KOCHI: Former District Collector Ernakulam and former Labour Commissioner Kerala, M P Joeph who have spent many years in Cambodia working for the UN held an enlightenising session on his book My Driver Tulong and Other Tall Tales from a Post Pol Pot Contemporary Cambodia at Krithi International Book Fair that recently conluded at Marine Drive.
In his talk with K J Sohan, former Mayor of Kochi, he discussed about his book and his ideologies. He said that the mass genocide that happened during the time of the dictator Pol Pot in Cambodia in the late 1970s, should not be seen as an isolated incident. “It can again happen anywhere in the world and given the set of wrong circumstances of a power-hungry leader or a party with an ideology driven by hate, it can happen in India and even in our own state,” he said.
Joseph mentioned that once the genocide starts, the killing does not make a distinction between opponents of the ideology and its proponents. As happened in Cambodia, the killings get a momentum of its own and even the strictest adherents of the party and the ideology will get eliminated.
This is because such killing takes a life of its own and even the strongest proponents of that ideology soon become its victims. “The only way to defend our freedom is to speak out against fascism and autocratic tendencies of leaders and parties,”Joseph said.According to him it is when people cease to speak and take a stand that such dictators get the upper hand.
Sohan said he was struck by the level of detail that the book had gone into on Cambodia and amazed at the fine etching of the characters in it. The author had pointed out even the weakness of the UN in the book, driven as the UN is by the US and Western Powers, he added. The UN needs to change, was the common understanding that emerged during the Conversation.
K Jayakumar IAS former Chief Secretary and Vice Chancellor of the Malayalam University and a batch-mate of the author pointed out the role that Joseph had played during the Gulf War when he headed a GoI Team that evacuated safely over 1,20,000 Malayalees from Kuwait. Jayakumar said that this was also a subject area that Joseph should write about. K R Viswambharan, Chairman Oushadhi and former VC of the Kerala Agricultural University, introduced the book to the audience.
He said it was a book that explained Cambodia, which is the Kamboja-Desa of our Puranas to the Indian Public. It also described the Hindu and Indian base upon which Cambodia has been built and its strong India and Sanskrit culture links.Navya Paul, a young upcoming woman entrepreneur praised the strong portrayal of Cambodia’s young people in it.