Political parties in Kerala are losing credibility
What can people do when Governments, politicians, parties, bureaucracy, etc refuse to defend their rights, even when their lives, property and habitats are in dangerIJ The only option available to them is, as we have seen in several parts of the world, to defend themselves through their own struggles. This is what the young, Purdah-clad Jazeera from north Kerala, a mother of three, is currently doing at Jantar Mantar in Delhi through her one-woman battle to bring to the attention of the authorities the threat her coastal village is facing from the rapacious sand mafia, which has the backing of many political parties.
This is what the Anti-Endosulfan Action Committee of Kasaragod in Kerala, where nearly 600 people have died and several thousands have contracted various diseases because of the senseless spraying of the pesticide in the State-owned cashew plantations, have been doing for the past several years. This is what the farmers of Cheekkallur in Kerala's mountainous Wayanad district did on Friday by intensifying their stir against a proposed airport in a highly eco-sensitive farmland, through a protest march to the district collectorate. Such struggles are mushrooming in Kerala, as we see them along the banks of rivers Bharathappuzha, Periyar, Achankovil and Kallada — victims of rampant sand-mining — where land-grabbing has been progressing with the alleged support of political parties in power and in the Opposition. All such independent agitations have been successful in winning massive public support as more and more people are becoming convinced that they do not figure in the priority lists of politicians and political parties.
In short, a different kind of revolution is happening in God's Own Country, in which established political parties have no real role to play except to hypocritically offer support to such stirs after being convinced of the strength of these agitations, and sometime with the intention of derailing those initiatives from inside through treachery. Politicians and political parties in Kerala now complain that apolitical reactions to issues have become a trend of the times and that this could bring harm to the progress of the society. They are not entirely wrong in drawing this conclusion but what they are forgetting is the fact that they themselves are responsible for this situation.
The evolution of issues — like the infamous solar scam, case pertaining to the murder of Marxist rebel TP Chandrasekharan, illegal steps behind the approval for a private airport at Aranmula, etc — are forcing the people to believe that the ruling and the opposing fronts are in the habit of doing evil things in total co-operation. It is up to the politicians and political parties to take steps to restore credibility to their activities. Otherwise, they may soon become an endangered species.