16 Jun 2012 Kerala Commentary
Moral policers of Kerala are delusional and need treatment.
P.S.Remesh Chandran.
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
The curse of Kerala is teachers like Prof. Joseph Mundasseri not becoming education ministers, doctors not health ministers and engineers not public works ministers. Political parties do not prefer educated professionals to become party members, contest in elections and represent party in the state cabinets. As long as it does not happen, Taliban-inspired state ministers will, according to their religious agenda, try to bring about moral policing in schools and colleges. Is this state minister bold and committed enough to allow police enter campuses when law and order of this country is challenged there? A few anti-social elements are born with the inherent tendency to harass, intimidate and exploit students who are peacefully learning in the educational centres in the state, expose these sacred institutions to betrayal, hatred and violence and prepare way for terrorists to come and go freely in these sacred establishments of society. This decision by the state educational authorities is plainly religion-inspired and harm-motivated to constitute moral police wings in schools and colleges. When every other way to facilitate terrorist organizations’ tricks to invade Kerala were closed by the brilliant officers of Kerala Police and National Security Agencies, they came up with another plan to make the same thing possible by influencing and ordering politicians in their payroll to create administrative support for this idea. If properly inquired into, it can be proved that this idea was discussed and hatched in religious institutions. In Afghanistan 150 girl students were recently poisoned through drinking water by Taliban to prevent girls from getting educated. Here in Kerala also the same objective is aimed to be achieved by making campuses hell for decent and obedient students and girls can thereby be ordered to not go there. There are people behind this move who have perfect training to disrupt the tranquillity in Kerala’s social life. A few years back, there was this Arabi Nikkahu when the Arabis came to Kerala, gave money to poor parents who could not send away their daughters in marriage, married those little girls and spoiled them and when the Arabis had to go back after a few weeks, simply deserted them. It was safe prostitution disguised as marriage. When consciousness of Kerala roused against this, it stopped. Then came the Love Jihad from the same quarters when Hindu and Christian girls were systematically captivated by trained young men, given a child and abandoned in the expectation that such children born out of wedlock would be rebellious enough to join the ranks of terrorists when they grow up. Literate Kerala exposed this and police intervened in many places and it lost its speed. Then came the Moral Policing which was another word for blackmailed prostitution. When it was duly exposed it also waned. Now this state minister publicly approves the rightness of moral policing even in schools! Whom does he represent?
17 June 2012 Kerala Commentary
Someone in the Education Department of Kerala wants to introduce something like a Dharma Sena to watch up teachers and students, the job supposed to be assigned to parents. This is clear indication of the education department being run by the nervously broken down. It is strange to note that moral policing factions, who had been looking into the cultural, political and marital activities of people in the northern districts of Kerala, never looked into the most prominent feature of the social and political life in Kerala-corruption. Never once did they block a single government official or politician who is notoriously noted for corruption. They centred on man-woman relations in targeted families where they liked to see some kind of immorality which they could not make use of directly by blackmail. So they turned to moral policing, in strict imitation of the abhorrent Skimmetty Rides described in Thomas Hardy’s novels. This makes clear the source and inspiration for this wave of moral policing-bribery and corruption gangs that wanted to divert people’s attention away. And money offered by anti-national elements for causing disruption in social life was an added bonus. Corruption is the only field where some kind of policing is needed and no state minister in Kerala has ever come forward with a genuine formula, invention or scheme for blocking corruption. How can one deny one’s roots and lifeblood? If cricket bats and hockey sticks are going to the law enforcement tools for moral policing, what if acid bulbs and gas canisters are used by defenders? Taliban says they are moral police. Does the state education minister of Kerala who publicly support moral policing in schools deny that moral policing is Talibanism or Talibanism is moral policing in disguise? If police can’t curb social crimes using the national civil code and the criminal procedure code, or if the police force of the state has become too much of a hindrance and obstacle to law breakers, is it not legalizing moral policing in schools creating parallel policing, fulfillment of the long cherished dream of religious fanatics and outside-the-nation-terrorists? Political parties in Kerala have been doing this moral policing through their goon gangs the last of which was conducted at Onchium village in North Kerala, resulting in the manslaughter of a rebel communist party leader. In whatever name moral policing is called, it is violation of criminal procedure code, something to be booked under. No one has the right to teach others what is right and what is wrong, unless he violates something that is proved as violation by a constitutional body and also no one has the right to monitor a student or a teacher or a parent unless warranted by an act of suspected crime. Privacy of neither a child nor a grown up man shall not be violated by hr new goons. Even cabinet ministers, parliament members, diplomats and Supreme Court judges are charged with sexual harassment, seduction and rape. Who are these clean people of Kerala the education minister and education department are going to constitute the Moral Police Force or Dharma Sena or whatever it is called, with?
Jul 6 2012 Kerala Commentary
On some occasions, when some particular kind of news reaches people, they would however be forced to say that some kind of people’s policing is necessary at some places. Trivandrum has a very good avenue running between Kawdiar Palace Junction and the Vellayambalam Governor’s Residence. The road is wide and tree-lined, thanks to the earlier Maharajas. Rich boys from the families of high ranking police officers and administrative service personnel roam this road in their high priced motor cycles and cars at all hours of the day, defying speed limits and killing street walkers. It was also the hobby of these boys to race along side young girls going to tuition classes in the very early mornings. Nearby homes could never rest or sleep peacefully. Dozens of fast motor cycles and cars revved up Kawdiar Street day and night and people thought: Had the Maharaja was still ruling, all these boys along with their fathers would have been hanged even without a trial! Even the home minister or the chief minister did not interfere. When conscientious police officers interfered and booked a few chasers and racers, telephone calls from their superior officers came, asking them to release the boys at once and escort them back to their assembling cafe. At last people gathered and beat the boys one by one mercilessly when the fathers became furious and ordered the police to book the people. Receiving people’s money as salaries, growing up their sons as biting dogs and ordering subordinate officers to arrest people who dared to touch their sons: that was what these rich officers did. It was plain abuse of authority. So the local factions of a couple of youth organizations including this DYFI entered the scene and beat the boys publicly. Now the officers and their sons are silent because it would the abominable corruption stories of the fathers that would be coming next in newspapers. It is incidents of governmental non-interference like these that boils the blood of local people to organize themselves as moral police and fight back. A man selling adulterated food, a person peddling drugs, another accepting bribe for doing his official duties, a gang of government officials doing corruption in ingenious ways, a group of elites doing obscene dancing in an all night club, such persons have never been moral policed by anyone. It is two people walking hand in hand in a park, a lady wearing a scanty dress, a lady suspiciously standing in a bus stop waiting for someone, who has ever been moral policed. This denotes only one thing- the suppressed sexual frustration of the moral policers. Moral policing expresses itself in the form of abuse and assault on the supposed offender; it has never taken the form of halting the supposed offender in his act till the police arrive. Therefore it is never a form of correction but only an outlet for venting the anger and frustration of the mentally disturbed. Had they stopped where the law could take over, it would still have been justified.
Jul 20 2012 Kerala Commentary
The conviction of morality depends on the culture, tradition and upbringing of a person. What he considers as moral would be immoral to other individuals and communities. It is our frustration over our own miserable state of affairs that make us intolerant to other persons’ views and opinions and mind not our own business. Each community in the world will have its set of morals. In some communities it is taboo to eat pork and in some communities it is eating the cow’s meat that is taboo. In most temples in the Hindu community, fish is forbidden inside the compound but there are a few temples where fish is offered to the deity inside the shrine. Most communities consider a man marrying his sister’s daughter a crime but many communities permit only such marriages. Most religions deny polygamy but there are a few which freely promote it. So, what one community considers as a crime would be the accepted moral in another community. A community which exists by doing only the wrong things will not exist for long, thereby eliminating the need to correct them. Thinking that our community’s set of morals shall be accepted by all other communities and subverting other people’s fundamental rights to believe in his own community’s set of morals is defying the rule of law in the land. Judging one’s actions unilaterally, deciding he has wronged and meting out punishment by civilians is something outside the machinery of law and order. Wherever such an offence occurs and police is not booking those persons under the law, the police are simply not in the right tracks there. No need to emphasize the importance of police, but to reform it to become people-friendly is the only option. Those who like to moral police someone, are advised to police themselves, or go to some asylum to get treatment without wasting time. But political parties, parliamentarians and police officers associating themselves with criminal minded persons and eliminating or silencing enemies through brawn power is what influenced people, set the example and moved them to this path. Moral policing was actually devised to prevent free dissemination of ideas. When a few writers made statements or wrote books which were condemned by religious fanatics, especially Muslim fanatics and terrorists, they issued Fatwa, ordered destroyal of those books, hunting those writers and if possible, eliminating them. Once the taste of this kind of uncontrolled vandalism was enjoyed, it became irresistible to be called back by anybody, even by those who originated it. So, it turned to other channels of venting frustration and transformed itself into moral policing. It is an accepted fact that only persons with an immoral side to their character have ever tried to become a moral police. They actually cloak their evildom with pseudo morality. Where constitution of a country allows freedom of speech and freedom of expression, someone attempting moral policing should immediately be arrested and removed from society.
Jul 20 2012 Kerala Commentary
A man selling adulterated food, a person peddling drugs, another accepting bribe for doing his official duties, a gang of government officials doing corruption in ingenious ways, a group of elites doing obscene dancing in an all night club, such persons have never been moral policed by anyone. It is two people walking hand in hand in a park, a lady wearing a scanty dress, a lady suspiciously standing in a bus stop waiting for someone who have ever been moral policed. This denotes only one thing- the suppressed sexual frustration of the moral policers. On some occasions, when some particular kind of news reaches people, they would however be forced to say that some kind of people’s policing is necessary at some places. Trivandrum has a very good avenue running between Kawdiar Palace Junction and the Vellayambalam Governor’s Residence. The road is wide and tree-lined, thanks to the earlier Maharajas. Rich boys from the families of high rank officers and administrative service personnel roam this road in their high priced motor cycles and cars at all hours of the day, defying speed limits and killing street walkers. It was also the hobby of these boys to race alongside young girls going to tuition classes in the early mornings. Nearby homes could never rest or sleep peacefully. Dozens of fast motor cycles and cars revved up Kawdiar Street day and night and people thought: Had the Maharaja was still ruling, all these boys along with their fathers would have been hanged even without a trial! Even the home minister or the chief minister could not interfere. When conscientious police officers interfered and booked a few chasers and racers, telephone calls from their superior officers came, asking them to release the boys at once and escort them back to their assembling cafe. At last people gathered and beat the boys one by one mercilessly when the fathers became furious and ordered the police to book these people. Receiving people’s money as salaries, growing up their sons as biting dogs and ordering subordinate officers to arrest people who dared to touch their sons: that was what these rich officers did. It was plain abuse of authority. So the local factions of a couple of youth organizations including DYFI entered the scene and beat the boys publicly. Now the officers and their sons are silent because if they dare book members of these youth organizations, it would the abominable corruption stories of the fathers that would be coming out next in newspapers. It is incidents of governmental non-interference like these that boils the blood of local people to organize themselves as moral police and fight back.