The 'No Sir/No Madam' campaign, which began humbly in the small 16-member Mathur Panchayat in Palakkad, has been given a major political boost.
KPCC president K Sudhakaran, busy battling the revolt of the old guard in the party, announced that all panchayats in Kerala ruled by the Congress and the UDF would adopt the Mathur model and immediately ask citizens to refrain from using the salutations 'sir' and 'madam' to address senior functionaries. For a party used to address its seniors as 'sirs', this would mean a radical change in behaviour.
Under the UDF are 321 grama panchayats, 38 block panchayats and three district panchayats. Apart from banning 'sir', words that reinforce a slave mindset like 'apekshikkunnu' (plead) and 'abhyarthikkunnu' (appeal) would also be done away with in the public communications of all these Congress-led local bodies. Application forms, 'apeksha form' in Malayalam, will be reworded as 'avakasha pathrika' ('Document of Rights'). Mathur, again, is the first panchayat to do this.
"These panchayats will encourage its citizens to dump words of supplication and replace it with usages that indicate confidence and an awareness of citizen rights. Instead of appealing or pleading, they should demand," Sudhakaran said.
He said changing the official style of communication in Congress-ruled panchayats was just the first phase of his party's social change strategy. "In the next leg, we would press for such changes across Kerala. We have already asked the DCC presidents to initiate moves in their respective districts," he said.
That Mathur Panchayat was ruled by the Congress helped Sudhakaran to pounce on the opportunity. He hailed the decision as "revolutionary". The driving force behind the campaign is also a Congress worker, Boban Mattumantha. Sudhakaran hailed Boban, too, in his Facebook post.
Boban, the Palakkad district secretary of Congress's cultural wing Samskara Sahithi, had been for quite some time exhorting the public to question colonial-era jargon that merely helped to keep the distinction between the rulers and the ruled clear. Panchayat offices in Palakkad were showered with hundreds of letters, mostly dispatched at the bidding of Boban and his friends, calling for an immediate end to the use of officialese left over by the British Raj.
All of a sudden, the Congress party, which was always perceived as indifferent to social causes, has found itself in the vanguard of a social reform movement in Kerala. Sudhakaran gave the 'No Sir' campaign a revolutionary sweep. "The KPCC's attempts to restore democracy right from the bottom to the top begins from Mathur," Sudhakaran said.
After Mathur banned the use of 'sir' and 'madam' unanimously on August 31, three other panchayats had followed suit: Uzhavur (Kottayam), Avinissery (Thrissur) and Ambalappuzha (Alappuzha). This was once again proof that the proposed changes had the backing of all political parties.
Uzhavoor has an independent as panchayat president, Johnys P Stephen, but is backed by the UDF. Avinissery is ruled by the BJP and Ambalappuzha by the CPM.
