Second Vimochana Samaram underway in Kerala!
Literary Quotation Group and Media Hunters Target One Good Man
A group of CPM supporters in the Gulf are protesting against the participation of Sukumar Azhikode, M Mukundan and KEN Kunjumohammed in a literary programme organized as part of the Centenary celebrations of Vaikom Muhammed Bashir, a well known Malayali writer. After discrediting the prominent scholar and author late M N Vijayan, the Pinaray group has been promoting the anarchist writer like Mukundan to criticize the chief minister. While they have been good writers and command respect from the public, these self proclaimed literary ambassadors have degenerated into political pimps barking for corrupt leaders. (New Quotation team)
M Mukundan, a popular writer who worked at the cultural exchange desk of the French embassy in New Delhi has been spreading the spirit of anarchism, drug addiction and alcoholism among the disgruntled Malayali youth. Some of his works portrayed the disillusioned, both spiritually and rationalistically orphaned youth who find asylum in drugs and alcohol. As a reward for his posting as the President of Kerala City Academy, Mukundan was the first writer to start discrediting the state chief minister who is also head of the Governing Council of the Academy. When the ideological dispute between the VS and Pinaray faction was getting intense, Mukundan dared to term him as an "Outdated Saint." (Kalaharanapetta Punyavalan) and Mr Pinaray as the "Right leader of our times."
Mukundan's drug-addict characters have drastically influenced the Kerala youngsters, as some of them emulated his crazy characters resorted to suicides, alcoholism and drugs. He has also got a deep admiration and adoration for the former Colonial masters, Britain and France, partly due to his employment as a cultural attaché of the French embassy. To the credit of writers like Mukundan and other anarchists Kerala has one of the highest alcohol consumption and suicide levels in the country! There are occasions when young readers left their education and started drug abuse, a trend that systematically made a new generation of politically vegetarian breed of youngsters. While Mukundan is a good author, he has among other authors helped de-politicisation and degeneration of Indian youth. Remember the role of young students and vibrant college campuses in spreading the progressive movement in the country. He is also fascinated with Malayali gods and Kuttichathans. His Daivanthinte Vikruthikal (Mischiefs of God), the pro colonialist prove that he still adores the French and British capitalists who ruined our country for the profit motive of international capital. The TV media is supplementing what authors like Mukundan have contributed --airing a number of parochial programmes that spread superstition and ghost stories. The visual media is also contributing to a large extent to create good consumers without any rational thinking ability through addiction to pulp serials, films, reality shows and cricket. India is an officially secular country but the TV channels in Kerala do not have any programmes that encourage secular values and rational thinking. But content with an overdose of religious element is the rule rather than exception.
Sukumar Azhikode Silent on Pinarayi
. When these literary quotation group failed in their mission to politically kill and discredit VS, the latest ace shooter to aim at Achuthananthan is Sukumar Azhikode, the self proclaimed cultural guru and literary king maker, a known Gandhian and Sanskrit expert. Having worked with the Indian National Congress for long period, he worked against communists during the Vimochana Samaram. In his verbal attacks on the chief minister through TV channels and a detailed interview in Mathruboomi, he first ridiculed the chief ministers' smile after the party's miserable defeat in the parliamentary elections. In his latest interview to Mathrubhoomi Azhikodu said he has the right to criticize V S Achuthananthan because other prominent writers like Betrand Russel and Kafta criticized their rulers. While Azhikode is a seasoned orator and literary critic who fight corruption and lack of integrity alike, the old man has failed to spot such problems in the state secretary or the other corruption cases and investigations involving the top party leadership. In a democratic set up he has the right to criticize anyone and equate V S with the dictator Sir C P Ramaswamy. (Below M N Vijayan no match for Azhikode)
He can also intervene to criticize the CM for other mistakes. However, these criticism would have carried much weight age with the public, had he been equally vigilant about Pinarayi group. There are many corruption cases involving some CPM leaders, but Sukumar was silent about all of them. Only recently he started shouting about Pinarayi Vijayan should face the court proceedings. Given the different yardstick used by Sukumar to judge Pinarayi Vijayan and V S, there is no scope for complaint if some supporters get agitated. His latest revelations about alleged telephone call from the Chief Minister appears to be part of a wider conspiracy to tap VSA's official telephone. Already senior cabinet ministers have expressed their discontent to work with the CM and plans are charted out to oust the CM in a silent coup. While these political games are part of politics, respected writers should keep away from such campaigns. He has been allegedly receiving threatening calls. His fantasy to attack VS is not matched with his wordings on other leaders. He has also claimed a right to criticise VS because other prominent thinkers and writers like Betrand Russel have interened to correct their rulers. However, a comparison with Buttrand Russel or others is not a good exercise for the veteran orator, thinker and author, whose addiction to Advaitha philosophy, Sanskrit and Gandhism is well known. It is not know whether he ever liked the left ideology. Listen to Sukumar Azhikode and his philosophy
Betrand Russel part of CIA Writers Network
In his book, Cultural Cold War : The CIA and the World of Art and Letters Frances Stonor Saunders, British Journalist and Historian says that many prominent European authors and intellectuals in the early days of Cold War were knowingly or unknowingly part of a campaign for the hearts and minds of Europeans against the evils of Soviet ideology. Those on the list of prominent scholars included the famous historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr, French social theorist Raymond Aron, novelist and essayist Arthur Koestler, and philosopher Bertrand Russell. He says the first cold war spies were the cultural elite from the brightest minds of the period and the list included the brightest authors and scholars. They also financed a number of books, cultural events and exhibitions and even air dropped Russian translations of TS. Eliot's Four Quartets into Russia. (Video showing how the CIA toppled the E M S Government in 1950s with the help of Congress leaders and the Roman Catholic Church)
It is well known that the CIA funded right-wing intellectuals after World War II but fewer know that it also courted individuals from the center and the left in an effort to turn the intelligentsia away from communism and toward an acceptance of "the American way." The author sifts through the history of the covert Congress for Cultural Freedom in the book which centers on the career of Michael Josselson, the principal intellectual figure in the operation, and his eventual betrayal by people who scapegoated him. Sanders demonstrates that, in the early days, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the emergent CIA were less dominated by the far right than they later became, and that the idea of helping out progressive moderates--rather than being Machiavellian--actually appealed to the men at the top.( Read More)
The program was primarily aimed at swaying members of the noncommunist left--swing voters in the contest for European minds. He says in his book that the CIA money flowed through the Congress of Cultural Freedom to back left intellectuals and artists who could dilute ideas, not to suppress them. In the field of literature too, there has been a systematic dilution of writings and after the Vimochana Samaram, even in translating international titles, the priority was for promoting American books over Russian or French books. Books like Davinci Code, a detective thriller that explores Jesus Christ and sexuality, and Harry Potter, which deals with witches and wizards. As millions of copies of these pulp fictions are sold the world over, rational thinking is getting alienated and promotes parochial values like witchcraft and black magic. It is ironical that the same trend was visible in India too, but Azhikode and others are not anyway linked to that degeneration. However, some of the Kerala writers books are preserved as valuable by the US National Congress library.
Achuthananthan Ace Comedian for TV Channels!
The State CM is a favourite subject of ridicule for many TV anchors and satirists who use their media to discredit clean political leaders like VS Achuthananthan, just as part of a broader smear campaign against him. Whether it is the Politrics satire show in Amrutha Television and India vision or the Cover Story in Asianet, the Chief Minister is always a butt of ridicule showed as an ace comedian sandwiched with third rate film music and visuals. Millions of Keralites still accept VS as a non corrupt leader. Malayala Manorama is doing better than Jai Hind TV to denounce and demonize VS and his ideas.Mathruboomi, another leading newspaper is running a campaign against the Left for obvious reasons. But it is amusing that the newspaper group has encroached huge areas of land that belonged to the Devaswam Board. Virendra Kumar has been very vocal in demonizing Pinaray Vijayan and land mafia of Pharis Abobakers but the millionaire media mogul from Vayanadu has many gray areas to cover up.While their anchors anguish regularly about the SNC Lavlin case corruption, which is an old story now, they have least interest in discussing the Rs One billion corruption scandals involving several high level defence ministry officials including Malayalis. The media is clearly following double standard in handling the more dangerous defence corruption scandals involving Congress leadership. A K Antony has a clean defence minister image and the innocent Israeli arms dealers who are direct sons of the God and saints as mentioned in the Bible. While Pinarayi Vijayan's involvement in the SNC Lavlin case is discussed day and night news hour programmes, they are least interested in the role of G Karthikeyan, the former Congress power Minister who initiated the first step in the corruption deal. The integrity of these media organizations, especially the double mammoth group and the Murdoch group is also clean, if the viewers forget the disintegrated story of a Chennai based finance firm that cheated several thousand investors. The senior political editor of Indian Murdoch too is to be pardoned for siphoning off several million Kuwait diners from an Indian school that was invested in the television channel. The covert foreign fund flow to the mushrooming number of channels is yet to be an investigative story for the Malayalam media.
You too Britas --Peoples Newspaper and Channel Target VS
What astonished everyone is the total U- turn of the popular channels owned by the working class, turning violently against the Chief Minister. The Malayalam newspaper and the TV channels have been running a vendetta against V S obviously to please the party secretary who controls the media wing. Pharis Aboobaker, the real estate tycoon who was allegedly facing investigations in Singapore for you know what cases is a darling of the channel. The party channel editor's ambition as a journalist is to interview the LTTE Chief Velupalli Prabhakaran and the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. Unfortunately, Prabhakaran is reportedly dead and Dawoods whereabouts are still a secret. The channel has already featured all the crooks and saints in city -Pharis Aboobaker, Devi Amruthanantha Mai, M Murali and all others….The state chief minister is the least priority for the channel, only if there is no negative story. Party comrades in the Gulf are worried about the deteriorating popularity of the channel -thanks to the regular telecasting of the party general secretary's face and the way the channel report negatively about the popular chief minister.
Advertisers are also pointing out the declining viewer ship chart of the channel(s), which is reduced to a mere mouthpiece of the corrupt party secretary and his cronies. One comrade said many of the party members and their families invested in the channel because of their commitment to the party ideology. However, both the party newspaper and channel are sacrificing their neutrality and ideals to protecting the secretary. They are citing the recent example of the channels handling of a high profile crime story from the Gulf and Kerala Nedumbassery airport involving a liquor baron and racketeers. While all the leading channels from India and the Gulf were competing against each other to cover the incident, the party channel was doing everything possible to keep it out of the camera focus. Rather the channel representatives were lobbying with the party bosses and government officials to save the culprit.
The degeneration of the party leadership is evident from the fact a couple of party state committee members have their sons and close relatives employed with dubious bootleggers and hoteliers in the Gulf region. Some of these dubious businessmen, who are smart money launderers converting black money generated in India into white money, are associated with these new generation comrades. A South Indian businessman who is running a chain of a few hundred bar hotels in India is employing the son of a senior state secretary member. Politicians sons are also doing businesses, (the nature of which is not disclosed here) and the rumour mill has it that a mixture of political leaders including corrupt Kerala red politicians are running joint venture business projects abroad.
Boycott Calls Spread Through Emails
Emails (with such attachments) and SMS messages are calling for the boycott of an anti V S summit in which Sukumar Azhikode and other self proclaimed literary leaders are participating in a Gulf country.
One email received by KM called for boycotting the public programme of Sukumar Azhikkode who equated VS, the most popular CPM leader who has been consistently fighting corruption and stand for public interest, with Sir C P Ramaswamy, the autocratic divan that was ousted from power several decades ago.
It said Azhikode's efforts to whitewash Pinarayi Vijayan is part of his ulterior motive to become a CPM philosopher and theoretician. It said a party nurtured and developed by popular leaders like EMS, P Krishna Pillai, A K Gopalan and H Kanaran will not allow his role as a theoretician.
The email said Azhikodes contribution to the Kerala society has been negligible and literary figures should not wag their tail for corrupt leaders. The real writers should fight against injustice and corruption and not support such leaders. The email goes on to attack M Mukundan, an irrelevant writer now and K E N Kunju Mohammed, who are also in the same boat of Sukumar Azhikode.
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