Kerala flag hoisting controversy: Pinarayi should not have underestimated Mohan Bhagwat

Mohan Bhagwat is no ordinary individual. He is the Supremo of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or the RSS which a majority believes runs this country through its political outfit the BJP at the Centre. 

So if one were to attempt derailing Bhagwat’s plans of hoisting the National Tricolor at a little-known school in Palakkad in north Kerala, then you need to go the whole hog. Otherwise, such a political misadventure is sure to bring about some serious embarrassment.  

But then the CPI(M) under Pinarayi Vijayan has been an engine that has politically misfired at most occasions in the last one year since it came to power in Kerala and embarrassment is certainly not a stranger for the Chief Minister and his advisors. 
On Tuesday too the script was similar. When the country celebrated its 71 st Independence Day, the red party in Kerala was once again proving that it still had not gained freedom from its political silliness. 

By openly flouting the orders of a district administration, the RSS Sarsanghchalak had not only succeeded in throwing a challenge to the state government but has also attained a victim status that continues to echo across the country that the ‘RSS in Kerala is under the CPI(M)’s knife’ though, in reality, the story is much more complex. 

The debate still rages on whether the Karnakkiyamman School and its Principal should face the ire for allowing Bhagwat to do what he did in spite of a ban order from the District Collector. 
Meanwhile, the RSS head had hoisted the flag, sang the Vande Mataram and then the National Anthem with the children and proceeded to his next destination, leaving the district administration a confused lot and a government completely red faced.

What puts the Government in the dock?

According to the management that runs this government aided school, Bhagwat’s plans to visit the school and unfurl the National Flag was decided in the beginning of this year. 
While the entire plan to invite Bhagwat had been taken as a part of the School’s golden jubilee year celebrations in the year 2015-16, since the RSS chief could not accommodate a visit in the last calendar year, the school agreed to have him as the chief guest in this year’s Independence Day celebrations. 
That the school run by a charitable trust has Sangh Parivar leaning is a well-recorded fact. It is something which the state government too is well aware of, and the entire issue needs to seen in this light.

The locality is also a stronghold of the RSS and the area in which the school is located since 1965 had been a venue for an RSS Shaka before the school came into existence. Hence it was never strange that this school would invite Mohan Bhagwat for its golden jubilee celebrations. 

“We have not hidden the fact that the trust that runs the school and the people involved has strong RSS connections. But you can also see there are a number of minority students also studying in this school. It was everyone’s wish that Mohan Bhagwat should come to the school,’’ says Kailas Mani, Managing Committee Member of the School. 

It is into this scenario that the district administration on the night of August 14 had issued a notice to the School Principal saying that Bhagwat could not be allowed to hoist the National Flag. 

Very strangely the notice says that since the school is a government aided one, it is inappropriate for a political leader to hoist a national flag there. 

That this memo comes at a time when there is already a Government Order (GO) pertaining to Independence Day celebrations issued by the Directorate of Public Education Directorate dated August 10 in which part five reads as -“Parents, People’s representatives, Public figures, freedom fighters should be a part of such celebrations’’ - raises enough doubts about the government’s intentions.  

Now the natural question that the RSS and BJP are asking is if VM Sudheeran who is also a public figure like Bhagwat but holds no constitutional post other than being an ex-MLA and a former President of the KPCC could hoist the tricolour at a school on Tuesday then why restrain Mohan Bhagwat?

Understandably the government has no answers. While the double standards become glaringly clear from this, what points towards a political intervention that ensured that the District Collector issues such an order would be evident by the turn of events running up to the event. 

The question that the school management poses and which the district administration is struggling to answer is that inspite of informing the concerned authorities including the district collector and the Superintendent of Police more than 10 days in advance about the arrival of Bhagwat in the school, why an opposition if at all there was, not raised then. 

The detailed itinerary of the leader was passed to the Assistant Superintendent of Police Palakkad and the tour diary was submitted to the collector too a week ago.

The obvious question is that how did an objection that had not arisen at that point of time or in subsequent days suddenly come into existence on the night of August 14 th around 11.30 p.m.  

 “See he is a national leader and a prominent public figure. After inviting so well in advance how do you expect us to tell him not to come to the school on August 15 morning? What can the school do in such a situation? This is just a political game played right from the Chief Minister’s office. Otherwise, how do you explain the government coming up with a prohibitory order at the eleventh hour," added Mani. 

Now to those who argue that the Karnakkiyamman School is an aided one and therefore needs to listen to the dictates of the government, the school authorities quoting the relevant rules say that apart from issuing salary to the staff and deciding on the curriculum in the school the government has no other role to play in the school. 

All other decisions about the institution rest with the management that runs the school, a fact that even the courts have acknowledged in innumerable such cases. So the dictates of the district administration do not hold good on the school beyond a point. 

A Political misadventure

It is crystal clear that the government which realised that the RSS chief who was in its backyard and could possibly steal away a few political brownie points wanted to muzzle its way through in the final moments and stop him at all costs. 

Meanwhile, legal experts rue the fact that amidst all this political jingoism the real issue is being missed out which is whether the RSS chief had really broken the law by disobeying an executive order of the Collector who is also the District Magistrate.

“Mohan Bhagwat may not have broken the law in terms of hoisting the flag nor did he disrespect it. But when the collector issues an order under CRPC under any reasonable apprehension for which he is empowered, then it becomes a lawful order as the collector then acts as the District Magistrate too. Bhagwat should have honoured the Collector’s order and thereby honoured the rule of law,’’ Advocate Kaleeswaram Raj told Asianet Newsable. 

The jury might still be out on the legal implications of Bhagwat’s actions, but the government’s plans indeed fell flat, exposing its inability to tackle a politically volatile situation wisely to its advantage. 

“See the government should not have gone for this had they, not the will to go all out. Here it clearly looks like Bhagwat had violated a district magistrate’ order. Will the Pinarayi Vijayan government dare to arrest the RSS chief? If not then they should stop doing such gimmicks,’’ CR Neelakandan, political analysts told Asianet Newsable. 

Brand Kerala takes the brunt 

So what has the CPM and the state government achieved out of this? Once again the state has suffered. 

National news media across the country once again got the opportunity to celebrate the anti-left sentiment and fan the anti-Kerala image that had gained wide publicity after an RSS worker was hacked to death last month. 

“The CPM seems to have no idea what it is doing. Being Independence Day, it was a holiday for most dailies. So maximum on August 17, the local editions in Palakkad and the other mouthpieces of the Sangh would have carried a picture of Mohan Bhagwat at the most. But with this illogical opposition, not only has Bhagwat scored a political point, but the issue of CPM intolerance has become a national headline,’’ senior journalist KVS Haridas told Asianet Newsable. 

Haridas’s words reflect the political immaturity with which both the government and the party in power in Kerala had been dealing with the RSS – BJP combines falling for every trap that the saffron brigade had been set up for the communists in Kerala over the past few months. 

The Mohan Bhagwat episode should also be seen in this light. Nothing more and nothing less.