Kerala’s curse

THE dismissal of rebel Congress party leader Muraleedharan from the party in the south Indian state of Kerala amounts to too little, too late. Politics in India has been a family business for a long time and this family business has mushroomed all over the country. Though this is a new phenomenon in Kerala, the one involving Muraleedharan, his octogenarian father Karunakaran, and sister Padamaja has rendered the state’s politics into a scatological drama with a pungent stench, leaving the hapless citizens to live through it noses shut. The stench emanating from the nauseating show had not only halted governance in the state but also had a ruinous effect on the party’s fortunes in last year’s national elections where it failed to win even a single seat. What surprises most is that the party took so long to crack the whip on nincompoops like Muraleedharan. But then, waffling and shuffling is nothing new to the Congress High Command.
Karunakaran and his offspring are yet to prove their claims of mass support through the democratic process. What they have done so far is to hold public meetings of substantial sizes in major cities, which amounts to nothing considering the role of money and muscle in politics and the availability of crowds for rent. Muraleedharan, who literally parachuted into Congress politics and leadership, thanks to his father’s unmatched clout a decade ago, has yet to show the spark that makes leaders out of ordinary men. That ill-gotten wealth and the shady world of mafia connections have helped nurture and sustain politicians in the state is an open secret. And in this Karunakaran and his children are not alone, they have the entire political spectrum in the state for company. Sadly, this has been accepted as inevitable, given the way politics is run in the country. But what makes the trio stand out in this squalor is their unbridled flaunting of hubris and excess in the face of the need for restraint in any civilised society.
Politics, it is said, is the art of the possible. But sadly in Kerala it is mostly people who fail to make it possible anywhere else who end up in politics. Kerala is not immune to India’s curse of the full-time politician. But one wonders why the state, which boasts of being the ‘most literate state’ (not the most educated!), has to endure such ‘leaders’. Maybe it is a reflection of the people’s unvarnished love for base politics. Therefore, it is no surprise they get the leaders they deserve.
This is an editorial published in Oman Tribune