As the CPM-led LDF Government completes barely one year in office, Democracy gives way to Stalinism in the State where the Government unleashes Police brutalities to oppress the voice of dissent
Arun Lakshman from Thiruvananthapuram
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) government which came to power with a brutal majority in May 2016 has already lost its sheen and is puffing and panting in the mindset of the people as the CPM which is heading the front has started its own way of administration, the Stalinist style. The Kerala CPM which has always been a pro-Stalinist outfit has now come out in the open in the style practiced by Com Joseph Stalin when he was the all powerful Tzar of the erstwhile USSR.
The CPM led front Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has always been a practitioner of Stalin brand of politics which amounts to annihilation and persuasion and not compromise or cajoling. The Chief Minister while addressing the media on April 11, 2017 stated that there have not been any mediators for ending the strike called by Mahija (Mother of late Jishnu Prannoy) and her relatives. While it was known and the CPM leadership had admitted on the role played by the party general secretary Sitaram Yechury to settle the fast unto death strike called by Mahija to get justice for her son Jishnu Prannoy who had committed suicide after inhuman torture conducted by the Self-Financing management where he was studying for Engineering .
Interestingly, Mahija and her family are hard core CPM members and her brother Sreejith is a member of the Vadakara Bureau of Deshabhimani Daily, the CPM mouthpiece. That the family had to embark upon a strike in front of the Director General of Police (DGP) office in itself leads to the precarious law and order situation in the state where the wheeler dealers and the movers and shakers get justice and the less effluent and marginalized are being ill treated or they are not getting any justice at all. The party state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan who has to be a corrective force when the LDF government is ruling the state is a mute spectator or a feeble and shrill follower of the dictates of Pinarayi Vijayan who seems to be running the show in a monolithic manner trusting only his close aides and advisors who are however making a mockery of the Chief Minister as well as the ruling front.
The arrest of Mahija and her family in front of the DGP office led to a scuffle with certain police officers who are known to have criminal antecedents being given law and order charge leading to the arrest of Mahija who was on a peaceful protest march before the DGP office on April 5, 2017. Even she and her six relatives had appointment to meet the Police Chief Loknath Behera at 11 am that day. However the South Zone IG Manoj Abraham had none of it and he along with his Assistant Commissioner KE Baiju charged upon the hapless women and her relatives and were thrown into a waiting police jeep. Mahija who is mourning the death of her son was dragged by the Pinarayi Police into the police van only to hear explicit which are unprintable, according to fellow prisoners.
While Mahija and her close blood relatives were let off by the police, the police charged criminal conspirancy theory against five persons which included the state leader of Socialist Unity Council of India (SUCI) ShajarKhan and his wife Mini, activist Sreekumar and former Additional
private secretary of VS Achuthanandan, KM Shahjahan who is a scientist with the Centre for Digital Imaging Technology (C-Dit). Shahjan, Shajir Khan and others were arrested and remanded in judicial custody after the police took them around Thiruvananthapuram city for around six hours after forcibly taking off their mobile phones. The only mistake these people did was that they were social and political workers and had come to the DGP office only to express
solidarity. The police in fact used force against a hapless and unarmed group most of whom were in the middle age group .The march was totally peaceful. Yet Pinarayi Vijayan and his police found fault with them and arrested them without giving a proper dignity to the people as if they were
hardened criminals.
It may be noted that K M Shahjahan was in the forefront to support Achuthanandan in the time of extreme group war in the CPM with Achuthanandan on the one side and Pinarayi on the other .It was also Shahjahan who was instrumental in projecting Achuthanandan into the level of a selfless and active politician in the minds of the people of the state taking up issues which are dearer to the public and also using his excellent media network. Moreover the controversial SNC Lavelin issue of giving contract to the Canadian company SNC Lavalin by the Kerala State Electricity board when Pianarayi Vijayan was the Power Minister has led to CBI enquiry and which is in a court of law. It may be noted that the present CPM leadership including Pinarayi Vijayan and Kodiyeri Balakrishnan believes that it was KM Shahjahan who had raked up the issue and brought it into the forefront of Kerala politics giving a nightmare to the party and Pinarayi himself. This, according to Shahjahan is one reason why he was singled out by the Pianrayi Police.
After an ill fated sting operation done by the Mangalam Channel (A nascent Malayalam news channel from the stable of Mangalam news paper) the Editor and CEO of the Channel R Ajith Kumar and its investigation team head R Jayachandran were arrested along with three of their colleagues and were produced before the Judicial Magistrate after handcuffing them. It may be noted that both are senior journalists and Ajith Kumar has been the immediate past president of Thiruvananthapuram Press Club. The sting operation which was done using a lady reporter of the Channel was to find out the sleaze talks conducted by the then Transport Minister of the state A K Saseendran who succumbed to the sweet talks and was molesting the modesty of a woman on telephone. The channel telecasted this live and the Minister put in his papers but subsequently the government and its police woke up and conducted several raids and arrested the five media persons including its Editor and CEO and the investigation team head and put them behind the bars. The Powerful Kerala union of working journalists controlled by the CPM did not utter a word in protest to the arrest and public humiliation of Ajith Kumar and Jayachandran.
The state has also been witnessing atrocities against hapless children with even grandfather being accused in a case related to the rape and subsequent death of a girl, again in a CPM bastion of Kollam. When enquired it was found that the local CPM leadership was hand in glove with the abetter of the crime and was giving him all the support. There are several other cases like this which has come out in the state with children being subjected to sexual harassment. Children from the age of two to old women of ninety years of age are not spared by the criminals and the state police has turned into a mere spectator of the events.
The state CPM leadership is giving full support to the Chief Minister as he is the only person who has been controlling the party for the past twenty years.
The CPM which has always used sword power in the state and has brutally assassinated several RSS cadres in the state has not fared any better this time around with killing sprees through the state with special emphasis on Kannur District which is the home district of the party big wigs Pinarayi Vijayan, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, the Jayarajan troika, MV Govindan, PK Sreemathy and KK Shailaja.
The CPM is still in the Stalinistic era in Kerala and the party still believes in the theory of annihilation, promoting killer squads across the state. Highly placed sources within the party told this correspondent that it
is Thiruvananthapuram that the party
is now aiming to turn into a battleground. It may be noted that the first MLA of the BJP has come from Nemom Assembly Constituency in Thiruvananthapuram district. The BJP has secured 32 seats (in 2010, it
had just 6 seats) in the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporations Elections 2015.
The party has also had egg on its face when the state Governor P Sathasivam, a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India turned down the party list of release of prisoners who had fared decently and in a dignified manner in prison. These incidents clearly show that the CPM is indeed a Stalinist party and that the party leaders believe in the theory of annihilation and one-upmanship while dealing with those who seemed to echo their opposition to the CPM programmes and policies.
