A lot of heat was generated when RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat unfurled Tiranga in a Government-aided school in Kerala. There are many unpleasant happenings in Kerala in the last few years. The spate of political violence in Kunnur district narrates the brutalities of the Red. The ISIS threat is also mounting. The conversion of Hindus into Muslims is rampant in districts where the lDF cadre rule the roost. Amid these disturbing trends and political killings, the unfurling of Tiranga by the RSS chief in Palakkad district is an audacious step.
The left’s protest against unfurling of the Tricolour is devoid of logic. RSS second chief, MS Golwalkar (Guruji), had said India has a glorious past, and it was not invented through national movement. Therefore, it had its emblem and flag, which needed to be nurtured. The RSS movement led India to be called a civilisation state along with China. So, contestation on the flag did not undermine the respect and valour for the flag and the nation.
Why did the RSS chief choose Kerala to do soIJ It seems he wanted to send a message to the people of the State, where RSS cadre are at the receiving end of the Red terror. As the BJP opened its account in the Kerala Assembly in the last election, shocked Communists became restless and launched a new trend of political vendetta in frustration. Kerala’s northern district Kannur proved to be the epicentre of conflict between the RSS and the CPI(M).
The latest political murder of RSS worker E Rajesh was a gruesome act of terror. RSS Sah-Sanghkaryawahak Datta Trey called it the worst kind of violence as the State Government was accused of sitting idle. Though the conflict between the RSS and the left is old, political clashes became endemic in the State only after the RSS starting backing the BJP. The first Red assault began in 1948 when a gathering in Thiruvananthapuram being addressed by then Sarsanghchalak MS Golwalkar was targetted. It was repeated in 1952 address of Golalkar in Alappuzha, followed by a series of murders of RSS workers in Ernakulam, Kottayam, Thrissur and Palakkad districts.
Political killing in Kannur is a well-developed State project, there is nexus among the left Government, the party and police.
The CPI(M) developed the notion of party villages. It entailed the sheer dominance of the party in which other ideological group members are not allowed, defectors from CPI(M) too are prohibited. The prohibition was multi-faceted. The party village has many layers. It starts with social boycott to political killings. More than 100 party villages exist in Kannur district alone with the CPI(M) ruling them all, with their robust ground-level intelligence network.
An analysis of the official statistics related to the incidents of political violence since 1991 obtained from the Kannur district police headquarters shows an increase in the reported cases of political violence during the CPI(M)-lDF regimes as the left Governments religiously follow an unwritten rule of shielding the CPI(M) cadre involved in killing party rivals.
According to the system, the party employs specially trained goons to do away with low-ranking members of the RSS. The goons get handsome rewards. Therefore, blame against the CPI(M) is not proved. There is a bunch of loyal cops, and, therefore, conviction rate in political murders cases in Kannur is minuscule. For example, 173 CPI(M) activists were arrested in connection with 21 murder cases in the last ten years, but none has been convicted so far. The 1996 lDF Government led by late EK Nanar had even freed as many as 610 life-term convicts. The 2006 lDF Government headed by VS Achuthanandan released 25 life-term prisoners by commuting their sentences.
Kerala’s Crime Records Bureau estimates that at least 200 people have been murdered and many more injured in political violence in the last ten years. The left rules this area like the Gulag (Cruel labour Camps in 1930s-1950s) run by Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin. The left terror is registered in the history book. The ideology itself advocates for using brute force. The West Bengal had many chapters splashed with bloods. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Much before they came to power in Bengal in 1977, the CPI(M) leader started experimenting with murder as a political instrument way back in 1970 when the party cadre murdered two important Congress leaders belonging to the Sain Family of Burdwan town. The level of brutality that they stooped down to was evident by the fact that they made the mother of the two Sain brothers eat rice drenched with the blood of her murdered sons. It was a heart-wrenching ordeal. The next remarkable case of mass murder was done on the monks and nuns of the Ananadmargi group. Seventeen of them were beaten to death.
This case proved the reign of terror at the highest level. A senior lady officer of the UNICEF and another senior officer of the Government of India detected a case of huge embezzlement of UN funds by some CPI(M) organisations within the South 24 Parganas district. When they were returning with a lot of incriminating evidence, their vehicle was attacked by CPI(M) goons. The vehicle was set on fire to destroy all documentary evidence. The women were raped and left naked on the road. It was one of the worst kinds of violence against women. Then Chief Minister Jyoti Basu remained mum and did nothing to nab the culprits. It has been proved that left-ruled States have the worst criminal records: West Bengal has the highest number of MlAs with criminal charges (107) followed by Kerala (87), according to data released by Association for Democratic Reforms, a New Delhi-based think tank.
In 1997, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, in a reply to an Assembly question, stated that between 1977 and 1996, 28,000 political murders were committed. The Black Book of Communism Crimes, Terror, Repression, first published in France in 1997 documented the unparalleled position and significance of Communism in the hierarchy of violence that is the history of the 20th century. The editor states that “Communist regimes turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government”. According to one of the writers of the book, the death toll amounts to 94 million and much more than the atrocities committed by Nazi Hitler.
Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan is being called the pioneer of murders in the district of Kannur. The chain of killings started with the murder of RSS activist Vadikkal Ramakrishnan, a sweet maker, at Thalaserry in 1969. The murder was planned by the current Chief Minister of Kerala. Even though Pinarayi was listed as the main accused in the case, he was let off in the absence of evidence. He wanted to build the State structure on the pattern of West Bengal. Therefore, the State Government, whose CM is the main accused of political killing, is not going to bring peace in the State. The Centre has to be vigilant against the left terror. Therefore, the engagement of the RSS chief has set alarm bells ringing for the CPI(M) and the Kerala Government and has given some hope to those living in perpetual terror of left cadre in Kannur and other parts of Kerala.
(The writer is Head of the Department of Political Science, Central University of Haryana)