THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran said Congress will fight against the Centre’s decision to name the second campus of the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB) in the state capital after RSS leader M S Golwalkar.
Mullappally said the intention behind naming the campus after Golwalkar, who stood for a religious state and declared that freedom is possible only in a Hindu nation, is to destroy religious harmony. It is a shame that name of such a person is given to country’s prestigious institute like RGCB, he said.
He asked what was Golwalkar’s contribution to the field of science and technology. “At the same time, leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi were leaders who led the country to development,” he said slamming Union minister V Muraleedharan for dragging Nehru’s name into such a controversy.
Finance minister T M Thomas Isaac, on his Facebook post, wrote: There are two reasons for opposing the Centre’s decision to name the research facility after Golwalkar. The state government had handed over the institute to the Centre to elevate it to a world-class institute... If PSUs are handed over, the Centre would privatize them. If such institutes are handed over, the Centre would show disdain by giving such names...”
The second reason he cited that Golwalkar was a person who had openly insulted the people of the state, women in particular.
“Golwalkar, during a speech on December 17, 1960, at Gujarat university, had said there was a rule in the state that the first offspring of a married woman of any class in the state should be fathered by a Namboothiri to create a cross-breed of human beings. Golwalkar was a person who nurtured and spread such kind of beliefs and the name of such a person being given to a scientific institute cannot be justified at any cost.”
Isaac asked if V Muraleedhran and M T Ramesh are toeing the same belief about the women of the state, and if they are, they should say it openly.
Muraleedharan and Ramesh had earlier defended naming the institute after Golwalkar and had said if the names of leaders like Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi can be given to various institutions, Golwalkar’s name too could be given.