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By:

Correspondent

21 August 2024 at 10:20:16 am

Crimson Rot

For decades, Kerala’s Marxists had cultivated an image of ideological austerity by speaking the language of class struggle and public morality while portraying their opponents as corrupt bourgeois opportunists. The CPI(M), particularly under former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, had perfected this moral theatre. Today, with its political fortunes on the wane, the party’s carefully constructed halo is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. The Enforcement Directorate raids...

Crimson Rot

For decades, Kerala’s Marxists had cultivated an image of ideological austerity by speaking the language of class struggle and public morality while portraying their opponents as corrupt bourgeois opportunists. The CPI(M), particularly under former Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, had perfected this moral theatre. Today, with its political fortunes on the wane, the party’s carefully constructed halo is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. The Enforcement Directorate raids connected to the CMRL ‘monthly payment’ scandal symbolise the unravelling of a political mythology built over generations. The raids at the residences linked to Vijayan, his daughter Veena Vijayan, and former minister Mohammed Riyas expose a deeply embarrassing spectacle for a party that lectured the nation about probity and ideological purity. The case concerns Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd, which allegedly paid Rs. 1.72 crore to Veena Vijayan’s firm, Exalogic Solutions between 2017 and 2020 for consultancy and software services that investigators allege were never actually rendered. According to findings flagged by the Income Tax Settlement Board, these payments allegedly continued because of her “relationship with a prominent person.” This is the oldest form of capitalist cronyism, family connections functioning as political currency. The comrades who once thundered against “bourgeois exploitation” by the likes of Adani now find themselves defending precisely the ecosystem of privilege they claimed to despise. The hypocrisy is staggering. Under Vijayan, the CPI(M) had increasingly ceased to resemble a cadre-based ideological movement and instead acquired the traits of a tightly centralised family enterprise. Despite Kerala’s Marxists fiercely denouncing personality cults, they constructed one of their own around Vijayan’s dominating personality. The most revealing aspect of this scandal has been the collapse of moral legitimacy. The Indian Left long claimed that while others amassed wealth, communists alone stood with clean hands. That illusion has steadily eroded across India, but nowhere is its collapse more dramatic than in Kerala. The party that once romanticised workers now appears inseparable from elite privilege. Its leaders move within circles of influence, patronage and dynastic entitlement strikingly similar to the political classes they once condemned. Kerala’s Marxists increasingly resemble what George Orwell warned revolutions often become: new aristocracies wearing the vocabulary of equality. Vijayan may continue to dismiss the allegations as attempts to tarnish his image. His loyalists may continue shouting conspiracy. But public perception has irrevocably shifted. The image of ED officials entering the former Chief Minister’s residence while probing payments linked to his daughter is politically devastating, irrespective of eventual legal outcomes. Skeletons are tumbling from the cupboard because the cupboard itself was built on deception. The tragedy is that a movement which once promised moral seriousness and ideological discipline has descended into the very decadence it spent decades denouncing. Kerala’s self-proclaimed moral vanguard now stands exposed by the very decadence it once claimed to fight. The comrades preached revolution. What they perfected instead was entitlement.

Warriors of Night

Updated: Oct 22, 2024

We name our daughters Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati; we worship the divine feminine power in the temples but oppress, repress and even attack the feminine power amidst us. That is the irony in the way India sees its women.

After the safety of the daylight fades, women are seen as easy prey by the predators of the night.

We mark the nine nights of Navratri, the festival of the goddess, by celebrating the dedication and valour of nine real-life women who brave the challenges of the night to pursue their dreams.


Part - 4


Never felt unsafe

The singer says there has been a generational change over the last two decades

Never felt unsafe

Work has no timings for Aisha Sayed. Sometimes, she begins her studio recording at 12 AM and finishes by 5 AM; at other times, concerts and live shows start at 9 AM and she’s done by midnight. In her field of work as a performer and singer, Sayed is used to not getting a night’s sleep and often returning home when most of the city is set to wake up. “I have been travelling at night but I have never, ever, felt unsafe in Mumbai,” says the singer-performer who began her career at the age of 13 years. Her father spotted her talent for music and took her to meet a sound engineer who was their neighbour in Bandra. The family helped her get opportunities and from there, her career began.

Being among the top contenders in Indian Idol, season 3, in 2007 catapulted her to fame and it opened up a world of new performance opportunities across the country. “I was just 20 years then and I was travelling the world, performing at the most lavish weddings, staying at the most luxurious hotels and performing at big corporate gigs,” she says. Safety, while on work, is has never been an issue for her for the organizers arrange a security detail for the performers. “They escort us until we reach the room. And since we travel with our team in a big group, there is always safety in numbers,” says Sayed, who sings in 10 languages. Her peers have faced instances of audience members being rowdy. “Once in Delhi, a group of drunk men followed my colleague to her room and kept banging on her door late into the night. But I have been fortunate,” she says.

Work assignments have taken to varied places, from the most luxurious international destinations to far-off venues in the hinterland of India where she’s travelled through dark, dense forested areas. “I have driven through areas where the only light is that of your car’s headlights. Turn around and you see pitch darkness,” says Sayed. She’s always got a little prayer on her lips when travelling through these remote areas for miles together. She recalls a show in Chattisgarh where she had to travel for nine hours at a stretch through remote and forested areas. “No place in our country is as safe as Mumbai,” she stresses. She would know, considering her extensive travels. She advises women to travel in groups while in places that are unfamiliar or unknown and never to venture out at night alone. “Keep your family informed of your whereabouts,” she says.

While her agreements state that proper security at all times, Sayed says that she drives her own car if she’s out at night for parties or personal work but insists that the people of Mumbai are largely helpful and cooperative. A rickshaw driver who once drove to home in the wee hours of the night, after a recording, waited at her gate until the watchman let her in. Friends and colleagues have dropped her home several times.

Mumbai, she feels, has changed—and it’s for the better, in the past two decades. “Earlier, on buses and trains, men would use the crowd as an excuse to touch women inappropriately. That has gone down. There is a generational change that I see,” says Sayed. She used to take the BEST buses and trains to her training classes and for recordings in the early days of her career.

Her timings are inconsistent and her shows take her to various cities and towns. But the Mumbai-bred girl emphasizes that her city is very safe for women, despite the various incidents of violence. “Mumbai is the only place where a woman can wear what she wants, wear bright red lipstick, leave her hair open and look glamorous and still be safe.”

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