Even in this doom and gloom of Corona scare, as a Malayali on 11th April 2020 my day had a very cheerful beginning. Ever since this Corona devastation started, the first thing I used to do once wake up is to listen to the news which will be full of Corona-updates starting in the order of world numbers first, followed by national figures and then local state-level statistics. On 11th, apart from the news of Kerala’s Corona numbers showing a downward trend, there was one more thing which was the main reason cheerful starting of the day. It was an article in WashingtonPost showering praise on Kerala for its commendable achievement in combating Coronavirus in India.
As a Keralite as well as an Indian it was indeed a matter of pride to see an international media house appreciating our efforts in a fight against a pandemic, a global disease.
Kerala well deserves this praise. Kerala has long been a front runner in the field of health care in the country like in the case of many other fields. The laying of foundation of state’s medical infrastructure date back to pre-independence era. Even before Allopathy took its roots there, the earlier Kerala had its own Ayurvedic system in place. Today’s Kerala boasts of its Ayurvedic prowess even as one of the main muscles in its tourism promotion. This stems from that rich heritage of Ayurvedic tradition. State’s first general hospitals are established in the 19th century during the rule of local Kings and Rajas. Then came the proliferation of medical facilities under the Christian management as part of their religious overreach across the state. Then there was a competition in the field from other religious outfits. Added to all these were demand for world-class medical facilities arose from Malayali’s exposure to the outer world as one of most active explorers of opportunities abroad.
The reading of the article was progressing on the expected lines, and suddenly got stuck on a particular line. “In more than 30 years of Communist rule, the state has invested heavily in public education and universal health care.” This was that line which triggered the alarm and arouse my curiosity which led to the further finding that the heading of the article also was edited from what it was originally. Initially the heading was, “India Kerala Coronavirus: How the Communist state flattened its Coronavirus curve”. This was later changed to a more neutral looking ”How the Indian state of Kerala flattened its Coronavirus curve”. That is, the wordings “Communist state” was replaced with “Indian state of Kerala”! An afterthought of an over enthusiastic Commie sympathiser in the Washington post?! Lol! Of course yes, that was the case.
So these two things out of the article was proof enough to show that it was no less than a leftist-Communists propaganda material, for which Washington post was very notorious in its home country. It was for this very reason only that US president Donald Trump had cancelled the subscription of WashightonPost along with NewYorktimes in the Whitehouse few months back.
Even in the 70’s itself Washington post was referred to as ‘Pravda of the Potomac’. ‘Pravda’ being the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union then and ‘Potomac’ being an important river in the American civilization, the reference was as good as saying that Washington post was nothing but the ‘Pravda of America’. It was called so because of its alleged left-bias and the importing of Communists propaganda of Communist Soviet Union into the America. Since the discussion is on Kerala, that reference is nothing less than American’s calling the ‘WashingtonPost ‘the Deshabhimani’ of America’.’Deshabhimani’ is the official newspaper of communist party of Kerala.
This was not the first time WashingtonPost is running a propaganda for the Communist govt of Kerala. Almost two years back they had done a front page story about Kerala’s communist govt. and party especially focusing on the very mediocre finance minister in the Kerela govt.
One might wonder why a global publication giant of the stature of WashingtonPost would bother to run a propaganda piece for a far away tiny bit land on the globe. But we must bear in mind that as it was widely believed, it was in Kerala where the first ever democratically elected govt. came into rule during the heydays of Communism. Much the same way, today when the Communism is nearly wiped out from the face of the earth the same Kerala may be the only or one of the few places where a democratically elected communist govt is ruling today. That is the reason for those who, like WP, who still carries the sweet memories and hangover of a glorious communist era doing propaganda for such small a place like Kerala.
As Trump correctly called ‘they are fake’, in this piece also we can see how they build their propaganda on fakery. If one sees the line “In more than 30 years of Communist rule, the state has invested heavily in public education and universal health care.” one who don’t have much knowledge about this small piece of land would assume that Communists are ruling Kerala for 30 years and what all the good happened/happening in Kerala is due to the good work done by Communists in those long 30 plus year rule of theirs.
But the real fact is the opposite. Kerala’s superior position today in many area should be attributed to the fact that Kerala was lucky enough not be under a continuous rule of Communists like what happened in Bengal. Communists never ruled more than 1 term ie. 5 years continuously in Kerala.
As implied by WP in this article, if continuous rule of Communists was the reason for progress of any state in India then it would have been West Bengal which should be in the position of Kerala today. West Bengal (today Bengal) is the state which was continuously ruled by Communists for more than 30 years, not Kerala. And you see the result. Bengal is among the most backward states in India. The only ‘achievement’ of such a prolonged Communists rule in Bengal was that today ‘Bengali’ labours are freely available in all states across India including Kerala. It was the poverty and joblessness in Bengal, a gift of long Communist rule, which is forcing this Bengali exodus from the state.
So, dear WashingtonPost – ‘the Deshabhimani of America’, as Keralaites while we are taking immense pride in seeing our state Kerala excelling in all fields compared to other states in India including health care sector, and while we are proudly acknowledging that it was this superiority of our state in the medical field is definitely one of the reasons of our pretty good decent performance in containing Coronavirus epidemic, please do not try to sell to us your dirty Commie propaganda amidst this moment of crisis as we the people of Kerala know who is who and who did what.
