“In the beginning was “Malayala Manorama”, the leading daily of Kerala, renowned for spreading venomous propaganda. It churned the waters of Periyar vowing to demolish the Mullai Periyar dam, and fixed the spurious “time – bomb” in the minds of Keralalites, through its article entitled “Mulla Periyar is about to explode” (1978). Then there came the “firmament in the midst of the waters” that ‘separated the people from people’.
The hoax bomb triggered off by “Malayala Manorama” ‘blossomed’ from the ‘auspicious’ counsel of the engineers of Kerala State Electricity Board. In the late 70s the Congress party in power, upset over the poor performance of the newly commissioned Idukki dam (1976) failing to achieve its hydro – power generation targets, sought the advice of the KSEB engineers. The idea of demolishing the Mullai Periyar dam to enable hydro – power production at Idukki was the ‘thought bud’ that ‘blossomed’ from this ‘think tank’.
Conspiring to demolish the dam, the Congress party led government came up with the ‘solution’ of sowing panic among the people about the impending disaster of the supposed “time-bomb”. It approached “Malayala Manorama” whose close ties with the party is well documented. The aforementioned article was published in its front page, followed suit by every single media outlet in Kerala. It also has to be mentioned in this context that in the recent spate of Kerala state sponsored bursts, the employees of Manorama with the blessings of its management, had organized a protest demanding the demolition of the dam.
Since then, conspicuously ignoring the ground fact that, the people of Kerala benefit from the agricultural produce of the southern districts of Tamil Nadu, dependent on the waters diverted through the Mullai Periyar dam, the Kerala media have resorted to spread a fear psychosis among the people of Kerala. “Malayala Manorama” is in the fore front of this campaign with its long established proclivity for unethical journalism.
It is to be further inquired why the successive governments of Kerala have tenaciously ignored the fact that, both the people of the adjunct states are beneficiaries of the dam. For the present moment, it has to be noted that, the Kerala governments’ principal concern is the production of hydro – power to meet the needs of the industrial units located down steam Periyar river, and Kerala chose its present disastrous path against the interests of its own people.
Academic researchers have long noted Kerala’s “power predicament” and have suggested the alternative path of “thermal energy” to meet the state’s electricity needs. But in spite of their futuristic predictions and cautions, the state’s policy makers are stuck up with the developmental path laid down during the final decades of the colonial rule.
The current stale mate which Kerala finds itself arise from this initial developmental path paving way for state sponsored immigration in the late 60s and the “remittance economy” of the 70s, finally taking chauvinist overtones in the recent violence unleashed on Tamils, with explicit instigation by the state agencies of the Kerala government irrespective of the parties.
The protest organized by the movement known by the appellation May 17 last Sunday, 8 January, 2012, at the “Chennai Book Fair” demanding the withdrawal of “Malayala Manorama” book stall, contrary to what is being projected in the mainstream media as “fascistic, undemocratic, etc., etc.,” was a democratic demand against unethical journalism which ultimately have led to the current impasse.
The mainstream media’s projection of the movement as a “fringe element” springing from extreme Tamil nationalistic prejudices is to turn blind eye to hard facts of the ground. Ignoring facts and projecting panic is analogous to the one who “heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked”.
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Let people decide for themselves if this is a peaceful democratic protest or fascistic arm twisting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4LEy7tq518
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Filed under: Politics, malayala maronama, May 17, mullai periyar
