Six issues, other than SilverLine, that will shape public perception of 2nd Pinarayi ministry on its 1st anniversary

It is quite rare for a government, that too one that was re-elected in a historic fashion, to be put through a test of public opinion just after a year in power. It is by now widely accepted that the Thrikkakara by-election will be an informal referendum on the performance of the second Pinarayi Ministry.

Though its political dominance will remain unchallenged for the next four years, the LDF has taken up the Thrikkakara battle as if its very existence depended on it. More than wresting a traditional UDF seat, the LDF is desperate to win the SilverLine debate.

There is nothing that defines the second Pinarayi Vijayan ministry more than the proposed north-south semi-high speed rail project. Yet, during the first year, there were other issues that had a bigger impact on the political, economic, social and cultural psyche of Kerala.

Not all of them showed the government in a poor light, but some did. And not all of them were the result of governance failures, but at least some could have been prevented from getting out of control.

Nonetheless, all of these issues will shape the public perception of the second Pinarayi Vijayan ministry, perhaps more than even the narratives swirling around SilverLine.

 

Murders on a whim
In just four months, Kerala witnessed twin retaliatory killings in Alappuzha and Palakkad. The latest pair of killings began with the daylight murder of Popular Front of India activist Subair on April 15, right in front of his father, by suspected RSS workers. Within 24 hours, RSS's former Shareerik Pramukh S K Sreenivasan was hacked to death inside his two-wheeler mechanic shop.

These two back-to-back killings were the replica of the Alappuzha murders last December, and the law enforcement evidently could not pick up clues. SDPI state secretary K S Shan was killed on December 18 last year. And in a swift tit-for-tat, Kerala OBC Morcha state secretary and BJP leader Ranjith Sreenivasan was murdered.

Six months earlier, RSS leader Sanjith was brutally hacked to death in front of his wife. Organised revenge killings, that too in open public spaces and with deep religious undertones, have become the norm.

After the Palakkad pair killings, the police had swung into action. But the masterminds behind the murders are still at large.

 

Rise of Pushpa in Wayanad forest
A senior forest officer who conspired with timber smugglers to loot over 1,000 reserved rosewood trees in Wayanad's Muttil was let off the hook with just a transfer.

The charge against the officer was serious. An internal report of the Forest Department pointed about the officer's “unsavoury association with the accused and their accomplices". In fact, Roji Augustine, the main accused in the Muttil tree felling case, had used a suspicious Revenue Department circular dated October 24, 2020, to cut down rosewood trees that were government property.

The cunningly vague wordings of the circular had given the impression that even reserved trees, except sandal, could be cut. This led to what the Forest Department called “the epidemic of tree cutting”, prompting the government to withdraw the circular on February 2, 2021.

By then, smugglers like Roji, aided by corrupt officers with political patronage, had accumulated rosewood heaps that could have been the envy of the sandal king Pushpa.

 

Hate sermons
This was a year when the Muslim community was peppered with hate.

The latest round of barbs was fired from the stage of the Hindu Maha Sammelan, Kerala's version of the Haridwar Dharma Parishad. Hindu speakers, and even lone Christian voices like P C George, made unverified claims and addressed the Muslim community using the language upper-caste feudal lords once used to address lower caste serfs.

These declarations of spite were made not in closed-door meetings but during public events that were streamed live. P C George was arrested but was quickly ushered out.

Before this, there was the 'narcotic jihad' sermon by Pala Bishop Mar Joseph Kallarangatt. During a religious discourse in September last year, the Bishop said 'love jihad' was not the sole menace unleashed by the Muslims. There was 'narcotic jihad', too. It did not matter to him that those found selling narcotic substances came from all religions. When there was a huge backlash, a minister from the Pinarayi cabinet, V N Vasavan, rushed to the Bishop's House to offer solidarity.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan contradicted the Bishop, even if not quickly enough. Vijayan said the evil of narcotic use should not be linked to a particular community.

But the hate seems to have settled like tar. Soon after the narcotic jihad jibe, came the handbook of the Thamarassery Diocese that detailed the various stages of 'Love Jihad'.

By November, rightwing Hindutva and Christian groups began a campaign to boycott Muslim restaurants, saying these Muslim-run outlets serve food that is first spit upon. 'Halal', which in Muslim parlance meant anything that is clean and did not undo the rights of others, was redefined to mean ugly. The government did not step in to defuse the situation.

 

Difficulty of doing business
An inter-state copter ride did serious damage to the investor-friendly image Kerala was carefully cultivating.

On July 8 last year, a Kitex Group delegation led by its MD Sabu M Jacob was flown in a copter chartered by the Telangana government to Warangal. On that trip, Sabu M Jacob took to Telangana a Rs-3500-cr mega textile park project he had promised to start in Kerala. Ruthless 'Varavelpu'-like harassment was said to be the reason.

The industrialist alleged that various units of Kitex were raided 10 times by officials from various departments within a month. He said a horde of officials, some 40-50 strong, stormed into factory units, carried out searches, grilled and harassed workers and prevented them, including women, from doing their work.

Industries minister P Rajeeve said that these inspections were carried out at the behest of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and Kerala High Court.

There was also speculation that inspections were vindictive in nature, to cut to size the Kitex MD who had successfully experimented with a political party, Twenty20, that had already usurped power in three more panchayats besides Kizhakkambalam: Aikkarakunnu, Kunnathunadu and Mazhuvannur.

It is also true that the Kitex Group has been accused of polluting the Kadambrayar river.

Even then, after the Kitex snub, the Industries Department revised the inspection process to weed out possibilities of harassment.

 

Khan vs Vijayan
On the eve of the Governor's address on February 18 this year, the threat of Arif Mohammed Khan refusing to read out his customary address loomed large.

A constitutional impasse was not precipitated but the Governor-Chief Minister relations plunged to a new low in Kerala history. Khan had refused to give his assent to the policy address even after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan talked to him in person. The Governor was enraged that the general administration principal secretary, K R Jyothilalal, shot him a missive saying that the decision to appoint a party member in the Governor's staff was against established conventions.

The principal secretary had to be immediately transferred to assuage Khan. But the senior bureaucrat was only the ventriloquist's dummy. This was Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's way of getting back at the Governor who had ignored the government's wishes on top postings to universities.

The Governor had even said that it was the pressure brought to bear upon him by the Chief Minister and the higher education minister that made him re-appoint Gopinath Ravenendran as VC of Kannur University much against his wishes.

What's more, the Governor had alleged political interference in university affairs, bemoaned that nepotism was unbearable and had even threatened to relinquish his role as chancellor.

 

Waning lure of KIIFB
Kerala is in a path of recovery. Tax revenue has crept out of the pandemic rut. In 2021-22, there was a nearly 30% increase in tax revenue when compared to the pandemic year 2020-21. Determined to shore up revenues, finance minister K N Balagopal has resolutely turned his back on demands to effect a small cut in the sales tax on petrol even as inflation is climbing. Government coffers are filling.

Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) growth has also picked up. From a negative growth in 2020-21 it shot up to 12.81% in 2021-22. The GSDP growth rate is also higher than the average interest rate of 7.02%, making Kerala's debt sustainable.

However, the prospects of KIIFB do not look rosy. It was formed by the first Pinarayi government to dramatically push up capital investment by circumventing the restrictions imposed on borrowing by states. Not more than 3.5% of the GSDP could be borrowed by states, and this was enough just for meeting committed expenditures like salaries, pensions and interest payments.

Kerala has always considered KIIFB borrowings as off-budget and did not factor them in for its deficit calculations. The Centre now wants the borrowings made by KIIFB and other special purpose vehicles like it and even PSUs to be included within the state's annual open market borrowings quota.

This would drastically shrink the borrowing capacity of states. If the Centre adamantly sticks to its new directive, it will strike at the very roots of KIIFB's existence.

Over Rs 70,000 crore of infrastructure investment has been planned through KIIFB. Centre-state relations could possibly worsen.