THE CRYING BUDDHA

IS PINARAYI KERALA’S BUDDHA?

Kerala, they say, never exists in the country’s political map. Kerala shares its 15 seconds of limelight in the National media through ayurveda, tourism, the tag of the most-literate state (no more it is). And it is one of the states where the Communists still have a strong presence. A correspondent of a national daily tells me that he is “tired’’ of doing stories on the same topics again and again. Then, for the last two months, there is Sreeshant (not Sreesunth).
Now out of the blue, the media has found a whipping boy in Achuthanandan, the 83-year-old Marxist warhorse, which was tipped as Kerala’s next chief ministerial candidate. Suddenly, things changed. VS, as he is fondly called, had lost out to the Pinarayi Vijayan group and the party has decided not to field him in the elections. There comes the story: as many as three National dailies have written editorials on the issue arguing that a hardliner like VS has been thrown out of Kerala’s CPM’s poll race by a reformist Pinarayi Vijayan. The Lutyen’s Delhi’s armchair journalism is at its best here. The English media is known for taking stands without bothering to find out the ground realities. The Express, which usually carries reliable stories and still remains one of my favourite papers, has compared Pinarayi Vijayan to West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. This will be the biggest insult- the insult by US ambassador David Mulford looks much smaller- on Buddha in his life. Those who follow the Kerala politics seriously know what Pinarayi is made of. VS, for that matter, has toured across the state and knows the state like the palm of his hand. Whereever there were serious issues where the common man was affected, VS was there. From Wayanad to Parassala, he was in the forefront of not just party’s agitations, but problems faced by the common man. Cutting across political lines, he has been termed the most sincere leader in Kerala now. And his palms are not greased. Pinarayi was always considered as a party strongman in the politically volatile Kannur. There his job was to take the RSS, a very strong force in Kerala, head-on in the political battles. Let there be no doubt about it, there he was highly successful. That was limited to Kannur alone. But there ended his contributions to CPM and Kerala. And there are various allegations against him over the years: a Congress leader himself has accused him of taking Rs10 crore from K Karunakaran, now out of the Congress and formed a new party, to include him in the Left Front. And then the Lavlin case. Calling Pinarayi a reformist of Buddha’s credibility and stature is blasphemous. The reformist tag could have been attributed to S Ramachandran Pillai, Thomas Issac or MA Baby. (But Buddha is class apart, one can’t draw comparisons from Kerala). But they should have checked. And it was silent on the widespread protests by VS followers on Thursday and Saturday. Even channels like CNN-IBN carried such protests extensively.
The HT was no better. It labelled VS as a dinosaur. At least, its Kerala correspondent has been writing very balanced reports since the controversy erupted. Not that he is the perfect candidate. Not that VS will become the best chief minister Kerala has ever had. But given the options and names, he is the best and only man to do the job in CPM now. If he can't, then no one can't.