Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has warned society against revanchist forces which, he claims, restlessly sought to retard Kerala’s social progress by attempting to reinstate the dehumanising caste system in new and subtle forms, stressing superstition over science, instilling religious intolerance, often subliminally, and injecting long discarded regressive beliefs into society’s mainstream.
Mr. Vijayan used the 169th birth anniversary celebrations of Sree Narayana Guru at Chempazhanthy in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday to broadcast the ruling Left Democratic Front’s (LDF) political message that humanism, scientific temper and secularism were at peril in modern India and Kerala was no exception.
Mr. Vijayan said Guru-inspired progressive movements ensured Kerala remained an oasis of humaneness and harmony until now.
“Some regressive forces think they could recoup their lost social relevance by establishing a highly discriminative society distinguished by notions of caste and religious superiority. Progressive forces guided by Renaissance values promoted by social reformers like Sree Narayana would defeat them again as they did in the past. Downtrodden sections of society fought and won their liberation from a feudal society governed by the oppressive caste system. Nobody offered the suppressed emancipation on a platter”, Mr. Vijayan said.
He said the divisive plot to retard India’s progress manifested in incidents of ethnic cleansing in Manipur and Haryana. The rape and parading of women in the nude and lynchings signalled the slow spread of the darkness.
Mr. Vijayan said India landed a robotic craft on the moon. Nevertheless, the country witnessed a concerted establishment-backed effort to negate the spirit of scientific enquiry and replace it with a literalist interpretation of myths and legends.
“The revanchist forces have sought to blot out Darwin’s seminal theory of evolution from school textbooks”, Mr. Vijayan said.
He said Kerala should not lose sight of the fact that the land-owning feudal lords once treated downtrodden castes as chattels. They slapped them with outrageous and outlandish taxes.
He said Sree Narayana Guru’s message to the oppressed to empower themselves through education, organisation and industry catapulted Kerala into the modern era. At a stroke, it destroyed the enslaving forces that dominated Kerala society.
Reformative social movements such as the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam, the Yoga Kshema Sabha and the Nair Service Society owed their philosophical origins to Guru’s thoughts, Mr. Vijayan said. He reminded those who claimed the Guru’s legacy to uphold his message of the oneness of humankind.
