Our culture and our society are formed by the interaction between our words and our world. Picture for representational purposeMalayalis have experienced intemperate language hurled at them from street-side stages for a long time. But it has not been that long since it has started engulfing them. Usages such as despicable creature, disgusting person, idiot, lamb for slaughter and festival dwarf (Arattu Mundan) and play with words such as “gunmon” conquered the evenings of Malayalis during election season. Will indecent language rewrite the cultural life of Malayalis? History indicates that it will.
In Kerala politics, the first derogatory slogan was used against EMS, the respectable first chief minister of the state. The slogan “What is this s...s...stammering Brahmin doing in a lush, green and beautiful land..” mocked him. By shouting that slogan, Congress followers earned the wrath of the whole society. A similar slogan was “Congress chief will rule the state and Gaurichothi will sit at home”, and the Congress had to pay a price for it. The leftists opened their account by branding another leader traitor.
But they were just loud noise repeated by semi-literate followers in the rhythm of slogans. They did not have any author. Later, in the legislature too indecent remarks were made to crush political opponents. “Sir, this house is infested with pests,” is what Thoppil Bhasi told the Speaker in the Assembly about another member, to which Chazhikkadan quipped promptly: “Whatever, this pest will never go into Bhasi’s field.” They were seen as tit-for-tat remarks, which were relished by even opponents. When M.M. Hassan, then a young MLA, referred to him as a venomous snake, M.V. Raghavan just asked the “small worm” to sit.
However, today, political speeches have reached vulgar extremes. Along with the semi-literates who gather on the sides of roads, the well educated middle class is also forced to hear this from a flood of TV channel broadcasts. This type of usage has a negative effect on them, and the Left leadership has failed to realise it. That is why fireworks of negativity explode in our political sphere again and again.
A prominent leader termed the Bishop of Thamarassery a despicable creature. When a journalist was publicly abused, the message it gave to the youth was that media persons can be called anything. An individual can use any bad word, but a political leader does not have that right. That is political prudence and awareness.
When judges were called fools and when that word was interpreted as “the radiant one” with the help of a professor of the Sanskrit University, that leader and that teacher tarnished Kerala’s culture. When Premachandran, a fellow leftist, was termed a disgusting person for switching sides, the agenda of that election itself got changed. Man is a linguistic being. Our culture and our society are formed by the interaction between our words and our world. But, our political leaders teach us to flee from those words. When Mark Antony spoke of his political rival, he said: “Brutus was an honourable man.” That was a sign of respect, something that has disappeared.
Nazis enforced their ideology in Germany by using words in a fascist manner. The words used by Sangh Parivar leaders at the Centre are contemporary versions of fascist usage. George Steiner, a Leftist thinker, has made observations about how Nazi party and its fascist leadership defaced German society and its language. His assessment was that Goebbels and Hitler made German into a language that was unfit to say the truth. The use of muscle power by comrade Bijimol and the abuses showered by young leaders on social media do not give them the heroic image that they expect. They and others who try to emulate them should realise it. In short, abuse is something that should be contained.
(The writer is political thinker)
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