Kerala Elections: A Collection of Paradoxes

The month long wait for election results was painful for both the ruling and the opposition coalitions in Kerala. The people’s verdict added to the pain by providing one coalition the slenderest ever margin to govern the state. In other words, the leading coalition has just two seats more than the required minimum majority in the house. This poses a number of questions on the future of the government. Election results exposed the immaturity of the pre-election analysts who assumed that the results will go along the traditional way and predicted that the margin of the winning party could be somewhere between 10 and 20 seats.

This was the third election in the state during the last two years and in the last two elections, the Congress led UDF made landslide victory against the ruling left coalition. In 2009 Parliament election, the congress led UDF won 16 out of 20 seats with convincible margin of 47.73 percent votes against 41.89 percent of LDF. Exactly a year back, the election to the local administration bodies, where generally the ruling left coalition shows its paramount strength, Congress led UDF produced a strong show in all three tiers of panchayat system along with municipalities and corporations.

Anti-incumbency factor has emerged as a special privilege or an extra advantage for the opposition in any election. Both in 2009 Parliament election and 2010 Local body election it played a decisive role against ruling LDF government. But the results of 2011 Assembly election shows that the anti-incumbency factor failed to create much impact where it was suppose to do its best. What are the other factors influenced the assembly election in Kerala? What went wrong for the opposition or what factor made a sudden change in the political mood of the state to take a U-turn to support the ruling front?

Political situation between 2009 Parliament election and 2011 Assembly election

During the Parliament election, anti-incumbency wave against the ruling LDF was very much predominant in the state. Internal feud in CPI-M, infighting between CPI-M and other parties in the LDF and political failure in handling powerful segments in the society such as Catholic Church added fuel in the fire against the ruling front. On the other hand, the Congress led opposition settled its differences within the front and gained support of the communities who got frustrated with the government. The result was victory with thumping majority in 16 seats which includes the traditional strongholds of the LDF for many years. The LDF was sidelined with just 4 seats.

Those who read these political indicators properly, moved very fast to consolidate their position in the UDF. Before the election to the local bodies, both fronts have gone through a round of political realignment. The section which was dissatisfied with the way of government functioned as well as with its relationship with Church decided to move out from the LDF and join with UDF through a merger with similar minded party. Kerala Congress faction, which was with LDF, lead by P. J. Joseph broke its political understanding with LDF and joined in Kerala Congress faction of UDF lead by K. M. Mani. The merger helped the UDF to consolidate the votes of middle class agrarian segment of the society, which was predominantly from Christian community. This political consolidation played a big role in the local bodies election occurred in October 2010.

Same internal strife of 2009 in CPI-M continued during this election and the changes in the political alignment of the front added more trouble into it. Attempt to create a divide in Muslim votes by gathering support of controversial leader Abdul Nazer Maudany ended up in suicidal note for LDF. In fact, the controversial move with Maudany attracted popular attention rather than the efforts to highlight the political and economical achievements of LDF regime. The result was another hammering defeat for LDF and the impact of this defeat was much more significant than the earlier one. Panchayat election literally challenged the political base of the Left Front. The result exposed the irrelevance of the cadre based party in the rural roots in converting their reach and abilities into vote.

2011 Assembly election

There was barely six months gap between the Panchayat election and the Assembly election and Congress led UDF expected a cakewalk along with landslide victory with more than 100 seats. The projections by various agencies based on the voting patterns of previous two elections suggested that they can touch 110 seats out of 140. On the other hand, LDF also started preparation by settling the difference in the coalition much ahead of election and declaring more popular welfare programmes to retain the support of people. The last budget of the government was intended to bring back the lost trust of common people through populist programmes.

The left leaders may not believe in god or the almighty but they showed how to utilise such type of divine intervention properly. While concentrating on attacking the LDF government on the basis of corruption allegations, the opposition never expected an attack from within on a controversial sex scandal issue which involved one senior leader and minister in the former UDF ministry. A television channel broke some sensational news regarding the ‘Ice-Cream Sex Scandal’ case and involvement of then Industry minister and IUML general secretary P.K. Kunhalikutty. This episode got worsened when Kunjalikutty appeared in another television channel and defended himself by accepting that he has done some unconstitutional favours to some people.

Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan, who was fighting against corruption from his opposition days onwards utilised this opportunity and ordered to reopen the case. The revelation of Kunhalikutty on one side and one of his very close relative, who was part in all wrong doings, on the other side put the entire opposition on back foot. Mean while, the campaign against corruption by Anna Hazare in Delhi gathered a momentum in the whole country and it turned against the corruption allegations of UDF leaders in their earlier turn. Supreme Court verdict against the former minister and the leader of one Kerala Congress faction Mr. R. Balakrishna Pillai made the political condition worsened for UDF. A rejuvenated campaign under the leadership of the octogenarian Chief Minister focused on corruption matters worked with accuracy against the clueless leadership of UDF.

Achuthanandan factor –an image of tireless fighting spirit against corruption provided a clear edge during election campaign for the LDF. Though the party leadership was not supportive towards the self initiated campaign programme of Achuthanandan, the acceptance for his efforts among the common people forced the CPI-M official group to accept his position and follow him. The national leadership of CPI-M realised the effect of Chief Minister’s involvement but the reluctance to anger the official faction come out as delay in decision making. CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat, instead of taking the decision to declare Achuthanandan’s leadership in the campaign, opted for passing the ball to central committee and from there to state committee and district committee etc.

Paradoxes

The election result revealed a number of important facts. The unexpected performance from LDF in the election forced the CPI-M state leadership to eat their own words and regret their doings. The delay in the declaration of campaign leadership boomeranged on the face of the official faction and losing the election by merely 4 seats will forever remain big question mark for the front of the national and state leadership. Paradox is that notwithstanding huge popular support; the official decisions can fail you in an election.

Congress led UDF strengthened their position by adding some sections from the other side. It helped them in earlier election but created more confusion during the seat allocation time and ended up in wasting time on un-necessary discussions. At the end, when result was declared, the performance of the strengthened group ended up in just 4 seat majority and losing large number vote share in the state. Paradox is that though coalitiona making by adding parties without any particular political agenda was thought to be make the opposition stronger, the four seat majority has created more complexity for the Congress, as it has share the burden of contradictory demands by innumerable other coalition partners. Thus the coalitioin is weakened by the demands of the partners themselves.

The Biggest paradox was the performance of P. K. Kunhalikutty. Nationwide anti-corruption campaign made a special impact in Kerala during the election and the confessions of the close relative of Kunhalikutty about the sex scandal and his involvement added more fuel to it. Common people in the state expected that the revelations on sex scandal will isolate him within the Muslim community. This also was thought to end in a polarisation of Muslim votes between two fronts. When the results were declared, the much tainted former minster emerged as a hero with second highest victory margin in the whole state. Instead of polarisation of Muslim votes, the state witnessed a particular way of consolidation of votes behind the leadership of Kunhalikutty. In fact, the UDF gained an edge over its opposition thanks to the IUML for the latter’s contribution of votes.

Another but a significant paradox is about the performance of the BJP. In every election, it has been claiming that it would open its account and second, it would improve its vote share in the state. In the early hours of counting, BJP showed some symptoms of blooming lotus in two places –Nemam constituency in Thiruvanamthapuram district and Manjeswaram in Kasaragod district. By the end of counting, however, not only in these two places but as in all other 136 places, BJP failed to open account as well as to increase vote share in the state. To add salt to the wound, its vote share too showed a secular decline- from 6.43 percent in 2009 Parliament election, it had only 6.03 percent to shown in its kitty.

Kerala election had provided the CPI-M leadership a good opportunity to provide a facelift to the party battered badly in places like Bengal. However, the leadership and its failure to come up with right decision at the right time cost it dearly and it will be regretted for a long time to come. The CPI-M missed another historical opportunity this time in Kerala to govern the state continuously for second term and use the time and space to continue its role.

English Premier League 2010-2011 season

It is very sad to see a good team which plays a positive football got relegated on the last day of the league season. There was nothing wrong in the victory of Manchester United against Blackpool on the last day when they collected their 19th league title. But, on the other side, a team, with very limited resources, which played throughout the season very attractively, lost their final match and relegated from the Premier league. I really felt very bad for Ian Holloway, the manager of Blackpool and for their well committed players. On the ground, Blackpool entertained people more than half of the teams in the league.

By winning the league for 19th time, Manchester United surpassed the existing record of Liverpool of 18 titles. In fact, Liverpool never won a ‘Premier League’ title from its beginning in 1992/93 season. In fact, from creation of ‘Premier League’ until now, one can see the domination of a single person –Sir Alex Ferguson. He built several generations of Manchester United team and reaped success from all of them. Many pundits observe that his best buy was Eric Cantona who had a big role for ManU in their first EPL success. For me, his induction of a bunch of players was his best contribution for the team. Cantona helped them to galvanised in the team and Roy Keane’s captaincy helped to bring them up together. I am talking about the upbringing of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt, David Beckham and Neville brothers. They were the core of ManU’s success until this year. Acumen of Ferguson and financial support of United management helped them to pick the right players at the right time to add ammunition to the team. Still I believe the best buy of Sir. Alex was Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and his second best may be Javier Hernandez of present team.

Chelsea managed to climb up after a slump in their form in the mid season. When the season started, Chelsea took off with flying colours and everyone believed that they can even remain unbeaten till the end. On the other hand, United was struggling to find goals from their usual strikers and compromising with draws in between. Chelsea’s match against Sunderland changed the whole picture. During the mid season, they lost good number of crucial matches and eventually that lead to the departure of Carlo Anchelotti, the manager, at the end of the season. In fact, they allowed some of the senior players to leave the club and failed to replace the positions with right players. For me, their major loss was the departure of Ricardo Carvallo from the defence line. Jose Morinho brought him to Chelsea and picked him from there to Real Madrid. Chelsea never expected this departure had that much impact and they realised in the later period. He was slow and not powerful as John Terry, but, as a natural defender, he had ability to read a game and keep position.

Free spending Manchester City was expected to buy a position in top four and they managed it at the end of phase of the season. They gave a real challenge to Chelsea in spending money on players but failed to produce the same against their neighbouring power Manchester United on pitch. The failure of Arsenal provided them a higher place in the in league this year. Where money wins, it is difficult to find how football as a game will win. Under Jose Mourinho, Chelsea dominated the league but their football was not attractive. Manchester City tried to produce passing game but ended up in producing result oriented games. At the end of the season, they can show at least one major trophy –FA Cup to the world as the symbol of their successful spending.

Most disappointed team was Arsenal, the team which i love to watch. They were in the top three positions until March. Lack of depth in the team is a real problem for any manager and if the manager is not ready to resolve it, it becomes the problem of the team. Emergence of Chelsea, Manchester City and to certain level their neighbours Tottenham Hotspurs in spending money curtailed the possibilities of Arsenal. The shift from Highbury Park to Emirates Stadium forced them to find an alternative in rebuilding process of Arsenal team. Manager Arsene Wenger was successful in retaining their captain Cesc Fabregas but failed to strengthen the defence line of the team. They scored more goals than many teams in the top but struggled to keep clean sheet against others. Disaster was the 4-4 draw against New Castle at Emirates. In the first half, they were leading with 4 goals and in the second half, they gathered as many to make the game a big zero. Everyone says that they are lacking a personality like Patrick Veira in the holding midfielder position. Fact is, their method of the game has changed a lot from Viera’s departure. Yes, they lost a wall in front of the defence line –it was Gilberto, not Viera but eventually their midfield become more attack oriented. The irreplaceable loss was the departure of Thierry Henry. They lost a player who can assure more than 20 goals in any condition in him. Adebayor was successful but was a different type. Robin Van Persie has the qualities for an ace striker but his health condition is not supportive to produce more than 20 goals in a season. They desperately need a Henry type striker and a pair of good defenders.

If somebody ask me who was the best buy in the league for the season, I would have struggled to find an answer until the end of January transfer period. At the end of the season, I must say, it was Luiz Suarez of Liverpool. Everybody expected that the loss of Fernando Torres to Chelsea will finish them in the bottom end but Suarez changed all such feelings. In fact, his inclusion provided multiple dimensions to the struggling Liverpool and helped them to end up in the top six positions. Liverpool made 50 million British Pound from the sale of Fernando Torres and used all those money to purchase two upcoming good talents. Andy Carroll from New Castle United was a more costly deal because of his English tag, but 23 million GBP for Suarez was the right business. After his arrival, Liverpool started picking up points from tougher matches and he started showing his impeccable skills in creating goals and scoring too.

Tottenham Hotspurs was the only team moved out from the top four position to UEFA cup. They built the team during the summer transfer season and had a bumper bye in Rafael Van der Vart who was sold by Real Madrid on the final minutes of transfer season. He made a big impact in their games along with their young talent Gareth Bale. Team building helped them to do well in the Champions League better than their neighbour Arsenal and finally defeated by Real Madrid in the quarter finals. Just because of the tight schedule and inexperience in Champions League, they struggled to cope up with the demands of the EPL and dropped more points through draws and by the end of the season they forced to satisfy with UEFA cup place.

Everton, as ever struggled to bring out their real potential due to injuries managed a better show by the end of the season. In between they went down below 10 but David Moyes managed to bring them up to a comfortable zone. However, another team which performed very well in between and finally succumbed to middle order was Sunderland. The team managed by Steve Bruce produced an emphatic show in the middle season but failed to make same impact in the end of season. Inclusion of Ghanaian striker Asimov Gyan and loan player Danny Wellbac helped Sunderland to pick points and gather seventh position in the league. Departure of the manager Martin O’Neal troubled Aston Villa in the beginning but the appointment of Gerald Holliour and induction of striker Darren Bent helped Villa to reclaim the middle position in the league.

Ownership of the half of Premier League clubs belongs to foreign investors. Among them, there was only one club belongs to Indian investors. The transfer of ownership processes of Blackburn started in the beginning of the season but took time to complete the deal by Indian investors Venkeys. First step of the new owners was to show the door to the existing manager Sam Allardyce. They expected to make a change in the way of playing model of Blackburn from their pragmatic style to an attractive style by kicking out the most pragmatic manager Allardyce. The management failed to find a replacement in time and ended up in handing over the responsibility of the team to the assistant manager Steve Keane in charge for remaining season. Until the last day of the season, they struggled to know whether they will remain in the league or not for next season and on final day, they defeated Birmingham and managed to scrape through.

New Castle was one of the promoted team to the EPL from the championship last year. New Castle holds the third position among all EPL teams in Stadium capacity and the only club was brought over by an English owner in the last decade. Chris Hughton managed them to bring up in the Championship and back to Premier League but was kicked out by owner Mike Ashley. Manager change and sale of their key striker Andy Carroll showed their future again the in championship but the new manager Alan Padrew made an impact in the ending part of the season and managed for a middle level finish.

Manager change in the middle of the season is generally considered as a destabilising factor. This season, two teams in the EPL changed their managers and brought back their good fortune. Liverpool changed their manager in the beginning of the season. In fact, Rafael Benitez decided to quit the club and he was replaced by Fulham manager Roy Hodgson. The success in Fulham making them into a UEFA cup finalist, Hodgson become most wanted manager and Liverpool appointed him. But Hodgson failed to create the same impact in Liverpool and by the middle of the season both, Liverpool and Hodgson separated on mutual consent. Liverpool appointed their legendry player Kenny Dalglish. Interestingly, the separation benefited for all three parties i.e. Liverpool, Kenny Dalglish and Hodgson. Under Dalglish Liverpool retained their performance and move up to the sixth position in the league. On the other hand, Hodgson moved to West Bromwich Albion and helped them to move out from the relegation zone. Whey Liverpool met West Brom, the victory stood with Hodgson.

Stoke City made a usual performance again and managed to be in the middle of the league table. Most pragmatic approach in the league is produced by Stoke city and was criticised by many managers in the league. Under Toney Pulis, Stoke followed ‘long ball’ approach which was based on long throws, long passes from the centre to the opposition goal box for header and they specialised in getting goal from corner kicks. With a limited resource, they managed to get decent result from this highly competent league. Their peak was the performance they brought out against, the so called most attractive team in the league, Arsenal and defeated them for 3-1.

Relegation was not a nice story to remember. But, even before the season starts, pundits’ picks up some teams as relegation bound. Some will definitely escape and some will struggle till the end and then succumb to their fate. Generally the newly promoted teams were more vulnerable to this position. This time, it was Blackpool, the team which has least resources, West Bromwich Albion and New Castle. Everyone knew about the tradition and financial background of New Castle and was sure that they won’t come to relegation line. At the end of the season, as many as five teams ended up in the relegation zone with similar point levels. West Ham, who was struggling from the beginning moved first to relegation but the other five i.e., Blackburn, Wigan, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Blackpool continued their fight until the last day. On the final day of the season, Birmingham who lost to Blackburn and Blackpool who lost to the champions accepted their fate and moved down to Championship.

Cricket – World Cup – and Victory Celebrations

When India won the first Cricket World Cup, I was studying in high school. We didn’t have TV and was not familiar with Hindi, our national language, not fluent in English, the link language and there was no commentary in Malayalam, my mother tongue. But, at that age, i was a fanatic follower of the game Cricket and use to collect black and white photographs of leading players appeared in magazines such as the Illustrated Weekly and Sunday. I have never seen my father playing cricket but he was very much fond of the game and use to follow the World cup through is small pocket radio. One should remember that the first three cricket world cups were held in England and they all had 60 overs to bowl.

Before the final match, my father asked me and my brother about the possibility of winning the world cup and both of us unanimously said that there is no chance for India. We were mesmerised by the line up of West Indies team which had players like Vivian Richards, Clive Lloyd, Marshal etc. On the other hand, we were not much impressed with the style of Sunil Gavaskar but liked Kapil Dev, Indian Captain, very well. But, my father was more nationalist than us that time and declared his complete support to Indian team. We didn’t bother about the commentary, just because of above mentioned reasons and went to sleep at usual time. We never knew that our father was following the match in his pocket radio and when we got up next day, he declared the result. Yes, after twenty five odd years, i still remember, we took a back when he heard about India’s victory but like any kid at that age, we immediately changed our loyalty to Indian team and proudly took the chance to break this hot news in our school.

In a semi urban place and in a government run Malayalam medium school, very few students use to play cricket and up to my memory, i can’t find any teacher supported us playing this game by any means. From there onwards, I decided not to miss any such important games and started struggling episode of listening commentary in English or in Hindi. We missed the Prudential World cup but we were fortunate to watch Benson and Hedges world cup tournament in Television. One of our friend’s family brought a brand new Dynora colour TV and few of us were invited to watch the match.

Final matches always had a special charm and if it is a derby between you and your next neighbour, it will be more special. India was facing Pakistan in the final this time. For India, it was a chance to establish its dominance and authority in one day cricket and for Pakistan it is a chance to challenge their perennial rival. Both teams had well established players and it was difficult to say which team is better in any segment. For watchers like me, apart from the cricket match, most attractive item was the special prize for the man of the match –an Audi car. At that time, in India, we rarely saw a car like that and we felt that it is the ultimate car at that time.

Though it was a day and night match in Australia, for us it was a full day affair. When the match started, we were around six or seven people including his family. But, afternoon, we saw people living around piling up and then their friends joining, the drawing hall of the house was full and all windows were covered with anxious faces belongs to all age group. Interestingly, that time, most of us use to play football rather than cricket because of expense for a bat and ball, forget about wicket, gloves and pads. Still, cricket was catching up its popularity and most of the people who were watching the match along with us were not able to understand the nuances of the game and were least bothered about it.

I still remember the way the crowd around the house was behaving. I don’t remember who won the toss but can easily recall the enthusiasm of people when Pakistan started losing initial wickets for small score and how they were disappointed when the middle order started hitting Indian bowlers. I don’t remember exact score but it was between 170 and 180. They couldn’t make it to 200 in fifty overs and main obstruction between their batting and Indian bowling was a lanky dark player called Lakshman Sivaramakrishnan and an eccentric wicket keeper S. Viswanath.

Here, for the first time, I experienced the nationalist spirit of common people. They are from different segments of the society, their political ideologies were varied from extreme right to extreme left but when it mattered about the country, we could see a spectacular emergence of nationalism. First, it was a relief when Indian bowlers contained the mighty Pakistan team which had legendry players like Imran Khan, Javed Miandad, Rameez Raja, Salim Malik and Mohsin Khan for a comparatively small score. Still the bowling power of them was incredible and people around us were not convinced about the strength and depth of Indian batting line up. The crowd was not ready to disperse during the break and patiently waited outside the house for the batting of India.

Indian openers, Ravi Shastri and K. Srikkanth gave a fantastic start for the team and Mohammed Azharuddin, the new appearance in the team continued the rhythm settled by Srikkanth and handed over the finishing part to Vengsarkar. It was mercurial performance by Ravi Shastri from the beginning to end with bat and ball pushed India for a convincing win against their neighbours. We all were more eager to see the recipient of Audi than the cup and by the end we were more or less sure about the result. Shastri got the car and all players together had a ride in that car around the pitch.

My memory is crystal clear, especially about the behaviour of the crowd. They dispersed with happy smiling faces. Some of them were converted into regular cricket watcher and some started playing cricket after that. Celebration of victory was not very significant because the rivalry between India and Pakistan were not in present day situation. Discussions were there but no procession or sloganeering happened. Among the teams, we couldn’t find any kind of ill treatment and everything was treated with sportsman spirit.

Why I wrote all these non sense now, after passing more than 25 years? In fact, the celebration of my present neighbourhood after the victory of India in the semi final in last world cup against Pakistan forced me to think about the 25 year old story. Compare to the 1980s, the present celebration has an element of mass hysteria and lacking rational and level headed approach. Still it was not in the final, only semi final, we celebrated like the winner of the final. Yes, we won the cup in the final by defeating another neighbour, Sri Lanka. But the level of celebration was different this time.

Most dangerous tendency what I have seen this time is the hatred slogans against the opponent. One can accept that the winners will enjoy the victory and their fans will celebrate it in a different level. But, the border between emotions and hatred is very thin and it was very much visible on that day. First, just after the final ball, people started coming out and dancing in the street. That is normal. Then, they started blowing crackers and fireworks and such celebration continued for nearly an hour. There is nothing wrong in it.

But, the most dangerous tendency appeared here was the sudden turn in the sloganeering. After defeating Pakistan, the fanatic crowd lost their most immediate opponents and next thing will be search for the nearest person who is capable to give you a proper challenge, though never existed or may be in the dream or nightmare. Yes, after looking around for few minutes, the young crowd started shouting slogans in the local dialect against people from other regions staying in the same neighbourhood. This shows how much hatred they carry in their unconscious mind against the people around them. When emotions make an outburst, definitely, it will come out with crystal clarity. This is an important reality about the mob behaviour. If the mob targets a particular community in their hatred campaign, it won’t stop there by challenging them alone. It will overspill to other areas, especially against the minorities –may be linguistic, religious or even racial minorities.

So, victory celebrations are also harmful to mankind. The mob behaviour can take it to any extend and direct the power of the mob against any vulnerable group. In fact, cricket lost its sanctity in such occasions and it has, within very less time, capacity to turn against somebody else. If is difficult to strike against a neighbouring country on the basis of cricket defeat or victory but it is easy to direct the emotions –anger or ecstasy against immediate neighbour.

After watching all these antics, we feel really scary about the world around. If victory celebration can evoke such feelings, if is difficult to think about the other side. Sports can unify the feeling of a country together, at the same time it has the capacity to widen the distance between people living next door. Still remember the cordial celebration of 1985 Benson and Hedges cup victory in the finals against Pakistan. People had happy face and it never changed into any kind of hate campaign.

My Sincere Thanks to Uncle Pai

February deleted one of the most important personalities who influenced our childhood very much. There won’t be any replacement for Anant Pai who enriched my/our childhood with colourful characters from Indian mythology, history, and fiction. We belong to the generation grown up with the stories illustrated in Amar Chitra Katha, which was published in Malayalam by Paico in late 1970s and early 1980s.

There was no cartoon channel, no Internet or not even television to entertain us at that time but we enjoyed a world of books and it was Uncle Pai who directed us by holding our hand towards a new world of reading. For our generation, Amar Chitra Katha was much more than an illustrated comic book. It was a like a bridge between the formulation of values through the imaginations about our heroes of young age. Uncle Pai realized the potential of the illustrated medium in value education of children and put a lot of effort to pick up the right characters to nurture their thoughts and imaginations.

During my childhood, most popular children’s publication was Poombatta. In fact, I was introduced to the characters of Amar Chitra Katha through the illustrated strips appeared in the Poombatta. In the beginning, Poombatta was a monthly publication and within few years, they made it as fortnightly and the duration of two weeks was also too much for us to wait. I still remember Uncle Pai’s name was read along with Mohandas in the most popular illustrated stories –Kapish and Shikari Shamboo. Still I don’t know who Mohandas was and it was a question I kept to ask directly to Uncle Pai, which was never asked.

Poombatta owed a lot to Uncle Pai for its rapidly growing popularity. It was the time, Paico, which was a major brand selling books in my town, Ernakulam, getting into new avenues of publication business. Poombatta definitely helped them to increase their reach and am sure; Uncle Pai’s name helped them to consolidate their brand in our generation. Eventually, Poombatta stepped into more publication for children and started bringing out the Malayalam version of Amar Chitra Katha as fortnightly and illustrated version of western classics in the name of Paico Classics on monthly basis. Everything was huge success in the market.

The management of Poombatta also very much aware of the popularity of Uncle Pai among the children and to utilize it, they organized Poombatta Amar Chitra Katha Quiz competition every year. One occasion, I was very lucky to be part of it. Thanks to my close friends Manoj and Manoj who fought with my parents for permission to take me along with them. Programme was in the auditorium of Bharat Tourist Home, a renowned hotel in Ernakulam. For us, the biggest attraction was the presence of Uncle Pai than winning prize in competition. He was living in our imagination and we were craving for an opportunity to see the man behind all stories in Amar Chitra Katha.

When we reached the venue, we saw the auditorium was filled with children and their parents. Our group was not accompanied by parents and that made us more vulnerable. The organizers explained the method and rules of the competition and said the question will be asked by Uncle Pai. We were in seventh heaven and eagerly waited for him. Within few minute, he appeared in the stage in light green safari suit and addressed the crowd. We, the Malayalam medium students, who usually struggle to understand speeches in English but we had no problem with Uncle Pai’s conversation. He really put effort to make himself as simple as possible to the children.

Method of the quiz was very interesting. It provided each child to have a chance to interact with Uncle Pai directly and if he answers he will get another chance otherwise eliminated. All questions were picked up from Amar Chitra Katha, which was published by Poombatta in Malayalam. The eliminated children were also treated very well with handful of gifts which included two copies of Amar Chitra Katha in English. Uncle Pai will ask a question to the child in front of him, if he won’t answer, it will pass to next one and repeat to another three more. After five children, he will declare the answer and pick up next question for the next five. Four of my friends fell in the first round and eliminated and before my turn, it was Uncle Pai’s chance to declare the answer, so I escaped. I had more time to be with him till he pick up the next one and waited for the question with loud heart beats. The organizers made arrangements to translate Uncle Pai’s questions in English to Malayalam. He picked up another question and asked me and luckily, I had the answer. I got a good handshake from Uncle Pai and passed to next round. If my memory is correct, I had another five rounds with him till ending up in the last round. Each round, I got good number of gifts in the form of books, toys, T-shirts, stickers etc. In the final round, we were three and there I fumbled and ended up in the third position.

I was very, very fortunate to have an interaction with a person like Uncle Pai at that age. It changed my position and image among friends as well as in the school. My friends took a lot of pain to convince my parents to get me out of house to participate in this programme. Unfortunately, they all got out in the primary round but they waited till the end to see at least one among them getting some prize.  After nearly thirty years, I still keep those movements as something precious in my life. I remember, we had a photo session and a fabulous lunch with Uncle Pai. At that age, we never bothered to do follow up of the event and collect copies of photographs from the organizers. Now, after several years, I really feel bad for not doing so.

During my last home visit, in December, I was going through one of our old album, in which I found some stickers of Tinkle, which I got as gift in the competition. It evoked some good feeling about the nice occasion. Thank you Uncle Pai. I will keep those memories with me throughout my life. You made our life very colourful and imaginative. We will definitely try to pass your contribution to our next generation.

Rights of the Republic

“Our Republic must not kill its own Children” was the main headline of The Hindu on 15^th January 2011.  The court was asking the government to remember the fact that its duty is to protect people and not killing them. Duties and responsibilities of a republic should be always towards the people in large. But, the doings of this government proves that they going away from its commitments to the common people. In the last two months, inflation on edible goods is shooting up and there is no proper measure to contain it from the government’s side.  ‘Let the market decide’ –approach of the government will end up in both economic and political chaos in the country. People will be ready to forget about the corruption stories on tele-scam and CWG scams but won’t keep quiet with the price increase which directly hit on their belly.

Next day of the Supreme Court observation, the petroleum ministry decided to increase the price of petrol by Rs. 2. 52 per litre. This is another way of killing own people, one can say –slow poisoning. Inactive government represents vested interests than the feeling of its own people. Here, the question on role of the government comes more relevant. For whom the government is stands for? In the last one month span, the petrol price has gone up more than Rs. 5 per litre. Argument is we can’t allow the petroleum companies to run on loss. Because of the increase in international crude oil price, the petroleum companies are forced to compensate their losses by increasing the price on petrol. Government argues that the Diesel price is not increased, so it won’t affect the commodity market which is completely depend on transportation industry. Does anyone think that the transport industry will accept this logic and won’t ask for price hike?  Informally they will increase and it will reflect in the market as increase in the price of common goods.

Everyone knows the impact of petrol price increase and how it will reflect on common people. It has spiral effect and will allow all commodities to up its price. This is not first time the international crude price is going up and earlier it reached a record of US $ 147 per barrel. That time, government acted differently and did not allow the companies to increase the price on their products and supported them through cross subsidies. Why this is not happening now? The government, in fact, opted to support the companies who are listed in the international stoke markets. Anything economically goes against these flagship companies will effect badly on stoke market and will send wrong messages. In this way, the government is more conscious about the economic health of the companies rather than the health of common people of this country. 

The agriculture minister washed his hands off from the price increase on vegetables and other edible items. According to him, it is not his or his ministries responsibility to defend the inflation on food articles and the main cause of the price increase was crop failure due to extra rains in September – October months. We too agree with the fact that the natural fluctuations will affect the crops and cause price increase. But are ways to overcome it and there are precautionary measure to arrest the un-natural price increase. Here, the government functionaries failed too badly. There is a market intelligence system working with the government to analyse the supply and demand of food articles in the market and to inform the government to take pre-emptive measures to avoid breakdowns in market pricing system.

When vested interests controls the most important decision making positions in the country and use the opportunity to decide everything favourable for them, the end result will the failure of whole system. An agriculture minister who is also the leader of Sugar cooperatives, wine industry and so on, and above all, he is the leader of a fraction of ruling coalition, then how the common man can expect justice from his position? When the minister of oil and natural gas is the darling of the most powerful corporate house in India who has major stake in his portfolio, how we can expect a relief or support for the common people from him? When the ministers and the elite decision making powers are lobbing for their own interests and hang around the magnets like Radias’, how the common man will expect any favourable consideration from them?

Remember, there was a minister, who was also a qualified doctor, took decision to close down all factories which produces lifesaving vaccines. When the health sector got a person from the same segment, the people thought he will do something for better but he proved his real colour by taking such decision. He also messed up one of the most important institute in the country All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) during his five year term. So, decisions of government can kill the people –may be slowly.

Common people look up to the Supreme Court as the last asylum or as a saviour. When judges too have shares and stakes in the corporate industries, and show it in declaration of assets and ask permission for removal of their names from conducting trials of particular cases.... how long we will believe in such judicial system. In a neo-liberal economy, everything is closely connected with the network of money and nobody is beyond its reach. This network includes all institutions as well as opposition parties in the parliament, whom should suppose to be in the front to mark their protest against the government and speak for the common man. When the government and its institutions taking care of the economy in its smooth flow, we can’t expect that they will consider the feelings of common man. In such system, the priority will be to support the industrial giants and the banking sector rather than taking care of the majority, the helpless citizen.

Now, I wonder how the court can make an observation mentioned in the beginning. Yes, the government is, till now, against in killing its own children by using arms but the indecisiveness of the government will produce more harmful results than direct killing.