erala sobs. She has every reason too-the death of an unknown student so rattled and shattered the Malayali psyche. The gruesome bloodshed outraged all and evoked all the empathy to the victim.
At Maharajas ,Abhimanyu, the wispy little man was loved by all with his folksy small-town image. He felt all the feels for the famished men around who had a threadbare existence while his gut got baked of starvation. Caste,cread and religion have never barred his way. He saw only humans. The frugal but industrious youngster fed his friends in the Ooru while his belly remained a wind instrument. He would not have been resentful to the monsters who grappled him and held his arms locked behind to make way for an easy kill.
Vattavada is a rain shadow village in the eastern part of the Western Ghats in Idukki district,located about 45 Km east of Munnar. The serene hamlet known for its terraced slopes and volleys ,sits snugly to the Top Station, in the Kerala –Tamil Nadu border, just a few meters walk through Tamil Nadu down by the PambadumChola gap road. It is the lone vegetable farm in winter famous for its wide variety of crops not seen elsewhere in Kerala which include apple, orange, strawberry, blackberry, plums and passion fruits. The hoarfrost atop
Walking close to the muddy lanes beside the small thatched huts and shanties, one find the single-room cloister of 150 square meter where Abhimanyu ,his siblings and the parents lived cheek by jowl.Centuries back ,his ancestors fleeing from Madhura on incurring the Kings displeasure, travelled through Kodakkanal ranges and finally have settled in five hamlets called Oors(Shires)on the plains of Kurunji. They also include some who were scared away to the forests by the Mysore Sultans .Abhimanyu belongs to the eighth generation of the people who inherited 400 years of agro- culture and traditions. His father Manoharan who was well versed in Epics and Puranas named the son after the valiant Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna; the great warrior depicted in Mahabharatha.
Vattavada where he was born is the microcosm of the Tamil culture. The ministers , Mannadiyars, the feudal lords with all their hideous Gothra social moors like Oorukoottam,Ooruvilakku (Social ostracism),clan specific customs, cast-rituals ,taboos and totems are bundled and entrenched in their psyche, that ruled the roost.
Abhimanyu reached home every holiday without fail. Such was the organic bond that glued them together. He helped his parents in the fields, rustled up some food in the kitchen, helped his mother in her daily chores. He was happy that his mousy sister would get hitched shortly. He filled in the applications to the authorities on behalf of the illiterates, held meetings and awareness programmes, organised tournaments and other entertainments to benefit the localites , an assignment right up his alley -with the flag of the progressive youth organisation, the DYFI held high in his arm.The illiterate and marginalised fellow men rooted in poverty and squalor looked up at him for all their hope of succor. He was Abhimon for them. Abhi was a trail blazer who was born in the rustic community to cut the head of the snake of superstitions ,occult practices and such other blind beliefs and rear them to the brave new world.The blood thirsty vampires had other plans-they drank the life blood of the burgeoning youth. People stood benumbed and horrified, struck in disbelief over the tragedy befallen on the rising star.
Our campuses have always been violent. It always had to do with a particular party being in power.Many national parties have their ‘chapters’ in nearly every university campus in India. Many campuses also have caste or community-based organisations. It is not infrequent that two or more of such groups of students come into serious confrontations with each other.
What drives student politics? Is it ideology or the transcient thrill? Do our campuses remain cradles of great ideas anymore?
More loudly do we have sufficient reason to believe that campus politics need to go?
Politics is so deeply entrenched in our system, our economic development – industries, corporates, social welfare schemes, health, education, infrastructure development are all dictated by politics. Student politics, though a great faultline of Indian academics, has umbilical links with national and state level politics. It becomes a launch-pad for new leaders and is much desirable as it gives students a platform to make their voices heard. The absence of politics in college campuses would make the students fossilised, obscurantist, undemocratic and anarchic. It could transform the campuses to landfill sites that act as snug hideouts for the trained viral vectors of racial- terror.
Lyngdoh Committee headed by former election commissioner, Shri J.M Lyngdoh advocated the need to unhinge campuses from political parties but sustain student politics as it was important for building a vigilant citizenry especially in a democratic country like India. Centre for Public Policy Research had conducted a detailed study in “Campus Democracy in India” and was also emphatic on the need to preserve student politics.
In India 70% voters are the youths. If every youngster thinks that politics is a rotten place where angels fear to tread and are shied away, then after some years, politics will be a gerontocracy-a sanctuary of Methuselahs and the patriarchs with moth-eaten ideals.
Ban on campus politics is preposterous and never an answer. We need to set in place the right systems and methods for students to express their thoughts and ideals which is definitely the way ahead.
The Kerala society has expressed their extreme anguish over the ghastly murder apolitically. SanghParivar brigades on the other hand, are trying to fish in troubled waters by being rhetoric over Hindu victimhood and cry foul that the Moslem fundamentalists are targeting Hindus, thereby fanning the religious sentiments aimed at furthering the Hindu-Moslem divide. Like the majority Hindus are averse to Sangh Parivar, the real Islam believers must reject the carnival barkers of Islamic terrorism. It is for the faithfuls to take the bull by its horns and play a pivotal role in fighting terror-officiants of all hues in their respective religion.
The saffron-clad fanatics clamour that they alone can effectively combat the threat of minority communalism and Moslem terrorism. It has to be born in mind that minority consolidation on religious lines emboldens the majority communalism. Secularists believe that in these troubled times of the regime of the majority religion acting on its whims, it s far more imperative to rally against the Sangh Parivar family .
“En Kiliye...En Arumai....Nanpetta Makane...(My young bird,My Son,My son from my womb.),the wail of the mother was heart-wrenching. The boorish philistine who prised out the dreams of the youth, would not feel the pang of parting and that the gash cannot be sewed up easily. They have quenched their thirst with the hot blood of the youngster who came from a remote world to the city to ease the life of his fellow men.
NeelaKKurinhi” is a phenomenon, a rare flower that blooms in every 12 years in July that swaddles the entire hamlet like a blanket of beautiful blue, rather a blue-sea, its waves dancing with the breeze and in the moon-lit nightskys-a scintillating spectacle that enthralled people for generations .
Neelakkurinji is truant this season as if the nature grieves for the dead.
