KOZHIKODE: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday said art is beyond any religion or caste and everyone should enjoy it without any discrimination or differences.
Vijayan said this after inaugurating the 61st Kerala School Arts Festival, which is dubbed as Asia's biggest school-related cultural event.
In his speech at the event, the Chief Minister said the festival should be a stage for enjoying and encouraging the diverse art forms in the state and the country, irrespective of their religious or caste background.
"This festival is a stage for participants to show their talents and entertain each other and those present in the audience, irrespective of their religion or caste. Art is beyond any religion or caste," Vijayan said.
"Therefore, that is how the festival should be enjoyed and seen by everyone in order to ensure unity in the state. Then only, we can ensure that Kerala continues to be a centre of peace, happiness and secularism," he said.
To the over 14,000 participants, the Chief Minister said everyone cannot win and therefore the focus should be on participating in the event.
"Participation in itself is a major achievement and this mindset should be inculcated in the students and parents too should adopt it," he added.
Vijayan also said that the government was duty-bound to ensure social security of children and a major step in that direction was the massive statewide anti-drug campaign launched by his administration.
The Chief Minister, in his speech, further said that the festival -- which began in 1957 and is considered as Asia's biggest school arts festival -- could not be held in the last two years due to the covid-19 pandemic which played spoilsport for many such cultural gatherings.
The pandemic also caused psychological problems among children as they were confined indoors and could not get together with their peers, Vijayan said.
In such a background, the arts festival assumes even more importance, he added.
He also reminded everyone that in many countries across the world, there was a surge in COVID-19 infections due to a new variant of the virus which was highly contagious.
"In such a situation, we may not be able to prevent the infection from reaching here. Therefore, covid-19 related precautions that we were following in the past should be continued," he said.
Meanwhile, the district police said they have made extensive arrangements to ensure the safety and security of the students arriving there for the event.
Deployment of sniffer dogs and plainclothes officers as well as putting in place screening infrastructure are the steps taken by police to prevent any drug-related activities during the festival or at the places where outstation students would be staying, a senior police officer of the district told the media.