealed its lips. Whatever else, the BJP has shown they are very good at politics.

Now look at the Congress. They always backed the temple traditions. While in power, the party filed affidavits against breaking the tradition. And now in the opposition, it was caught off-guard, letting the BJP walk away with all the credit for protests.

Now come to the Hindu party of Kerala - the CPM. Its vote bank is essentially the backward castes and a little bit of upper castes, Christians and Muslims thrown in. The Left govt in the state is entrusted with implementing the Supreme Court order. But the party did read the pitch wrong. It is one thing to be progressive, but it is another thing to be blind to the mood on the ground. The turnout in the CPM bastion of Kannur for instance was quite big, enough to make heads turn. By the time the party thought of seeking talks with the protesters, it was too late.

The Kerala CPM, which is pragmatic in its economics, was found to be naive in its politics. One way to blunt religious fervour is to play on other divides like caste, gender. So far it hasn’t worked.

The Sabarimala protests give the BJP a glimmer of hope in Kerala. Almost every Hindu in the state worships Ayyappan. In Sabarimala, the BJP has found a Mandir issue tailor-made for the state. For that the BJP has to be thankful to the CPM.

Day in and day out, CPM’s social media is mocking, taunting believers. The cadres must understand they are not in a school debate, but in the actual business of winning and keeping votes. You don’t win friends by ridiculing them.

So what is it that drives Pinarayi Vijayan? Why didn’t he make any effort to pacify the devotees? Is it out of conviction or arrogance? If it is out of commitment to liberal values, to gender equality, he is a true icon. But if it is pure arrogance, he might be presiding over an irreversible decline of the CPM. Just remember Bengal every now and then.

The flood fighting hero has become the ‘Hindu hating’ villain, at least in perception. Three months is a long time in politics, Pinarayi Vijayan would have learnt by now.

Also read:
1) SC has got its Sabarimala ruling wrong, horribly wrong

2) In love with Ayyappan: The forgotten story of Leela

Stand by Meesha, or else shave your meesha

This week I got a whatsapp forward. The local unit of the Nair Service Society (NSS), a body that represents Nairs, an upper caste in Kerala, calling upon all community members to boycott Mathrubhumi newspaper till it apologises for publishing S. Hareesh’s novel Meesha (Moustache).

Then I got another forward, this one called the NSS resolution an interference in personal space and attack on individual rights. This message also warned that a boycott of Mathrubhumi will invariably help Malayala Manorama, owned by a Christian. But it didn’t question the assault on free speech.

Here is the excerpt from the novel which they are objecting to:

Why do girls take bath and go to temples all decked-up? A friend who used to accompany my walks till six months ago asked me once. 

"To pray," I said. 

"No, give a closer look. Why put on your best and doll up to pray? They are sub-consciously conveying their readiness for sex." 

I laughed. 

"If not why do they fail to turn up at temples four or five days a month? To let others know they are not ready, especially the temple priests. You know, they were the real playboys those days."

It’s obvious the chivalrous Nair men, or the Sangh Parivar elements they are backing, can’t have any of it. But we are yet to hear from any women about this, all the whatsapp messages circulating are valiant men pledging to save their sundar-susheel sisters.

Even these moral cops would admit that long before we got shopping malls, temples were where we wooed our girls. Where we schemed chance meetings to get the sandalwood tika on our foreheads by them. Many a love affair has taken root and blossomed in temples or ulsavapparambu.

Now, take the ban on women visiting temples during menstruation: it is not enforced the way it is in Kerala anywhere else in India. The character in the novel in his own way is giving a reasoning for a subject which is now being debated by no less than the Supreme Court.

If art, literature and films were to follow the Hindutva cowboys’ newly drafted moral code, we would have villains in films seeking the permission of women before a rape scene, drunkards reading out the ‘alcohol is injurious to health’ warnings before every sip of brandy and ‘shwaasakosam’ warning before every puff.

DC Books’ decision to publish Meesha is laudable. Such nonsense should be called out right from the beginning, and any attempt to censor must be nipped in the bud. If we don’t do it, we might as well shave our moustache and pretend it never was there. 

Eeda, the story of Kannur

I am just back from a vacation and depressed, and I am three Old Monk pegs down, yet I write this, because Eeda is a film that should be watched and talked about.

In the theatre I saw the film, there were two in the audience, I and an IT professional. When the film began, he was sitting in the last row, I somewhere in the middle. After the interval, we took seats next to each other, hoping our change of seats will make sure a good ending for the hero and heroine.

From the beginning the love affair between Anand and Aishwarya was doomed to fail. Their fate was sealed the day they fell in love, Sara had told me (she had watched the movie before me).

The two lovers come from BJP and CPM families in Kannur, that northern district of Kerala which has made national headlines, thanks to the bloodsport played by the two political parties.

The film is more than just a love affair. It is also about the longest political feud of India, one that has claimed over hundred lives in the last five decades or so. The film exposes both BJP and CPM in equal measure, though it doesn’t name them.

Shane Nigam has done a wonderful job, his dad Aby deserved to see his performance. Aby, himself an actor, died a few weeks before the film released.

The real star is Nimisha Sajayan. While writing the review of her previous film Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum I had to Google-search her name. Now I am a fan.

Nimisha is an unlikely heroine. She isn’t fair, she isn’t glamorous, she isn’t size zero. What she is, is a versatile actor. Her expressions are priceless. The trepidation while proposing, the joy and relief when she knows Anand too likes her, the agony when she knows he comes from a BJP family, the futility, the anguish, the tragedy… You will fall in love with Aishwarya, you will pray for her and Anand, you will feel the despair, you will feel the pain, and you will feel helpless as the story unfolds.

Anand and Aishwarya are Romeo and Juliet, tweeted N.S. Madhavan. How I wish she was Cinderella and he the prince.

PS
This film must be shown to national media journalists who treat Kannur violence as a scorecard just like the BJP and CPM do. Everybody overlooks the human cost.

In my spirited exuberance, I failed to mention writer-director Ajithkumar. He has exposed how the BJP and CPM trample individual liberties in so-called party villages. Expect more and better films from him.