How does one respond critically and effectively when non-politics, non-government, and non-sense, all rolled together, assail the political public? I have been thinking about this recently — surely, this is a question that troubles all those who would wish to keep the focus of public life on politics and power. We witness, in present-day Kerala,politics being reduced to the internal bickerings over power indulged in by the powerful elite interest-groups that constitute the ruling UDF. Or, reduced to ‘sex scandals’ or ‘domestic squabbles’ when gender politics surfaces.  Simultaneously, we are witnessing the era of non-government and the severing of the link between public politics and government. While the bickerings between the coalition partners of the UDF continues unabated, news of infant deaths and severe malnutrition continue to flow from tribal hamlets in Attappady; the problems of mounting waste in both towns and rural areas continues to be criminally neglected; dengue and other dangerous fevers continue to exact daily, rising tolls all over the state. And even as the consequences of widening social inequalities become more and more visible, this government’s discourse of welfare remains pegged insistently on human mercy and charity. It continues to be dismissive of concerns of social justice and power — even as these harrowing tales continue to appear in the press, there is no dearth of advertisement of the goverment’s kaarunyam. And in the midst of all this, the Chief Minister being projected as the exemplar of human goodness and chairty! Or, the UN, ever-interested in ‘innovation’, conferring an award on his Mass Contact Programme at a time when his government has been least innovative or imaginative in solving problems that now stare us in the face. the This of course is the non-sense — the absurdity of it all. Continue reading ‘Ladies Still not Empowered in Kerala?’ Questions Raised by the Solar Scam →