Kasaragod has always been merely a place for our political parties to kickstart their state-wide marches. When the rallies finally merge with the opulence of the capital city, they all forget the route and the journey they have made.
The name Kasaragod gains prominence again when there is a need to transfer corrupt government servants and officials with criminal instincts. Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala’s Facebook post announcing that Chalakkudy DySp K.K. Raveendran, who allegedly misbehaved with a software engineer for skipping the Paliyekkara toll plaza, has been shifted to Kasaragod as a punitive measure highlights this insensitive attitude of the authorities towards the district.
Is Kasaragod the State’s Siberia to exile offenders and sinners to that district? When will Kasaragod be treated on a par with all the other districts? In fact, the Minister’s Facebook post is more offensive than the crime committed by the police officer. An entire community was insulted for the mistake committed by someone else. Such illogical policies are reflected in the frequently heard threats in government offices like ‘you will be tossed out to Kasaragod’.
I came across this comment below the minister’s post which had sarcasm at full throttle: “Who is the culprit here, the DySP or people in Kasargod? I don’t understand.” There were hundreds of other comments that expressed disappointment over the minister’s attitude. The online community raised several questions such as, are all the people of Kasargod sinners? Is the district a bin to dump garbage or an abandoned well? Isn’t the central jail where the criminals should be sent to? Is Kasargod a correctional home?
Kasaragod is definitely not a terrible place to treat it as a dustbin. About half of the total rivers in the State flow through the district. It is also blessed with rich biodiversity. Moreover, there is no other place like Kasargod in Kerala which has put up a defence against the feudal system through cultural and artistic expressions. Is there any other ritualistic performance ike Theyyam which is instrumental in preserving social order and justice? The district can also boast of giving birth to ‘Maruth Kali’, a subaltern art from which deconstructs Sanskrit, which has always been the language of the elite, to resist the power within hierarchical regimes of religion.
Much ahead of the clarion call of the social reform movement was made in Kerala, ‘Pottan Theyyam’ had found powerful articulation in the expressionist imagination of the marginalised communities. The myth behind 'Pottan Theyyam' is related to Sree Sankaracharya, who asked a lower caste man to go away as he did not want to be polluted by coming near him. Sankarachaya was disarmed by the Pottan Theyyam’s argument that it was the same blood that flows through their veins. It was ‘Pottan’ who first exposed the hollowness of caste system.
It is very rarely that the desperate calls from Kasargod draw the attention of authorities in Thiruvananthapuram. The remark made by Chennithala, who took the initiative to appoint the Prabhakaran Commission to recommend appropriate strategy for the development of Kasaragod, was unfortunate. Our policymakers consider it as an ideal place to set up nuclear projects, thermal power plants and petrochemical industries. It is the fate of a region which has been silently bearing the brunt of the health hazards caused by the overuse of endosulfan for the past twenty-five years. There are thousands of victims, either dead or bed-ridden, of this government-sponsored terrorism.
The BUDS special school for the differently-abled endosulfan victims are crippled with inadequate facilities, where classes are being conducted under asbestos roofs. The government has failed to utilise the fund provided by the NABARD three years ago to construct school buildings.
The authorities should have made efforts to send committed and compassionate officials to Kasaragod to facilitate socio-economic changes here. Shifting the erring DySP is to a station near the Secretariat was the right thing to do. As a result of such irrational practices, good officials do express reservations about taking up posts in Kasaragod.
In the poem ‘Bimbisarante Edayan’ (Shepherd of King Bimbisara), Edasseri Govindan Nair narrates an incident in which Lord Budha comes across a mother sheep who loves both her healthy and crippled children, equally.
I hope that the authorities would try to emulate such moral standards and rightness and take corrective measures to wash away the sins by appointing good officials in Kasargod while posting the erring ones in Thiruvananthapuram itself!
(The author is a writer and a teacher at Nehru Arts and Science College, Kanhangad)
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