The muting of the novel Meesha (‘moustache’) by S. Hareesh is only the latest in a series of recent attempts in Kerala to either browbeat a writer into self-censorship or muzzle her/his word or art.
If it was the Yogakshema Sabha and Hindu Aikya Vedi that took umbrage at Mr. Hareesh and rode piggyback on a grossly misrepresented reading of (a comment by a character in) the work that was just three segments old in Mathrubhumi Weekly where it was being serialised, to malign him, persons claiming to belong to Hanuman Sena had succeeded in pulling the plug on a column on Ramayana by scholar-critic M.M. Basheer in Mathrubhumi daily back in 2015.
Poet Pavithran Theekkuni succumbed to ‘pressure from friends’ and removed a poem on the purdah from his Facebook page.
This inspired a few others to question him on a previous poem on Sita, where she questions Rama, and soon, his page was ‘purged of’ that, too. “Later, when I incorporated these two in an anthology that was brought out about two months ago, the description of purdah as an ‘African territory’ was replaced with a less provocative one,” says Mr. Theekkuni.
Art under threat
The Church was offended when an issue of Bhashaposhini carried a painting of artist Tom Vattakuzhy as part of a play written by C. Gopan. An image of a noted sculpture of Sree Narayana Guru by artist Riyas Komu that was on the cover of the same issue had ‘hurt the sentiments’ of the Bharat Dharma Jana Sena as well.
Issue called back
Under pressure, the fortnightly called back the issue and a variant of Mr. Vattakuzhy’s work was in the replacement edition.
“In an environment where vote bank politics and religion are in collusion, you expect a publication to uphold an artist’s right to free expression, but that hardly happens,” Mr. Vattakuzhy says. That was the last time he had drawn for a periodical.
Poet Prabha Varma’s Shyama Madhavam got the axe midway through while being serialised in Samakalika Malayalam Weekly, after the editor fell out with the writer’s politics.
“Fundamentalists of all hues have now found a template to stop writers — essentially solitary, vulnerable, and sensitive creatures — from expressing themselves,” says writer N.S. Madhavan.
“From the novel, they are now training their attention to a single para and from the movie, to a single frame. This is a dangerous turn in our cultural history. It is time for institutions to stand up with the artist. Firstly, the government should nip in the bud such concerted attack by a scattered crowd of goons — unloved, brutish, lonely, and revelling in the anonymity of the web. That should be busted. Secondly, publishers have reaped prestige and profits, in fair weather, from works of art and writing. Now is the payback time. Stand up with the artists as patrons in the past have bravely done. Thirdly, Kerala’s civil society, I have great faith in them; they now know that the bully is at the door. Time is now for an innovative assault on the dark forces, as Kerala had done in the past, from panthi bhojanam (community feast) onwards,” says Mr. Madhavan.
Leaders protest
Former Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan, Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, Communist Party of India State secretary Kanam Rajendran, former KPCC president V.M. Sudheeran, among others, came out strongly against the circumstances that forced Mr. Hareesh to withdraw his novel.