It was an uninhibited governor who addressed the Kerala Assembly on Friday to mark the start of the 14th session. If last year, Governor P Sathasivam refused to utter certain sentences critical of the Centre, this year he did not hold back. The governor roundly criticised the Centre for penalising the state for its gains. He virtually accused the Centre of persecuting the state.
“It is rather unfortunate that the state has been penalised for achievements it made in various fields such as health, education and social well being,” the governor said. “As the state has progressed and achieved gains in these sectors, the Centre chose not to further aid these sectors, and the state is at a loss to understand the criteria with which the state is deprived of its rightful share in the amount earmarked for these sectors. Our gains should not be a reason for the losses that we currently have to bear,” he added.
The governor was clearly referring to the terms of reference of the 15th Finance Commission which the state has been consistently arguing was loaded against high-achievers like Kerala. It was also notable that the governor raised the issue during this year's speech rather than last year when Kerala had taken the lead in mobilising especially south Indian states against the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the 15th FC.
Reluctant Modi basher
Last year, Sathasivam edited out sensitive portions in the written speech while delivering the address. The written text in 2018 had said: “There has not been any instance of communal riot in our state despite the plotting by certain communal outfits.” Sathasivam avoided the accusatory part "despite the plotting by certain communal outfits". This part of the sentence was seen as pointing fingers at the Sangh Parivar but Sathasivam made it seem as if he disapproved of the suggestion that there was a conspiracy to stoke communal tension.
But the sentence that came next, which had a strong reference to the Centre’s authoritarian ways, Sathasivam had avoided fully. The sentence said: “We are also perturbed by the tendency of the central government to roughshod the best traditions of cooperative federalism by bypassing the state government and directly dealing with the district authorities.” The governor left this part unread.
The sentence alluded to the state's resentment at the Centre's frequent attempts to encroach into the state's power. It had happened with demonetisation, especially the way Centre dealt with cooperative banks, and then with GST. This was then seen as the governor's refusal to criticise the demonetisation drive.
Silence on Sabarimala violence
On the other hand, this year's address did not make even a veiled attempt to pull up the Sangh Parivar outfits for Sabarimala related outfits. There was praise for the government but no admonishment for political opponents. “My government has stood for gender equality, social justice and the dignity of the toiling masses. It has scaled further heights in ushering in an era of enlightenment by rekindling the lights of renaissance and inculcating a new sense of oneness in the minds of emerging generations,” he said. About Sabarimala, the governor just said that it was the government's constitutional duty to uphold the Supreme Court verdict.
Compare this to last year's speech. Then Sathasivam had indirectly slammed the ‘Sangh Parivar’ outfits for unleashing a spate of slander campaigns against the state. “During the past one year, there have been slanderous attacks on the secular traditions of our state, doubts thrown at our social secular achievements and vilification of the law and order situation from various quarters,” he had said.
Sathasivam ridiculed the hate campaign against the state. “Despite being a state with some of the best law and order indices in the country, a month-long campaign was carried out across India on certain flimsy grounds by some communal outfits,” he said and added: “But the people of Kerala unitedly stood together to defend our traditions and achievements.”
Madhav's hate campaign
Though he did not specifically name the 'communal outfits', it was clear who he was referring to. It was in October 2017 that BJP’s general secretary Ram Madhav, a leader with strong links to the RSS, had said that the Left, especially the CPM, with clandestine support of state machinery has turned Kerala into a killing field and went berserk against the BJP-RSS workers and leaders. National TV channels had used Madhav's charge to vilify the state.
Misleading pictures were circulated on social media showing that Kerala was a land where cows were slaughtered in public. The campaign even saw Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who had to face the heat for child deaths in his constituency in Gorakhpur, coming down to Kerala and preaching the state about handling the Chikungunya epidemic.
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