A cultural and political row has broken out in Kerala over Jnanpith laureate M.T. Vasudevan Nair’s caution against strongmen rulers and personalist politics characterised by allegiance to an individual leader rather than a party or ideology.
Writers and politicians attempted to read meanings into Mr. Nair’s written speech delivered in the presence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan at a literary festival in Kozhikode on Thursday.
The Congress claimed that Mr. Vijayan and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were at the receiving end of Mr. Nair’s speech.
Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala said Mr. Nair delivered a damning critique of the current disposition at the Centre and State by noting that iconic communist leader E.M.S. Namboodiripad abhorred being lionised and feted and rejected personality cults.
Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan said Mr. Nair warned citizens against authoritarian leaders who exploited the trappings of democracy to stifle dissent and hammer out a monolithic power structure with them at the apex.
Bharatiya Janata Party State president K.Surendran said Mr. Nair intended Mr. Vijayan, not Mr. Modi. Mr. Nair merely articulated the public’s exasperation with the paeans of praise sung for Mr. Vijayan by supplicants in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the government.
The CPI(M) rallied to defend Mr. Vijayan. Left Democratic Front (LDF) convener E.P. Jayarajan said Mr. Nair aimed at Mr. Modi, not Mr. Vijayan. The party’s newspaper, Desabhimani, claimed Mr. Nair merely regurgitated an article he had authored in 2003.
The attempt to read the tea leaves in Mr. Nair’s arguably cryptic and meandering take on trappings of power echoed strongly in the State’s cultural sphere. It prompted largely abstract reactions from noted writers.
Writer Sara Joseph termed Mr. Nair’s exposition on the pitfalls of centralisation of power as “Kerala’s collective sigh of relief”.
Poet K. Satchidanandan said the message had a moral timbre that transcended individual leaders. Writer Zachariah said Mr. Nair mirrored the growing hero worship in society.
Writer Asokan Charuvil accused the media of quoting Mr. Nair out of context to vilify Mr .Vijayan.
Mr. Nair had the last word in the controversy. In a social media post, writer N.V. Sudheer claimed that Mr. Nair clarified that it was not his intention to denounce any person and had merely reflected the current reality, hoping it would provoke introspection.
