The 24th Speaker of the Kerala Legislative Assembly, A.N. Shamseer, 46, has seemingly found himself in a peculiarly delicate situation that his predecessors rarely faced. Mr. Shamseer’s appeal to students to enshrine science over a literalist interpretation of religion at a school assembly in his constituency in Kannur in Thalassery last week has triggered a political storm in Kerala.
The controversy, which shows little signs of abating, has seemingly snared the Speaker’s office in its eye. Mr. Shamseer’s take on science and religion made the influential Nair Service Society (NSS) see red.
The ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] seemed acutely mindful that the NSS had spearheaded the tempestuous Sabarimala agitation that rocked the first Pinarayi Vijayan government in 2018. It seeks to avoid a similar polarising situation. The NSS general secretary G. Sukumaran Nair, known for his hardline positions on questions of faith, said Mr. Shamseer “wounded Hindu hearts” and his “comments were unbecoming of a Speaker”. Mr. Nair demanded Mr. Shamseer apologise or forswear the Speaker’s chair.
Soon, nearly a thousand NSS members staged a prayer procession in Thiruvananthapuram in an ominous hark back to the socially fractious Sabarimala agitation.
It seemed not to help Mr. Shamseer that the Sivagiri Dharma Sangham Trust (SDST) president, Swamy Sachidananda, widely perceived as an important spiritual influencer in the numerically significant backward class Ezhava community, backed the NSS’s demand for a public apology from the Speaker. Soon, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) waded into the issue. Senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala and Leader of Opposition V.D.Satheesan demanded a public expression of regret from Mr. Shamseer.
BJP State President K. Surendran alleged that Mr. Shamseer had broadcast a disdainful view of Hindu belief while not daring to question the articles of faith cherished by other religions.
Soon, war-like statements from high-profile CPI(M) and BJP leaders, gratingly amplified on social media, worsened the fraught social situation.
The CPI(M) State Secretary M.V. Govindan dug his heels in on the stated position that Mr. Shamseer merely echoed the party line, and the Speaker’s words remained within the bounds of the Constitution. He said Mr. Shamseer’s stress on science over lore came against the BJP-led Central government’s brazen attempts to “saffronise” education and supplant science with myth.
‘Diverting attention’
Moreover, the Constitution’s Article 51 states that citizens must develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of enquiry and reform. Mr. Govindan said the Speaker “has not overstepped the bounds of his office or trespassed on the fundamental right of citizens to profess, practise, and propagate any religion or beliefs of their choice”.
CPI(M) leaders alleged the BJP wanted to divert voter attention from Manipur violence and the Centre’s bid to draft a Uniform Civil Code, both viscerally emotive issues that have resonated strongly among Christians and Muslims, who constitute 43% of Kerala’s population.
Mr. Shamseer, a master’s degree holder in law and anthropology, was the LDF government’s fiery frontline defender in the Assembly and the opposition’s bugbear till the House elevated him as Speaker last September. Mr. Shamseer easily slipped into the Speaker’s role and seemingly underwent an image makeover as a prudent and cordial Assembly chair.
He had cut his teeth in politics as a dynamic Student Federation of India (SFI) activist at Government Brennen College in Thalassery, a storied institution that sculpted a galaxy of top politicians, including Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president K. Sudhakaran.
With the Assembly convening on August 7, Mr. Shamseer might find his political and House management skills tested severely. The Congress appeared poised to use the floor as a bully pulpit to assail the government, the CPI(M) and the Speaker. The BJP and the NSS announced more protests and signalled to keep the issue alive on the public stage until the Speaker apologised or resigned.
