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Are the April-May-June Months of 2024 in India the carnival days of democracy or the proclamation days of Hindu Rashtra theocracy? Where has the democracy that was here gone?
P. S. Remesh Chandran
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
Article Title Image By Adobe Stock. Graphics: Adobe SP.
Are the April-May-June Months of 2024 in India the carnival days of democracy or the proclamation days of Hindu Rashtra theocracy? Where has the democracy that was here gone?
P. S. Remesh Chandran
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
Are the April-May-June Months of 2024 in India the carnival days of democracy or the proclamation days of Hindu Rashtra theocracy? Where has the democracy that was here gone? Where has the democratic respect that was here for elections gone? Where has that discipline in electoral processes and propaganda gone? Do they intend to cover up failures of government, serious irregularities and their anti-nationalism through celebratory approaches to election? In what sense does the media which is under the inducement and total control of the central government celebrate, depict and propagate election as a festival of democracy? From the District Collectors in charge of elections in the districts and the Election Officers in charge of elections in the state to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the centre- why do they hold elections are a carnival and an occasion for festivity? Is it because they are inappropriate persons who should not even be allowed to come close to politics or official duties that they do not see any impropriety in this view?
As the Dominican priest Savo Narola in the city of Florence in Italy in the fifteenth century during the Pre-Renaissance pointed his hand angrily and shouted the warning, aren’t the many Sir. Lorenzos of this land making festivals grow as an addiction in society and in people’s minds as a prelude to installing their autocratic and fascist rule? Isn’t this intoxication being spread even to elections to make people forget and ignore their democratic rights, citizens’ responsibilities and duties and shed common vigilance? Even after knowing that democracy is in danger and has almost disappeared, isn’t there any one in the Executive, Legislature, Judiciary, Media and Political Parties to speak up? Even after that warning, in front of the people who did not heed it, was it not in the same Italy that Benito Mussolini's dictatorial regime grew up, joined with Hitler's fascists in Germany, and taking also Japan into the league, carried out the greatest invasions, mass murders and misery in the history of the world?
As part of this premeditated democratic carnival, on 20 April 2024 when the elections were held in Manipur, armed gangs of Meythi community terrorist groups attacked polling booths and destroyed the electronic voting machines of the BJP and the Election Commission. Eleven booths went for re-polling and curfew. There and also in West Bengal where the elections were held on the same day, the Central Police stood by and watched as spectators for the benefit of the BJP who were the beneficiaries of this inaction. The same was repeated throughout the country, like the beatings and stabbings going on in the midst of festive drunkenness in carnival grounds! So this was what the election festival was for?
On 25 April 2024, the State Chief Election Officer of Kerala Sanju Kaul, the state’s Chief Secretary V. Venu, Chief of Police Darvesh Sahib, Chief Secretary's Staff Officer Arjjun Pandtyan, Additional Chief Election Officers C. Sharmmila and V. R. Premkumar and quite a few other high officers of the Election Commission and Department, all overly impatient for spending money that is not theirs lavishly as their own and writing thick vouchers, joined together in Trivandrum, gathered a number of college students and women students along who had no other jobs, and organized something which they said was ‘the election festival and the pride of the country’, with such performances as Kalari Payattu, Oppana, Theyyam, Marggam Kali, Puli Kali, Pancha Vaadyam, Chenta Melam, and the marital-life-tired-aged-politicians-and-bureaucrats’-eagerly-awaiting Thaalappoli and Thiruvaathira Kali, and besides, to delight their eyes (not people’s!), a platoon of horse-mounted police and also a roller skating team, and paraded through the city streets with all these accouterments shouting slogans such as ‘Your Vote, Your Voice’ and ‘Vote For Your Land’! Why should they notify an election and campaign for voting this way? As soon as the Election Commission has issued a notification for election, a notification and a call for voting have come into effect. Isn’t it enough?
But here they also held an election announcement pageant in addition! This is the change that came in government officers after the global scammer Pinarayi Vijayan became the Chief Minister of Kerala. They also termed it ‘Systematic Voting Education and Electoral Participation’. As usual, someone gave a short name ‘Sweep’ too to this expensive charade and sat down in his office preening his feathers like a rooster. However, the polling on 26 April 2024, the day after this governmental election travesty and money drain, saw a seven percent drop from the previous polls in the number of people voted!
It was Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo who were paid money and summoned and brought by the officials and politicians of Sir. Lorenzo-The Medici in Florence city to exquisitely design the floats and dresses to be paraded in the not-too-infrequent day-night carnival processions which were to remain an unforgettable, haunting, lovely, never-to-vanish-from-the-eyes spectacle in people’s minds for a lifetime and to remain a story for generations-to-come so that people will sway and swinge and dance and forget their political duties and responsibilities. Here in Trivandrum, in this official governmental election cavalcade, they did not go that far because they had no capacity for that.
BJP's Prime Minister Narendra Modi also said he sees India's elections as a carnival and occasion for festivity. On 7 May 2024 in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections, after voting in the constituency of his home minister Amit Shah in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Narendra Modi said that '2024 is like the carnival of democracy and that all the people of the country should participate in the festival'.
As the Dominican priest Savo Narola in the city of Florence in Italy in the fifteenth century during the Pre-Renaissance pointed his hand angrily and shouted the warning, aren’t the many Sir. Lorenzos of this land making festivals grow as an addiction in society and in people’s minds as a prelude to installing their autocratic and fascist rule? Isn’t this intoxication being spread even to elections to make people forget and ignore their democratic rights, citizens’ responsibilities and duties and shed common vigilance? Even after knowing that democracy is in danger and has almost disappeared, isn’t there any one in the Executive, Legislature, Judiciary, Media and Political Parties to speak up? Even after that warning, in front of the people who did not heed it, was it not in the same Italy that Benito Mussolini's dictatorial regime grew up, joined with Hitler's fascists in Germany, and taking also Japan into the league, carried out the greatest invasions, mass murders and misery in the history of the world?
As part of this premeditated democratic carnival, on 20 April 2024 when the elections were held in Manipur, armed gangs of Meythi community terrorist groups attacked polling booths and destroyed the electronic voting machines of the BJP and the Election Commission. Eleven booths went for re-polling and curfew. There and also in West Bengal where the elections were held on the same day, the Central Police stood by and watched as spectators for the benefit of the BJP who were the beneficiaries of this inaction. The same was repeated throughout the country, like the beatings and stabbings going on in the midst of festive drunkenness in carnival grounds! So this was what the election festival was for?
On 25 April 2024, the State Chief Election Officer of Kerala Sanju Kaul, the state’s Chief Secretary V. Venu, Chief of Police Darvesh Sahib, Chief Secretary's Staff Officer Arjjun Pandtyan, Additional Chief Election Officers C. Sharmmila and V. R. Premkumar and quite a few other high officers of the Election Commission and Department, all overly impatient for spending money that is not theirs lavishly as their own and writing thick vouchers, joined together in Trivandrum, gathered a number of college students and women students along who had no other jobs, and organized something which they said was ‘the election festival and the pride of the country’, with such performances as Kalari Payattu, Oppana, Theyyam, Marggam Kali, Puli Kali, Pancha Vaadyam, Chenta Melam, and the marital-life-tired-aged-politicians-and-bureaucrats’-eagerly-awaiting Thaalappoli and Thiruvaathira Kali, and besides, to delight their eyes (not people’s!), a platoon of horse-mounted police and also a roller skating team, and paraded through the city streets with all these accouterments shouting slogans such as ‘Your Vote, Your Voice’ and ‘Vote For Your Land’! Why should they notify an election and campaign for voting this way? As soon as the Election Commission has issued a notification for election, a notification and a call for voting have come into effect. Isn’t it enough?
But here they also held an election announcement pageant in addition! This is the change that came in government officers after the global scammer Pinarayi Vijayan became the Chief Minister of Kerala. They also termed it ‘Systematic Voting Education and Electoral Participation’. As usual, someone gave a short name ‘Sweep’ too to this expensive charade and sat down in his office preening his feathers like a rooster. However, the polling on 26 April 2024, the day after this governmental election travesty and money drain, saw a seven percent drop from the previous polls in the number of people voted!
It was Leonardo da Vinci and Michael Angelo who were paid money and summoned and brought by the officials and politicians of Sir. Lorenzo-The Medici in Florence city to exquisitely design the floats and dresses to be paraded in the not-too-infrequent day-night carnival processions which were to remain an unforgettable, haunting, lovely, never-to-vanish-from-the-eyes spectacle in people’s minds for a lifetime and to remain a story for generations-to-come so that people will sway and swinge and dance and forget their political duties and responsibilities. Here in Trivandrum, in this official governmental election cavalcade, they did not go that far because they had no capacity for that.
BJP's Prime Minister Narendra Modi also said he sees India's elections as a carnival and occasion for festivity. On 7 May 2024 in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections, after voting in the constituency of his home minister Amit Shah in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Narendra Modi said that '2024 is like the carnival of democracy and that all the people of the country should participate in the festival'.
Written on 19 April 2024, edited since, and first published on: 12 May 2024
Original article in Malayalam written on 19 April 2024, edited since, and first published on: 10 May 2024
SM1585. ഇ൯ഡൃയിലു് 2024 ഏപ്രിലു്-മേയു്-ജൂണു് മാസങ്ങളിലു് നടക്കുന്നതു് ജനാധിപത്യത്തി൯റ്റെ ഉത്സവദിനങ്ങളോ ഹിന്ദുരാഷ്ട്രമതാധിപത്യത്തി൯റ്റെ വരവറിയിപ്പുദിനങ്ങളോ? ഇവിടെയുണു്ടായിരുന്ന ജനാധിപത്യമെവിടെപ്പോയി?
https://sahyadrimalayalam.blogspot.com/2024/05/1585-2024.html
