Thiruvananthapuram: In what was billed as his 'tell it all' press conference on Monday, Governor Arif Mohammed Khan revealed nothing new except a video clip that showed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's political secretary K K Ragesh trying to mediate between the police and the slogan shouters at the Indian History Congress held in Kannur in 2019.

The Chief Minister's letters the Governor made public did not say anything new either. Their content, especially the Chief Minister's assurance that there would not be any government interference in university affairs, was revealed to the public earlier this year by the Governor himself.

Therefore, more than what he revealed, it was the Governor's bitter, no holds barred, tirade against the ruling party that made the Governor's unprecedented press conference eventful. He made fun of CPM leaders, demonised their ideology and equated them with terrorists.

CPM equals terrorism

“Don't you feel any sense of shame that the convenor of the party (LDF convener E P Jayarajan) was barred from flying for attacking two people inside a plane,” the Governor said, as if addressing the CPM. "One minister trashed the Constitution publicly and was removed from the Council of Ministers. Another former minister challenges the territorial integrity of India using Pakistan's language. Do you think these incidents are merely lapses on the part of these individuals,” he said. Khan himself gave the answer but used terms reserved to describe terrorist activities. “This is how they are indoctrinated in their training camps,” he said.

He once again referred to the imported nature of the CPM's ideology. “There are certain ideologies that have originated outside India and they believe in the legitimacy of the use of force to silence dissent, stifle differences of opinion and liquidate those whom they consider their class enemies," he said. Those they consider class enemies, Khan said, were those who hold a different political view.

Historical CPM conspiracy

In effect, the Governor was saying that what happened at the History Congress in Kannur was a CPM conspiracy to intimidate a person like him who held a contrary political view. “They had come prepared with over 100 placards, big ones. Tell me, is there anything spontaneous about this? Can you prepare so many placards in 5-10 minutes,” the Governor asked.

His logic was that the protesters were not provoked by his impromptu words but had already come prepared to heckle him. However, there are other visuals that show that these placards were created on the spot, evidently provoked by the Governor's pro-CAA and anti-Muslim remarks.

Governor Khan cited Ragesh's role as evidence that a person close to the Chief Minister was party to the conspiracy to “malign, intimidate and overawe” him at the History Congress. “He (Ragesh) rises from the seat, goes down to where the fracas is happening and stops the police from acting. The police wanted to do their duty but Ragesh stopped them. He left the stage even before I could finish my speech,” the Governor said.

“Possibly, this could be why he was rewarded,” the Governor said, hinting that Ragesh was given the post of the Chief Minister's political secretary as a prize for plotting the attack on the Governor.

Under IPC section 124, Khan said it was the duty of the police to prevent any attempt to prevent the President or the Governor from discharging her Constitutional duties. “But Ragesh came down and restrained the police from acting,” Khan said. Kannur University Vice Chancellor Gopinath Ravindran was also part of the “conspiracy”. “It was he who invited me, in effect ensuring my presence at the History Congress,” Khan said.

The Governor also said he had recently come to know from Delhi that the protest against him in Kannur was planned well in advance. “A friend of mine, an Aligarh University alumni, told me that they had known five days before what would happen in Kannur. He asked me what the Kerala intelligence was doing,” the Governor said.

Khan said he raked up the issue now because it was only a week ago that he saw the visuals of K K Ragesh preventing the police from taking action against the slogan-shouters.

Mualana, Habib and Godse

Since there was criticism that he was exaggerating when he said there was a murder attempt on him by historian Irfan Babib, Khan was careful in his choice of words. He spoke about an “attempt” to “intimidate and overawe” him by Irfan Habib during the inaugural of the 80th session of the Indian History Congress in Kannur.

The video clip of the History Congress that was screened as part of the press conference shows Habib hovering near the Governor, passing behind him and along his sides, all the while being restrained by the Governor's personal security and Kannur University Vice Chancellor Gopinath Ravindran. There clearly is no attempt to harm the Governor but Habib's expression suggests he is irritated by the Governor.

When the boos and slogan-shouting grew in intensity, a provoked Khan switched to Hindi and utters what was widely described as an offensive anti-Muslim remark. “It was about the likes of you that Maulana Azad had said in 1946 that after the partition had taken away the dirt some muck had still remained. These have now become stagnant cesspools from which came forth an offensive stink,” he says and then goes back to English: “You are causing a foul smell.”

A restless Habib reportedly told the Governor to stop misquoting Maulana and instead quote Nathuram Godse.

Khan unleashed a personal attack on the octogenarian historian. “Habib is known for violent activities right from his Aligarh (Muslim University) days. He was the leader of the fourth-grade employees' union at the University, and hardly a year passed by without him entering into some kind of physical fight with people. So on that day, I thought Habib was just being his usual self, behaving on the spur of the moment. But it was only later that I realised that all this was planned well in advance,” Khan said.

Chancellorship debate

Governor Khan also revealed the correspondence that he had with the Chief Minister prior to the re-appointment of Gopinath Ravindran as the Kannur University VC. He said the Chief Minister came to meet him at Raj Bhavan before the selection process began.

Khan said he agreed that he would give the Chief Minister's nominee a weightage but said that the selection process had to be carried out. However, the Governor said that the process was scuttled and pressure was made to bear on him in the form of the Advocate General's opinion that essentially said that the process could be done away with.

He conceded, fully knowing it was a "mistake", but felt that the pressure was too much for him and announced his intention to renounce his duties as Chancellor. He said he was willing to sign an Ordinance to this effect since the Assembly was not in session. He said he got a reply from the Chief Minister on December 8 saying he should desist from stepping down from the Chancellorship. The Governor wrote back the very next day saying he would not change his mind.

The Chief Minister wrote back on December 16, again asking the Governor not to abdicate his Chancellor post. "I did not respond to this letter as I was resolved to step down," the Governor said.

Then he said a senior officer came to him with a draft, and asked him what can be done to make him continue as the Chancellor. The Governor made some modifications and on January 13 this year, a new letter incorporating all that the Governor had asked for was submitted before him. It was in this letter that the Chief Minister assured the Governor that there would be no intervention from any government quarters in the affairs of universities.