Contrarian Khan’s gambit leads to Kerala logjam
KOCHI: Is he on a genuine mission to set things right in the administration that is plagued by corruption and nepotism or a Trojan horse planted by the Sangh Parivar to unsettle a communist-led government? People of Kerala are unable to make their mind even while Governor Arif Mohammed Khan continues to fire missives to the office of the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on a regular basis, the latest being his ‘withdrawal of pleasure’ on a minister in the Cabinet.
Expectation was different when Khan, the refined politician and scholar, landed in Kerala as the chief executive official of the state. Born in Bulundshahr in UP, Khan was elected to the UP Assembly in 1977 at the age of 26. A reformist in Islam, he had crossed swords with obscurantists in the religion. As a Union minister he fell out with Rajiv Gandhi when the Congress leader succumbed to the pressure from the Muslim clergy to upturn the verdict of the Supreme Court in Shah Bano case.
His book Text and Context: Quran and Contemporary Challenges is a collection of thought-provoking essays that reflected his unorthodox approach. Khan had hailed the Karnataka High Court verdict on hijab, saying it was not mandatory in Islam, and had opposed to the system of minority commissions.In one of his interviews soon after he became the Governor of Kerala, Khan was all praise for the state for ‘its progressive outlook and best literacy rate.’
Initially, many thought that Khan’s reformist mindset would perfectly jell with the sentiments of the Left government. And it is hoped that any difference of opinion between the governor and the state government would be sorted out in a manner that suits gentleman politics. But it seems that Khan had a different plan for Kerala. The seasoned politician, who made a foray into public life as the student union leader at Aligarh Muslim University, was ready to risk his image to accomplish ‘the mission’ he had in mind. First signs of uneasiness emanated from him after Kerala Assembly passed a resolution against the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019.
He slammed the resolution as unconstitutional because, according to him, the Act was purely a central subject. The unsavoury development at the 80th session of the Indian History Congress held at Kannur in December 2019 was the first direct face-to-face between the governor and the left dispensation in Kerala. Skipping the written speech, Khan went on to defend CAA in a reply to the attack by the earlier speakers. The governor alleged that he was disrupted by the elderly historian Irfan Habib.
What we saw after the incident was a full-blown battle between the governor and the CPM-led government that often slipped into mudslinging and slander. The person, who held important portfolios like home, civil aviation and information and broadcasting at the Centre, had no qualm in calling a vice-chancellor a criminal and dubbing Kerala as a state surviving solely on liquor and lottery. The tussle went to the extent of the governor withdrawing his ‘pleasure’ on Minister for Finance K N Balagopal, hinting that he can no longer continue in the Cabinet. Armed with a Supreme Court order, Khan set in motion the process to remove nine vice-chancellors in Kerala.
Khan also had a meeting with the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, fuelling speculations of a political conspiracy. Rumours are rife that Khan, who would comfortably fit into the RSS model of ‘Nationalist Muslim’, would be BJP’s trump card in Kerala, where the party is desperately hoping for a breakthrough. The high-voltage drama involving the governor and the CPM has almost rendered the Opposition redundant in Kerala. It has been pushed to the role of a confused onlooker, watching helplessly the unfolding of events.