Author: Anjali George
Publication: Myind.net
Date: September 3, 2018
URL:      https://myind.net/Home/viewArticle/intellectually-bankrupt-left-ecosystem-exposed-in-kerala-floods

A wise man said once; "Crisis exposes a person". Rightly so, the Kerala Floods exposed many.

One of the striking pictures of the devastating floods which killed over 400 people and displaced thousands was the condition of a bridge which connects Malayattur to Kodanad across the Periyar river in Ernakulam district. As the flood waters receded, what was left on the bridge was a part of all the filth that humans had thrown into the river water over the years. It was a testimony to all that’s wrong with us as a society. But this was not the only filth that the receding waters brought to the surface. It also exposed the intellectually bankrupt Leftist ecosystem that resorts to online "mob lynchings" and fake news to set their narrative. But this time, their agenda setting did not work as expected. On the contrary it brought out the chinks in its armor and proved once again that the intellectual cover that its cadre try to give their flawed political and social constructs is nothing but a sham.

Attempts to set the narrative picked up pace soon after the flood waters started receding.

Hundreds of brave personnel of the NDRF, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, state police, fire force and many more had participated in the rescue efforts. An affidavit filed by the state government in the Supreme Court reveals the extent of deployment.

“59 rescue teams of NDRF with 207 boats, 23 columns of ARMY units with 104 boats, 94 rescue teams of NAVY with1 medical team, 9 helicopters, 2 fixed wing aircrafts and 94 boats and 36 teams of COAST GUARD with 49 boats, 2 helicopters, 23 fixed wing helicopters, 2 fixed wing and 27 hired boats, were deployed. AIR FORCE provided 22 helicopters and 23 fixed wing aircrafts, BSF provided 2 companies with one water vehicle team and10 teams of CRPF were deployed. 4100 Fire and Rescue Services personnel were engaged, and they operated 69 Rubber Boats. Odisha fire services provided 244 Firemen and 63 Rubber Boats”.

Another group that played an equally stellar role in the rescue efforts was the fishermen. Expecting nothing in return, they rushed to the flooded areas with their canoes to save the stranded people.

But then the party cadre, many of whom masquerade as independent journalists, could not digest the thought of any credit going to the uniformed personnel, because these soldiers are committed to the unity and integrity of India, something that their ideological brethren – the urban naxals – fight day in and day out.

What if praising these men and women in uniform or the likes of Kanhaiya Kumar from Bihar who ran across the bridge in Cheruthoni in Idukki district with a baby held tightly to his chest evokes sympathy for other Indians in the minds of Keralaites? Any such feeling of empathy would hurt the politics of hatred and regionalism which they have carefully tried to cultivate in the minds of Keralites in the last few years to checkmate Hindutva gaining traction in the state.

Apparatchiks found a way out to prevent this - praise the fishermen as the real rescuers and downplay the work done by the forces They thought that this romanticism of fisherfolk saving lives in a flood would help divert the attention away from others. But they grossly underestimated the people of Kerala, who cutting across politics and religion showered praise on all those who helped.

The attempt to polarize was evident even in newsrooms. A journalist was heard asserting in his TV channel, that the national media had blacked out Kerala floods. He attributes it to the ‘tyranny of distance’. So, called intellectuals followed up such half-baked claims with tweets about "United states of South India", a pipe-dream for a separate nation for the south Indian states.

Tweets and comments by some random crazy people and a dubious saffron-clad man linking the floods to food habits of Malayalees was paraded as some general authoritative statement to push the narrative that the Hindutva supporters had only disdain for Kerala. But once again, their sinister plot drowned in the outpour of love for Kerala from all across the country.

When all their machinations flopped, they latched on to the Rs 700 crore UAE aid story. As the real facts emerged, Arnab Goswami did a report calling out those who floated the theory as a bunch of shameless Indians. The brain dead in the Left saw in it another opportunity to polarize and tried to give it a different spin. They went to town claiming that Arnab had insulted all Malayalees, but this flopped too. Even I have reasons to disagree with Arnab’s journalism, but lying to feed poisonous agendas is horrendous to say the least.

The noise was also to divert people’s attention from their own government’s failure to deal with the crisis.

But how pea-brained should they be to not realize that when they give all the credit to fishermen, it also throws up the question –what exactly was the CPM-led state government and its machinery doing during the flood?

Sections of the intellectually bankrupt Leftist media struggled hard and is still trying its best to prevent a backlash against its favorite government for alleged mismanagement of the calamity.  From the local committee dolts to the Lutyens 'liberal', they are desperate. Note the complete absence of reports in the national media, especially English, questioning the state government’s role. Over 400 people died, but the so-called investigative journalists aren’t even bothered about finding if the government messed up while opening the dams. Those who turned the world upside down over Gorakhpur hospital deaths are now shamelessly silent.

When the floods started, we saw a `leading journalist’ questioning the genuineness of some photos of RSS workers helping flood affected. His news portal did a report that the pictures were from Gujarat.

Maybe he was right about the photos in question, but the social media was literally bursting with reports and real photos of volunteers of Seva bharati, the service wing of the RSS, pro-actively helping in the rescue operations and relief work in Kerala. How many of these photos did this journalist or any liberal tweet to appreciate the good work?

With their willingness to work in any adverse conditions, these selfless volunteers were indeed a tremendous source of help in many remote regions that got cut off as waters rose.

When the comrades were allegedly threatening businessmen to pay up and trying to appropriate relief materials, thousands of Seva bharati workers went about silently doing their work - setting up relief camps, collecting and distributing food and other essential items and providing medical help. After the waters receded, thousands of them once again went around cleaning the dirt-filled houses, irrespective of the political affinity or religion of its owners.

Naturally, the comrades are worried that the goodwill earned by their work will help saffron politics in the state.

Their time-tested strategy to stop any saffron surge in Kerala has been to create a barrier between the people and the Hindutva outfits by demonizing the RSS. But thanks to the selfless efforts of the Seva bharati volunteers, their machinations have been punctured.