In a digital era, when a section of Kerala argues that it deserves pole position among other things even in the Digital India initiative, it is quite curious when for days on end the agenda for political discourse got set by a set of letters. Those who make a habit of taking things literally, say why not, we are literally the most advanced state in the country. And that it should be seen as a blessing when contemporary society finds time not only to write letters but to get others to read them. Certainly, it is a great relief and a clear step up in life for the people of the state who were held to ransom by the mad caper to unearth a sleazy CD only a week ago.
Be that as it may, let’s cut to the chase. First, there was a bunch of letters that kept getting shot off from Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s office to the PMO. The central theme, as we all know, was a philosophical debate — whether an invitation once given can be retracted. And at whose behest was such a dark deed done? The issue gained gravitas when a series of rhetorical questions started doing the rounds, the most intriguing one being whether the people of Kerala were insulted. Holding aloft the literary streak, the CM even wrote to the PM asking why the latter’s office did not issue another letter clarifying the matter.
Understandably, the PM, known more for tweets and selfies rather than any propensity for letter-writing, never responded. Arguably, that may have prompted Oommen Chandy to go the extra distance to try and connect in the social media space, by pouring his heart out on Facebook. Apart from all and sundry coming up with ‘likes’ and comments on the CM’s Facebook post, there was only a deafening silence from the Prime Minister’s Office.
It certainly had all the makings of a true tragicomedy, of Shakespearean proportions, when SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan, who vacillated between inviting and not inviting, finally decided to clear the air by saying it was for the CM’s own good that the invitation was retracted. He, of course, never being sold on writing letters, all interactions from Kanichukulangara were limited to either telephone calls to principal actors or staccato addresses to the media. And the plot kept getting murkier. Not sure if even a master playwright could’ve dreamt of approximating the inexplicable complexities of the sequence of events that led to the most farcical of situations in contemporary state politics.
Perhaps only one man had the gift — William Shakespeare — or at least critic Kenneth Burke believed so. Because, he said, “Shakespeare spontaneously knew how to translate some typical tension or conflict of his society into terms of variously interrelated personalities… his function as a dramatist was to let that whole complexity act itself out, by endowing each personality with the appropriate ideas, images, attitudes, actions, situations, relationships, and fatality.”
Sure, there was nothing from the Bard on what is said to be a forged letter currently making waves both in Kerala and Delhi as its authorship is being pinned on the second-most important man in the state cabinet, Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala. The letter that landed in Delhi a while back but came to light only recently makes for a riveting read though. In a critique on the reasons for the poor showing by the UDF in the recent local body polls, the author says that, compared to the 2010 polls, when he (Ramesh) was the KPCC president, there were no proper preparations by the Congress and there was no attempt to persuade rebel candidates (one big reason for the poor show of the Congress) to withdraw.
Putting the performance of both the party and the Chandy government under the lens, he piles on the misery by saying corruption is rampant and the image of the CM has been totally spoiled. He mentions scams, nepotism and authoritarianism as reasons for the people getting alienated from the Congress and the UDF. Then comes the killer stroke where points are raised on why and how the Hindu community turned against the UDF government, driving home the point by saying it voted against minority dominance in the government.
The author sums it up with an invitation to intervene, apart from the ‘humble suggestion’ that rather than cosmetic corrections, surgery is the need of the hour. Result: Madam’s invitation to the CM, KPCC president V M Sudheeran and Ramesh to attend a meeting in Delhi next week; it’s also being said this meeting date was set way before the letter leak. Post-result: Speculation is rife as to how this ‘letter’ got leaked and by whom; almost all senior Congress leaders, Ramesh included, were stoic in their denial regarding the attributed parentage of the letter. It is not as if the ghost of the letter-writing spirit haunts only the Congressmen, some of whom still take time to read Letters From A Father To His Daughter.
There are some spirited letter writers in the Left ranks too. And leading the lot, by a fair distance, would be Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan, whose spurts of letter-writing, often spurred by indignation against the goings-on in his own party, are again addressed to Delhi. The only difference is while the first two sets of letters went to South Block, Raisina Hill and to Akbar Road, those by VS end up in Bhai Vir Singh Marg, where AK Gopalan Bhavan, the headquarters of the CPM, is housed.
On a more poignant note, the high pedestal on which letters are placed these days in Kerala is underlined by the fate of a hapless postman, Samuel John, who was sentenced to two years’ rigorous imprisonment this Wednesday. His crime is that he tore up a letter in a show of anger against the postmaster who asked him to deliver it. It did not matter that he had sought the help of another postman citing lack of familiarity with the region and even the latter failed in his attempt.
Evidently, letter writing is serious business in Kerala. No surprise then that among the claimants to the world record for the longest hand-written letter is Reagan Jones, a true son of Kerala, hailing from Vandipperiyar in Idukki district, who took four years to complete a letter to Pope John Paul II, using more than 10 crore words. That’s a letter not many would be in a hurry to read, unlike those pushed by politicians, which end up topping even whodunit novels from across the globe as the best read of the week.
The author is Resident Editor, TNIE, Kerala.
E-mail: vinodmathew@newindianexpress.com