KOCHI: The 1971 suspension of P K Manthri — then an arts teacher at Government UP School, Pandalam — has long been viewed as a direct fallout of his sharp cartoons targeting the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) and then education minister C H Mohammed Koya, affectionately known as ‘CH’. But in a striking personal account, CH’s son and IUML leader M K Muneer now says his father neither ordered nor initially knew about the suspension.
During that period, Manthri had been publishing a series of cartoons in Thaniniram weekly, many of them critical of the IUML. The immediate trigger, according to historical accounts, was a controversial cartoon titled “Koya-cum-bed”. The cartoon followed CH’s statement in the state assembly that government teachers would not be permitted to continue as “cartoonist-cum-teachers”. The work was widely perceived as a direct rebuttal of the minister’s remarks and escalated tensions between the artist and the establishment.
As a government employee, Manthri’s public criticism was treated as a breach of service rules, leading to his suspension for over two years.
However, in a piece in ‘P K Manthri’, an anthology brought out by the Kerala Cartoon Academy, Muneer contests the long-held belief that his father had personally initiated the action. “I can say with certainty that it was not my father who suspended cartoonist Manthri,” Muneer says. “Everyone assumed the action was taken on his instructions. But he neither gave such a direction nor was aware of it at the time.”
Recalling the episode from his school days, Muneer says his father came to know of the suspension from media reports suggesting that Manthri had been punished for criticising the education minister. “He immediately called officials and asked why action had been taken without informing him. He instructed that Manthri be reinstated,” Muneer notes, describing how CH, who later went on to serve as chief minister, summoned officials home and expressed anger over the unilateral decision.
The suspension was eventually revoked in 1973 after a note by writer and then education secretary Malayattoor Ramakrishnan, who underscored the democratic value of political cartooning.
Manthri continued to draw during his suspension under the pseudonym ‘Thanthri’ and later published Chithrahasyam.
Reflecting on the passage of time, Muneer wrote: “My father passed away at 56. Manthri died at 51. At 63, let me reveal the truth here.”
The book, to be released at the Thiruvananthapuram Press Club on Saturday, compiles essays by various authors on Manthri and reproduces several of his bold and controversial cartoons.