THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : Far from the countryside election season scenes of party workers out soliciting votes and engaged in poster wars, and walls filled with names and symbols of candidates, Pariyaram, located 16km from Thiruvananthapuram city, presents a different picture.
Like an island of calm in a sea of commotion, it is devoid of all the chaos associated with a poll campaign. Even at the height of an early summer’s day, this ward of Nedumangad municipality looks like a frame out of a Adoor Gopalakrishnan or G Aravindan movie — grey, silent and laidback.
One will not get to see even a single poster, flex board, graffiti or flag anywhere along the 1.5-km-long stretch of the ward, forget an election committee office. With around 500 families, Pariyaram residents took the call, nearly 40 years ago, not to swim with the current.
“It was in the early 1990s that our elders decided not to display party flags or paste campaign posters on the walls,” says Sarngadharan, 70. “This used to be a highly politicised area dominated by CPM. Then some of us joined Congress. What followed was a period of great political tension, especially in the run-up to elections, which often led to violence. The situation was also rife for social tensions. Illicit liquor lobby thrived. All this resulted in the killing of a man and attacks between parties,” he said.
According to Sarngadharan, the elders took matters into their own hands and decided to put an end to all the violence. “There was to be no campaigning. Political parties could hold meetings, but they would have to remove all paraphernalia — including flags, bunting and posters — immediately after such programmes,” he added.
Residents also decided not to observe hartals. “All political parties have abided by the decision,” Nedumangad municipal vice-chairman and Pariyaram ward councillor A Surendran says. “We hold public meetings here, but that is followed by a clean-up. Everyone cooperates. This does not mean that people do not harbour political views. They do. Parties go door-to-door distributing campaign notices,” he said.
The younger generation also welcomes the decision. “We have had one of the issues commonly linked to campaigns,” says Jiji Krishna, a shop owner. “It’s been years since we have had tensions in the name of polls. Even on hartal days, we keep shops open,” he said.