Thiruvananthapuram: In its fight against the intolerance of the Hindutva forces, the CPM now considers writer Hareesh a major liability. He gave up too easily, it is felt.
It is not as if the party had not attempted to rouse up Hareesh. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan wanted him to keep on writing. V S Achuthanandan asked him to reconsider his decision and not to kneel before the threats of Sangh Parivar. But the writer, like a knocked-out boxer who seems oblivious to the referee's countdown, did not respond.
As though fed up, the party has now dumped the 'Meesha' writer. Instead, they have pulled up an in-house writer, a poet, as the new cultural icon of resistance. Prabha Varma, a Kendra Sahithya Akademi award winning poet, national award winning lyricist and former Deshabhimani journalist, is one of chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan's six advisors. Right wing groups have vehemently objected to a portion in Hareesh's novel 'Meesa' they believe have given Hindu women a bad name. The part, which speaks about the sexual eagerness of religious Hindu ladies, appears in the third chapter of the novel serialised in a Malayalam weekly. The writer withdrew the novel following protests.
Varma, too, had received threats from the Sangh Parivar recently. He had done a critique of the Bhagavad Gita in a literary magazine and certain right wing enthusiasts had reportedly called him up over phone and threatened him with dire consequences. Varma himself had revealed it in a Facebook post at the peak of the 'Meesha' controversy.
At that point, when the state was deafened by the angry screams against 'Meesha', Varma's plight looked like a minor event, a mere footnote to the Hareesh episode.
Red knight rises
The CPM but has decided to make the Varma episode the more glowing chapter in the resistance, and Hareesh's a shameful pitiable side story. It was culture minister A K Balan who had set the tone. He had spoken proudly about Varma's courageous stand, and gave Hareesh only second billing, at the closing ceremony of the International Documentary and Short Film Festival here on July 24. Now, the party's cultural wing PuKaSa (Purogamana Kala Sahithya Sanghom) has given the strategy wings.
The new hero was introduced at a meeting the PuKaSa organised in the capital on Friday. The theme of the meeting, written in operatic bold in posters, were the last two sentences of the Facebook post that Varma had written in response to the threats he had received. “It is better to fold the knife of your threat and keep it back in your pockets. Don't ever expect Prabha Varma to be among those who had withdrawn.”
Bhagat Singh and the renegade
Prabha Varma said that it was late in the evening that he received the call. “The caller asked me in a threatening tone whether I would write against the Bhagavad Gita. When I said yes, he said I would have to face severe consequences. I said I would keep on writing,” the poet said, striking an absolute contrast with Hareesh and Perumal Murugan. (If Hareesh is accused of insulting Nair women, in 2014 Tamil writer Perumal Murugan was harassed by right wing elements for sullying the women of Vellala Gounder community. Murugan's reaction was far more extreme. He vowed not to write ever again. His novel Mathorubhagan (One Part Woman) revolves around an ancient temple ritual during which all sexual controls are lifted.)
The poet then added: “I have not given any assurances to anyone that I will live on forever. We cannot fight these forces with people who crawl on their feet in the face of death. The world should be led by writers who care a damn for death.” Someone at the event even called Prabha Varma Bhagat Singh.
Gita sermon
There is another reason why Prabha Varma has become the resistance icon. He has taken on the Bhagavad Gita with zest. The party has already begun demystifying the Ramayana, through the Samskritha Sanghom. Now Prabha Varma has been deputed to deflate the Gita.
“They were angry because I wrote that the Gita encouraged the Varna system. They say it should not be interpreted so. But what is the other interpretation? They have not told me,” he said. “When Arjuna refuses to fight, Krishna specifically tells him he is a kshatriya. What more do you want to prove that the Gita was reinforcing the Varna system,” he added.
When nothing persuades Arjuna to take up his bow and arrow, the Gita says that Krishna assumes his true giant form. Varma interprets this as Krishna threatening Arjuna. “Krishna instilled a fear psychosis in Arjuna,” Varma said.
And then, he gives Gita a fascist connection. “It was the Gita that inspired Nietzsche to come up with the super race theory that so fascinated Adolf Hitler,” he said.
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