Kerala's Public Life: Doublespeak and Double Standards

'Yes Comrade Minister, We have taken control of the police station..!'


THE DOUBLESPEAK in Kerala’s public life is reaching insurmountable levels. Take the case of the attack on a police station at Kottakkal in Malappuram by the pro-CPM, Democratic Youth Federation activists two days ago and the alleged attack on the same station by the Muslim National Development Front activists a few months ago, on March 21,2007.

The attack on the station early morning of August 30 has become quite an embarrassment for the Home Minister Kodiyeri Balarkishnan as around 35 DYFI activists did storm the station and forcibly took away a worker who was kept in lock-up there. A few police personnel were injured in the attack too, as the newspaper reports say.

But the Home Minister failed to find anything untoward about the incident. He has, in fact, ordered suspension of some police personnel on duty in the station for dereliction of duty.

But in the case of the NDF activists collecting in front of the station as their senior leaders were arrested during the night, things were quite different. Though the NDF leaders have denied that there was any attack on the station, as no one was injured and no property was damaged, the Home Minister had said it was an incident as serious as the police station attacks organized by armed Naxalites in late sixties and early seventies.

The same double standards and doublespeak is evident in the way the minister defended the rising incidents of political crime in his home district, Kannur. Kannur today is in the list of districts with top crime levels even in the national crime records bureau. Still he said the other day that even family disputes were being dubbed political in his home district. Those who are familiar with what goes on in Kannur, especially in his own grounds like Kodiyeri, Pinarayi and Thalassery villages, would laugh at the ingenuity of the minister.