New Delhi: With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi continuing its Christian outreach in Kerala, CPM MLA and former state health minister K.K. Shailaja told ThePrint that she fears the move and called it a “dangerous thing”.
In an interview to ThePrint shortly before the 28 April launch of her debut book ‘My Life as a Comrade’, which chronicles Shailaja’s life and political journey so far, she said that even as the BJP is going ahead with its Christian outreach, the “Sangh Parivar is not showing tolerance” — referring to the BJP’s ideological parent the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
“Tolerance is a major thing in India. They (the Sangh Parivar) are deadly against the vichardhara (philosophy of tolerance). Intolerance has returned. Sangh Parivar organisations are openly saying that if Muslims and Christians adopt a ‘Hindu attitude’, they can stay here. It is a dangerous thing,” Shailaja pointed out.
An MLA from Mattannur in the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government of Kerala, Shailaja asserted that the state government does not have any enmity towards PM Modi.
“But it is the difference between policies. From the Sangh Parivar to our Prime Minister, everyone is propagating that India is a Hindu nation. We don’t believe that India can become a single-religion country, a Hindu Rashtra. We cannot agree with that. In our Constitution, it is written that our country is secular,” she told ThePrint, adding that “secularism is our main religion”.
Shailaja pointed out there are “more than six religions in our country”. “People in different parts of India have different eating habits, different religious events, everything is different but we joined together after 1947 (independence from British rule) to form a country that is India and the string which joins us together is secularism,” she explained.
Also Read: How Kerala and Punjab became ‘worst performing states’ in their handling of Covid
‘Government is privatising everything’
Talking about the BJP-led central government’s policies, Shailaja highlighted the problem of unemployment in the context of “the PM coming to Kerala and asking the youth ‘what is your problem’”.
“The problem of the youth is unemployment. It (joblessness rate) is more than 8 per cent in India and they (the Centre) should have a policy to get rid of this problem throughout India, instead of asking questions to the youth in Kerala. He (the PM) can come and ask questions, but he should change the policy,” she said, alleging that “the government is privatising everything, (even) the Life Insurance Corporation of India”.
Commenting on the government-versus-Governor debate in the light of Governor Arif Mohammed Khan’s frequent run-ins with the Vijayan government, the former Kerala health minister said: “It’s not only Kerala; in Tamil Nadu too you can hear the same issue, and in some other states as well.”
“The relationship between the Governor and the government should be democratic… we are not against Arif Mohammed Khan ji, or anyone. We cooperate with any higher authorities, if it is the right thing. If it is against the people, we will protest. That is going on, nothing else,” she said.
According to Shailaja, the central government should decide how far a Governor can go (to fulfil constitutional duties).
Referring to the makers of the Constitution, she said: “Someone had asked if this position (of Governor) would hinder the free activity of an elected government. At that time, (Bhim Rao) Ambedkar and the others had said ‘no, the Governor should behave properly because they are from a democratic country and they will uphold the principles of democracy’. But, nowadays, it is not so.”
Shailaja alleged that “every Bill the (state) assembly was passing was going to the Governor and he was sitting on it”.
“This despite the Kerala High Court also saying that the Governor cannot sit on Bills. The central government should decide how far the governor can go,” she reiterated.
‘Kerala planned early how to handle Covid’
Shailaja, who hails from Kannur district, had won praise from both domestic and international quarters for her handling of the Covid pandemic in Kerala while she was health minister from 2016 to 2021, and has vividly described in her book how she and her teams tackled one of the world’s worst health crises.
Talking about the same, she told ThePrint that planning was the key.
“We had learnt our lessons from the earlier disasters that hit the state… the devastating floods and the Nipah virus. That is why we planned early. When we heard that one potential virus was spreading in China, we started preparations here,” she said, adding that “we were laughed at and ridiculed by some for planning so early”.
“Some people asked ‘what are you doing, why are you overreacting?’ and that ‘you are opening the umbrella here while it is raining in China’,” she recalled.
But the state administration decided not to waste time, in spite of what people were saying, according to Shailaja.
“We started discussions with (health) experts. Our department, my secretary and I as well as important officers got together and we decided to start training and to open the control room. We set up a team at the airport to screen people coming from abroad,” she explained.
That is why, said the former health minister, when India’s first Covid case was detected in Kerala, in a student returning from Wuhan in China, there was no panic.
“The first case was diagnosed on 30 January, 2020. But our teams had identified a bunch of students (as potential carriers) soon after they landed at the airport from Wuhan on 27 January,” said Shailaja.
“We identified some people, tested and quarantined them. Their report came on 30 January and one of them tested positive. We activated the protocol we had set in place immediately. Where the World Health Organisation and other agencies were saying ‘test, test, test’, we had something different in mind. We obeyed them but we also said ‘trace, quarantine, test, isolate, and treat’.”
Much has been spoken and written about the ‘Kerala model’ that was behind the state’s effective handling of the Covid pandemic, but Shailaja said the “Kerala model was nothing, but a decentralised planning system”.
“We are always concerned about the entire society, and not only the rich or those living in town areas. We were going to remote villages also and (ensuring) protective measures. So, we opened a control room and set up an IT section. We collected data from outside as well,” she explained.
Shailaja pointed out that throughout the world, those who invested in the public health system had found it easy to handle the pandemic.
“Those who are privatising the (health) system completely — they couldn’t do anything for the whole society or citizens during this pandemic. And that is the lesson, that is the Kerala model,” she asserted.
‘Not disappointed on being dropped from cabinet’
Shailaja, who is a central committee member of the CPM, was dropped from the Vijayan Cabinet when the LDF government came to power in Kerala for the second consecutive term in 2021. Former journalist Veena George replaced her as state health minister.
Talking about it, Shailaja told ThePrint that she was “not disappointed” on being left out. “I’m a political worker, a member of the Communist Party. The party told us that both works — parliamentary and extra-parliamentary — are equal,” she said.
She explained that in 2019, the CPM had decided that Vijayan would lead the state government and all others would be changed for fresh hands. “That doesn’t mean we were not working. All the ministers were working hard in the previous ministry, not just me. But that (changing hands) was the policy. We wanted to train fresh hands,” Shailaja said.
According to Shailaja, as an MLA, she got to work for her constituency and as the CPM’s central committee member, she got to work throughout the state to build the party. “That is also social work, and if you are satisfied with this work, there is no disappointment,”
she asserted.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: Activist ancestors, sexism in politics — KK Shailaja’s book traces her journey to communism