Digest Number 1400

[Guest guest]

Focus

 

Amma in Kerala Political

Context

 

 

 

 

Rowing together

 

Three major faiths coexist in Left-dominated Kerala. What is their clout in

money and politics?

 

M SARITA VARMA

 

Are the threads that bind God, money and power invisible to a mundane

book-keeper’s eyes only in Kanchipuram? Why, even Kerala, that occasionally

blossoms its ballots red with a God-negating ideology, is not beyond power tugs

of

godmen.

Take for instance the magic political mystique of Muslim spiritual leader

Panekat Shihab Tangal that dismisses a whole mountain of public protest against

Kerala minister P K Kunjhalikutty embedded in a sex scandal. He is also the

president of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).

The soft-spoken Tangal does not sit on any tangible treasure trove as a mutt

trust. But in a rough measure of his financial muscle, consider this — NRI

remittances are sevenfold of the budgetary support that Kerala gets from the

Centre. About 44% of this would not have come but for the Muslim expats,

highlights a recent study Economic Consequence of Gulf Migration In South Asia

(Centre

For Development Studies, 2003). A good many of these are at Tangal’s beck and

call.

And any illusion that Malappuram and New Delhi are miles apart? “Judge not

the party (IUML) as a mere coalition partner in Kerala, our real power is the

relationship between AICC president herself and Panekat Shihab Tangal,†P K

Kunjhalikutty, the IUML minister plagued by Kozhikode icecream parlour sex

scandal, has publicly claimed several times. And not always without political

substance. This enlightenment dawned on former Kerala chief minister A K Antony

too

late. By then, the candid Antony had already dropped a brick—‘affluent

minorities holding less affluent majorities to ransom’. His chair,

automatically, was

in jeopardy.

His successor Oommen Chandy is one who knows which side of the spiritual

bread is buttered. He represents a religious community in Kerala that has fanned

out not just to Gulf, but to Germany and the United States too. More than

church-controlled assets, it is the church-swayed human assets that are in the

reckoning in the power game. Going by the CDS study (2002), it is the Christian

expatriate who is a better contributor of remittances to his Kerala household.

In a demographic transition in Mr Chandy’s favour, the CDS study also shows

that the rate of growth of Kerala’s Christian expats (53.9%) has outstripped

that

of his Muslim counterpart (17.3%).

Vatican is the biggest FDI in Kerala, some say. But not so now. From Roman

Catholic Church and Syro-Malabar Church to Protestants and Jehovas’ Witnesses,

there are about 64 denominations to Kerala Christianity, each with complex

fund-flow patterns. The only commonality is the phenomenal sweat in building the

founding rocks of the state’s high profile international scores in health and

educational infrastructure.

Talk of hill crops like cardamom, clove and rubber and schools, colleges,

multi-speciality hospitals, jewellery business, the spiritual inheritors of St

Thomas have their fingers in every business pie. Nowhere is the power of

Christian spiritual heads as evident as the way in which it caused the equally

powerful IUML to lose face in a bribe case recently .

Some bishops came out with the grave allegation that some IUML leaders (who

control the education ministry) had demanded a huge sum in exchange of

sanctioning a professional college. While education portfolio smacking of shady

money

deals is open secret in Kerala, few dared on a public debate. It was into this

twilight area that the Christian bishops have muscled in. Despite its

political clout, IUML is yet to be exonerated from this charge.

Does that make Mr Chandy safe from IUML stranglehold in the sex racket issue?

Not necessarily. One frown from Christian priests and even the church’s

blue-eyed boy Mr Chandy had to rollback its gungho liberal liquor policy.

If anybody misses Hindu godmen among the spiritual fraternity leaving their

shadow on the corridors of power in Kerala, this is only a recent development.

Beyond government-controlled Devaswoms, there are growing power webs in mutts.

Only two years ago, MLA attendance on a crucial Assembly session had fallen

alarmingly to one-third when a high profile sanyasi was laid to rest in Varkala

Sivagiri Mutt. The previous day, on the news of the dubious drowning of

Saswathikananda, the head of Sivagiri Mutt, in Periyar river, had a young

minister

bursting into tears. Irrespective of political colour, MLAs trouped to the

scene. The mystery of the death of Swami Saswathikananda at his familiar bathing

ghat is still as much twilight zone as the political connections associated

with it. Surprisingly, neither Left nor UDF has made a fuss about investigation.

The multi-billion dollar Amritanandamayi Mutt is the biggest Hindu candidate

that could cause ripples in the state’s political scene. Even as its economic

moorings are deepening with state-of-art investment in healthcare and

education, the mutt has stayed clear of local politics.

>From ex-US Senator Larry Pressler to NRI management guru C K Prahalad, it is

Mata Amritanandamayi’s distinguished foreign disciple diaspora that is

growing. If one counts the Indian corporate glitterati at her birthday party

last

year and President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam’s 20-20 Vision Document that emerged

from

her CEO Summit in Kerala, it is the development race course that the

Mercedez-riding sanyasini is eyeing. And surely, here is one godwoman for pink

dailies

to keep track of.