The Kerala government on Friday slammed the decision of the Central government to reject the State’s design for a carnival float it had aspired to put on display at the prestigious Republic Day Parade in New Delhi on January 26.
Culture Minister A.K. Balan said the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government had sidelined Kerala and excluded it from the parade merely for “petty political reasons”.
He said the model for the tableau, to have been mounted on a truck platform and exhibited at the cultural procession at Rajpath, represented Kerala’s cultural uniqueness exceptionally well.
The blueprint also highlighted Kerala’s distinctive architectural splendour, its famed snake boats, spice trading past and flora and fauna, including wild elephants and tigers.
The trailer portion of the float would have had artists staging ‘kalari’ movements, ‘Mohiniyattam’ dance and other art forms such as ‘Theyyam’, ‘Padayani’, ‘Koodiyattam’ and ‘Ottamthullal’.
Against spirit of federalism: Minister
However, the Centre seemed to see red at the very mention of Kerala. It summarily rejected the proposal. “Why this hate towards Kerala and Malayalees,” he asked. The Centre’s stance ran against the spirit of federalism, he said.
Jaya Prabha Menon, a member of the screening committee under the Union Ministry of Defence, told a news channel in New Delhi that Kerala’s design was repetitive.
The committee had asked the State to re-submit a renewed concept with new themes instead of “wearily recurrent motifs”. However, the government drafters kept sending the same design, she said.
‘No political dimension’
Ms. Menon said there was no political dimension to the decision to reject Kerala's proposal. “It was purely based on merit,” she told the news channel.
Kerala now joins the list of West Bengal and Maharashtra whose designs were similarly rejected by the Centre.
The West Bengal government’s proposal was rejected after an Expert Committee examined it in two rounds of meeting, according to a Defence Ministry statement.
The alliance partners in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Government of Maharashtra on Thursday said the Centre’s rejection was prejudiced. The theme for the State’s tableau was to be on 175 years of Marathi theatre.
