The people of Kerala’s politically volatile Kannur heaved a sigh of relief on Wednesday evening as the Sri Krishna Jayanti which saw Shobhayatras held by Hindu children’s outfit Balagokulam and the Renaissance Yatra processions staged by the CPI(M) concluded without any untoward incident under tight security.
The entire State turned into a virtual Gokulam on Wednesday when children dressed like Sri Krishna, Radha, Rugmini, Gopikas, Kuchela, etc filled the streets as part of the Shobhayatras held in at least 25,000 centres to mark the Sri Krishna Jayanti. Colourful Shobhayatras were held at Kannur, Kozhikode, Thrissur and Thiruvananthapuram and other major towns and villages.
The Marxists, who had last year celebrated the Sri Krishna Jayanti with the declared objective of not allowing the Sangh Pariwar to hijack the day for political purposes, staged what they called “Renaissance Day” cultural processions this year saying these were part of the four-day observance of the centenary of social reformer Sree Narayana Guru’s “We have no caste” declaration.
However, it is said that the CPI(M) was forced to change its Jayanti celebrations into mere “anti-communalism” programmes due to the criticisms it had faced last year to the effect that the Jayanti celebrations then were part of a strategy to keep intact its support base among the Hindus in the context of reports of a huge outflow into BJP-RSS.
Across the State, the police had taken particular care to avoid the Shobhayatras being held by Balagokulam and the CPI(M)’s cultural processions in which members of its children’s forum Bala Sangham were participating coming face to face in the context of Intelligence reports about the possibility of trouble.
Though the CPI(M) had said the processions were held to mark the start of the four-day “We have no caste” programme, Hindu religious symbols were very much in sight at its most important procession in Kannur, at Thalipparambu. This procession featured the ritual dance of Sri Krishna and Balarama. Referring to the CPI(M)’s celebrations on the Sri Krishna Jayanti, Sate BJP president Kummanam Rajasekhar-an said, “This shows their (ideological) transformation from Marx to Maharishis and that is good” while Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala of the Congress commented, “This reflects that party’s poverty of policy and ideological pauperism.”
While the floats and other art forms seen in the processions of the CPI(M) in which flags of all colours were fluttered featured moments from Kerala’s history of social renaissance and pictures of its proponents, the Shobhayatras attracted huge crowds with floats and forms that re-created scenes from the Hindu Puranas.
In Thiruvananthapuram, Shobhayatras from ten different regions converged at Palayam in the city and proceeded through the city to end at the Putharikandam Grounds. The CPI(M)’s programme, starting Wednesday, the Chattambi Swamikal Day, and ending on August 28, the Ayyankali Day, were limited to house visits by “anti-communalism” campaigners in the capital. With the CPI(M) holding its processions with the claim that the effort was to “resist the polarisation” the Sangh Pariwar was trying to create in Kerala and the BJP-RSS showing the determination to overcome the Marxist allegations, the Jayanti celebrations in Kannur became a show of strength by the two sides.
Police personnel in large numbers had been deployed in all sensitive places in Kannur to ensure that no conflict occurred during the celebrations. The police had identified 20 places in the district as vulnerable and had deployed additional personnel there. As a precautionary measure, the police had allotted separate routes to the two sides for taking their processions.
“There was fear among the people of Kannur’s sensitive areas about possible trouble in the context of the killing of a local BJP-BMS leader a CPI(M) activist last month in Payyannur,” said K Prakasan, a former police official in Kannur. “But this apprehension had not prevented them from coming out in large numbers to witness the celebrations,” he added.