Before he collapsed and died before television cameras while attending a press conference a few years ago, M.N. Vijayan had spoken and written sentences loaded with deep political overtones which will outlive his memory.
One of them, “To remember someone is a political act, not something to be done mechanically,” was recalled by theatre activist Mahesh Chekkotti, while performing a one-act play as he was paying tributes to the social critic at a commemoration event organised by the M.N. Vijayan Anusmarana Samiti, Kozhikode, here on Wednesday. It also became a platform to express discontent against the fascist and majoritarian tendencies gaining ground in the country.
Mr. Chekkotti breezed through contemporary political and social issues in an intense performance while stressing the need for a joined effort to ward off the threat of fascism. Earlier, artist Kabitha Mukhopadhyaya inaugurated a ‘Fascist virudha theruvarangu’ and a painting exhibition. Poems were recited and folk and theatre songs were sung.
Later, speaking on the ‘Cultural politics of fascist critique’, poet P.N. Gopikrishnan said that it was Vijayan, the literary critic, who liberated the idea of ownership from the writer. Later, academic M.V. Narayanan spoke on the ‘Violent expressions of nationalism’, and N. Sugathan on ‘M.N. Vijayan: remembrance and struggle’.