Sitaram Yechury has justified K.K. Shailaja’s award rejection; CPM feels the award panel’s move is an ‘insult’ to the party.
NEW DELHI: The CPM central leadership’s endorsement of the decision of former Kerala Health Minister K.K. Shailaja to reject the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award has more to it than meets the eye. While party general secretary Sitaram Yechury has cited three reasons to justify the former minister’s rejection, CPM’s newly elected state secretary M.V. Govindan has termed the award committee’s decision as a move to “insult” the party. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is said to be in total control of the party and the government in Kerala, has kept a steady silence on the subject which itself speaks volumes.
According to Yechury, the award was to Shailaja as an individual, but since the Kerala success story against Covid- 19 was a “collective one” she has decided to say “no” to it. If that is so, the question arises as to why the party in Kerala attributes every success of the party and the government as the singular achievement of Pinarayi Vijayan. His ministry is no more referred to as the Left Front government. It is always the Pinarayi government, first and second.
The chief minister is referred to as ‘Captain” and, not so long ago, a thousand women performed a Thiruvathira Kali, a popular dance form of Kerala, eulogising Pinarayi Vijayan as the “karanabhuthan” (the one responsible for) of all prosperity in Kerala. The dance performance was watched and appreciated by no less than two members of the party’s politburo, the highest decision-making body of the CPM.
On his part, Pinarayi Vijayan had never admonished them for such a blatant act of deification never enacted in the party apparatus in old times. Another significant reason for the rejection, according to Yechury, was the record of Ramon Magsaysay in oppressing communists in the Philippines. It is not the prestige with which the award is seen worldwide, but the past deeds of Magsaysay that were important for the CPM.
Where was CPM’s conscience over oppression when in 2006, the then chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadev Bhattacharjee spread out a red carpet to Salim Group, an Indonesian conglomerate closely linked to the former Indonesian dictator General Suharto, to set up a chemical hub in Nandigram. Suharto was credited with the massacre of more than a million people during his purge of the Indonesian Communist Party between 1965-66.
Justifying Salim Group’s entry into communist West Bengal, Buddhadev at that time had famously said: “Why should we rake up the past? They (the Salim Group) have invested in China…We are not concerned about the character of the investor. To me capital has no colour”.
The very same Sitaram Yechury was a member of the Politburo that endorsed Buddhadev’s venture which resulted in the gunning down of impoverished peasants who resisted the forcible takeover of their agricultural land in Nandigram. As they say, rest is history and CPM is no more a force to reckon with in West Bengal.
But interestingly, one member of the Politburo who backed Buddhadev to the hilt then was Pinarayi Vijayan, the then secretary of the Kerala state CPM. It is widely believed in Kerala that Sitaram Yechury was forced to make such a statement at the behest of Pinarayi Vijayan who, by his own actions in the past, seems to have an aversion to anyone who overshadows his personality.
At the outbreak of Covid-19, Kerala had successfully “flattened the curb” of the virus, thanks to a robust health system developed in the state right from the time of the Maharajas and then, of course, the able leadership provided by Shailaja. ‘Teacher’, as she is popularly addressed by the masses, was in the forefront even facing the western media which christened her the “Rock Star of Kerala”.
Pinarayi Vijayan found it difficult to digest. Dramatically, he took over the responsibility of briefing the press over the months on a daily basis with Shailaja and Revenue minister E. Chandrashekaran by his side sitting with their mouths tightly shut.
Shailaja could have put that one-hour monologue time of the chief minister to better use had she been relieved from the responsibility of sitting there as a deaf and mute idol. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan did not think so.
And at the time of the 2021 Assembly elections, there was talk of projecting Shailaja as the next chief minister in the event of a Left victory. But once the result came out, Pinarayi Vijayan dropped a bombshell by dropping all the CPM ministers in the name of “inducting young blood”. That his son-in-law P.A. Mohammed Riyas found a berth in the ministry despite not being senior among party workers is another story.
Many party insiders knew that “inducting new blood” was a ploy by Pinarayi Vijayan to cut Shailaja to size. The teacher tried her best to keep a low profile, but her past track record kept on bringing her laurels from far and near. Ramon Magsaysay Award was the latest, an honour to Kerala which the CPM has scuttled as in the case of Jyoti Basu ‘s chance of heading a national government in the past, in the name of party “principles”. But these “principles” seem to be selective. No one in the party has questioned as to why Pinarayi Vijayan goes to Imperialist America (referred to as Imperialist Dogs among comrades) for treatment when Kerala has a first class health set-up; that too at public expense.
That is why many in Kerala strongly believe that had the award been conferred on Pinarayi Vijayan, the CPM central leadership or Sitaram Yechury, hardly seen or heard in Kerala these days, would have any objection.
Kerala’s legendary communist leader the late K.R. Gowri Amma would have loved this. More than anyone else she knew the all-pervading patriarchy that rules the inner corridors of the single largest communist party in the country.
Kerala still remembers how Gowriamma, an Ezhava, was dropped like a hot brick after the party won the 1986 Assembly election on the slogan “Keram thingum kerala nattil kr gowri bharicheedum” (K.R. Gowri will rule this land of coconut trees). But once the results were out, it was the upper caste male E.K. Nayanar who was sworn in as chief minister. Thereby lies the story of Shalaja Teacher and a Magsaysay Award dumped in the Arabian Sea.
OVERHEARD: Imagine Pinarayi son-in-law PWD Minister Muhammad Riyas being awarded the Magsaysay next year for filling potholes in Kerala. Kerala will be reverberating with cries of “Long Live Revolutionary Leader Ramon Magsaysay”.