Red faced

Indians have again done themselves proud by 'mature voting' and giving a clear mandate in the recently concluded Elections, the biggest democratic process in the world. In todays unpredictive world specifically in South Asia where she is surrounded by volatile neighbours, India has shown the world the true meaning of 'by the people, for the people and of the people'.

In this 'election cyclone' along with the caste and communal politics, the communists also fell. They were routed in the red fortresses of Kerala, and its own Bastion in Bengal. What has happened since late Harkishan singh Surjeet handed over Party's mantle to the so called young 'Karats' and 'Yachuris'? How come from a tally of about 59 seats in 2004 they came down to a mere 24 in 2009?

A lot of questions to be answered by the official leadership of all left parties, though it is generally felt that the attitude of the so called 'young brigades' that were much more theoritical and inflexible led to this huge defeat. The National left front leaders forgot the key lesson in politics ie to have your house in order before you attack the UPA with matters like Nuclear pact; the left specifically CPM totally turned blind eye to the deepening crises in both Kerala and Bengal. The 'new breed of young' CPM leaders rather than being pragmatic and dynamic went for the rigid communist policies. They lost touch with common man and were more involved and infatuated with the outdated anti- imperialism.

Interestingly a lot of policies that paid rich dividends to the UPA govt are 'left' policies. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the National Old Age Pension Scheme, National Maternity Benefit Scheme, Mid-Day Meal and Integrated Children Development Scheme, the Targeted Public Distribution Scheme, National Family Benefit Scheme, Right to Information, Forest Rights Act, farm loan waiver etc. The left never made any attempt to high light this in their campaign and instead went after the blind propaganda of an 'unreal' third front based on an anti- left, anti BJP platform. The common people soon understood the stand taken by the third/ fourth front that they were trying to get as many seats as possible to be in a good bargaining post-poll position; but alas all their dreams were shattered by the convincing outcome of 2009 elections!


In Kerala it was clear that people were fed up with the infighting between the two major factions in the ruling CPM. The present leadership in Kerala were totally egoistic, autocratic, arrogant and aggressive against anyone who they felt were not supporting them. It is sad to note that the party which was once led by the legendary leaders like AKG and EMS are now in hands of a bunch of 'pseudo-comrades'. One person who came out relatively unharmed in this whole debacle is the Kerala Cheif minister Mr VS Achuthanandan.


The common man who supports the communist party is not unhappy with this defeat. In fact one of the Kannur comrades told me it was a 'good shock treatment' given by the people of kerala to a party which is a part of their life. May be this statement reflects the general feeling of the party supporters in the state.


There will be a lot of 'post-mortem' meetings and analysis of this whole result scenario. Though it is clear that the 'SNC lavlin case', the marriage of conveneince with PDP, the aggressive stance take by the CPM against the smaller parties in LDF, alienation of general public and anti-media stance were the main resons in the party's failing, the leadership may take some other 'vague' explaination line and get away this time. But its better to accept the mistakes, make necessary changes and attitude by a clear introspection...the sooner the party realise and correct this the better it is for Kerala....

The poly-tricks in Kerala

Kerala has a lot of firsts to its credit. First Indian State to achieve total literacy/ State first to implement land reforms/ State with highest life expectancy/ State with lowest birth rate/ State with lowest infant mortality/ Only state with hospital facility in every village/ State in which the communication infrastructure is the highest.

Every political party in power, will high-light these 'firsts' as their own achievement...But there is also another side...ie its the state with the highest suicide rate, highest alcohol consumption rate, highest morbidity, highest unemployment rate and probably the home of caste, communal and coalition politics......

In Modern Kerala the usual trend especially in the last 25 years is to vote in either of the two 'democratic' coalitions (Interestingly in the dictionary coalition describes a temporary group or union of organisations usually formed for a particular advantage!). The two fronts are the LDF or the Left Democratic Front headed by CPI(M) or Communist Party of India( Marxist) and the UDF or United Democratic Front lead by the Indian National Congress or simply the Congress party.

The first coalition was in 1967 when the Communist party under the late EMS (Elamkulam Manakkal Sankaran Namboodiripad) led a seven-party coalition including the Muslim League (now called by the Communist party as a communal party) to form the government. Before that in 1957 he had led the Communists to victory in the first election for the state government, making him the first communist leader anywhere to head a popularly elected democratic government. It is said that that government was probably one of the better ones that Kerala had as each and every minister with a couple of exceptions were experts and specialists in their own field like Prof Joseph Mundassery for Education, Dr AR Menon for Health, Mr VR Krishna Iyer for Law etc. This government soon introduced the land Reform Ordinance and Education Bill and subsequently was dismissed in 1959 by the Central Government, which invoked the controversial Article 356 of the Indian Constitution following what became later known as the 'Liberation Struggle' or വിമോചന സമരം ...

Over the years coalition governments with and without the Communists or Congress and with the help of so called 'communal parties' (overtly or covertly) came to power in Kerala. The most popular and deep rooted political party in Kerala is the Marxist party or CPI(M), (though the CPI or UDF wouldn't agree to that)... Their policies have a big influence in the daily life of Kerala. The other parties tends to follow or react to what Marxist party does. However, the CPI(M) tend to exhibit their basic instinct of study and struggle (as the "kutti" comrades of their student faction) even when they are in power. The CPI(M) since the demise of EMS have been searching for a theoretician who can lead them and this remains as one of their main problems. When I recently visited Kannur, Karunakaran Uncle told me that EMS was good in Tharkashasthram ie creating a debate out of context and from no-where, winning the debate and reaping the benefits. The vacuum left by EMS is yet to be filled.
At the other end what the congress party (and UDF) does, is to wait for every alternate 5 years to get into power. The UDF and their supporters love to be in power as it's the 'harvest time'. They become cold as soon as they are in opposition and take a break or holiday for 5 years before coming back into power on an anti-incumbency wave. There is nothing much to say about this party which has been slowly degenerating over the years. There were two major factions the Antony and the Karunakaran group. But now it's all the Antony group, which is being led by Mr Oomen Chandy who is probably one of the better Congress leaders. It's good for kerala and specifically Congress party, that Karunakaran group has lost it's stranglehold in the party.

The 100% literate Keralites are very happy to vote either the LDF or the UDF alternately every 5 years, who are not much different from each other. So Keralites literally and figuratively follow the words of de Tocqueville, who said “in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.”

Three letter acronyms

BBC, ABC, DNA, RNA, ATM, USD, INR, GBP, LCD, TLC etc etc.

What is common in all this?
They are all Three Letter Acronyms(TLA!). So, Why are the three letters so popular? Why can't it be two-letter or four-letter?

Let us take some examples: If we look in Medicine which has a long list of acronyms; 3 letter ones stand out....For eg: CAD(Coronary Artery Disease), TOF( Tetralogy of fallot or Tracheo-esophageal fistula etc) or FSH ( follicle stimulating Hormone) or DNA, RNA etc

In Clinical-Genetics there are a group of disorders called "Trinucleotide repeat disorders" (also known as trinucleotide repeat expansion disorders) caused by trinucleotide repeats (like CAG, CGG etc) in certain genes exceeding the normal, stable, threshold, which differs per gene.

Countries, Cities, Airports all have popular 3 letter acronyms like USA, NYC, JFK, TRV, DBX etc etc. If we look at the names of politicians; its AKG, EMS, PKV etc or political parties---BJP, CPM, CPI, or INC. The list is endless.

Is this because our brain has some sort of inherent tendency to remember and recollect acronyms especially 3-letter acronyms? I looked in Oxford dictionary and also 'Googled' this: In English language, it says, as literacy rates rose, and as advances in science and technology brought with them more complicated terms and concepts, the practice of abbreviating terms became increasingly convenient especially from the mid 20th century. I am not sure whether this trend is also seen in other languages.

Its interesting to think about the Malayalam saying in this context- ഒന്നില്‍ പിഴച്ചാല്‍ മൂന്നു!!!