{"id":265414,"date":"2016-01-21T15:55:34","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T10:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tehelka.com\/?p=265414"},"modified":"2016-01-21T15:55:34","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T10:25:34","slug":"and-the-jatha-season-is-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/and-the-jatha-season-is-back\/","title":{"rendered":"And The \u2018Jatha\u2019 Season Is Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Flaunting
Flaunting strength<\/strong> The CPM takes out its Navakerala Yatra led by leader Pinarayi Vijayan<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nIn Kerala, political processions better known as \u2018jathas<\/em>\u2019 (Malayalam for march) have become a way of life. Despite major changes in the way outreach is done today, the political parties of the state are still fond of jathas<\/em> to connect with people. This time also, various parties in Kerala have announced as many as eight jathas <\/em>so far. Two of them, by the Congress and the CPM, have already taken off.
\nThe Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) was the first to organise a procession in the state on 4 January. The Jana Raksha Yatra, as the jatha<\/em> organised by KPCC\u00a0is called, was led by president VM Sudheeran. The party that has been ruling the state for the last five years is presently facing multiple corruption charges including the infamous bar scandal and solar scam. Through the jatha<\/em>, Sudheeran aims to polish his image and motivate the lower rungs of the party. According to Sudheeran, the jatha <\/em>aims to \u201cfree the state from crime and liquor\u201d apart from educating people about the achievements of the Oommen Chandy government and the \u201canti-people\u201d policies of the central government.
\nThe opposition, however, is critical of Sudheeran\u2019s tall claims. Many of his political counterparts are asking why a ruling party has to conduct a procession to \u2018liberate people\u2019. \u201cHis (Sudheeran\u2019s) yatra aims at liberating the people of Kerala from the United democratic Front\u2019s (UDF) misrule,\u201d said CPM\u00a0state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan taking a jibe at the name of the jatha <\/em>which itself seems to suggest that the last five years of Chandy\u2019s rule were \u201cmiserable\u201d for people.
\nThe next to hit the road was CPM\u00a0leader Pinarayi Vijayan with the \u2018Navakerala Yatra\u2019 on 15 January. Vijayan is all set to lead the party in the upcoming Assembly elections. The jatha <\/em>led by the former state secretary of the party has taken off in style from Manjeswaram in Kasargod. With the jatha<\/em>, Vijayan also wants to change his image but the UDF\u00a0government decided to move the high court seeking an early hearing of the revision petitions challenging the CBI\u00a0court\u2019s decision to acquit Vijayan in the SNC Lavalin corruption case the very day he started the campaign.
\nThe BJP too, optimistic from electoral gains in last November\u2019s local body elections and the alliance with caste organisations in the state, has announced a \u2018Vimochna Yatra\u2019 under the leadership of their newly inducted party president Kummanam Rajasekharan. The jatha<\/em> will commence from Kasargod on 20 January with the main slogans of food, water, job, land, and justice for all. Other parties planning to take out their jathas <\/em>include \u2014 The Communist Party of India (CPI), Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), Indian National League (INL), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Forward Bloc and Trinamool Congress.
\nJathas <\/em>have been an old mode for political as well as religious leaders of the state to interact with the people. Earlier, people would assemble in large numbers to listen to their leader\u2019s address. Today, party workers are the only ones who participate in the jathas<\/em>.
\nWith the advent of electronic and social media, the relevance of these processions has come down. Today, the jathas <\/em>are a show of strength and an exercise in energising party cadre rather than a medium of outreach. The political slogans these jathas <\/em>raise have become redundant and the people think that they are a huge waste of money for which the burden has to be borne by the common man.
\nWhen asked about the relevance of these jathas, R Krishnakumar, a teacher by profession, says, \u201cEveryone conducts them to show their political strength. The very slogans by political parties, especially the Congress and CPM, have become repetitive and redundant. Parties should resort to more reasonable ways to campaign; the time has come to stop these futile acts.\u201d
\n
\nThe youth of the state also feel the ostentatious jathas are a farce. \u201cThere are enough platforms like social media to mobilise and connect with the youth,\u201d says Renjith Nair, a PhD student at Kerala University. \u201cThe jatha<\/em> culture existed a century ago when leaders were not able to connect with people on a daily basis. The youth has lost interest in this kind of political gimmickry.\u201d
\nBoth prominent and minor political parties need funds for elections. In the past, the liqour barons of the state were a main source behind the sponsorship of these jathas, however, the recent developments in the state have put a stop to that money flow. Now the parties are relying on contribution from the people.
\nMeanwhile, Congress MLA\u00a0Joseph Vazhakkan believes that the jathas <\/em>have not lost their relevance. According to him, they are an important aspect of Kerala polity where the political leadership visits all the 140 constituencies in the state and talks to the people about the various local issues plaguing them.
\nCongress MLA\u00a0VT Balaram also thinks that jathas <\/em>are still significant. \u201cIt is not political gimmickry but an organisational effort to mobilise people on a particular topic. Unlike other party events, political jathas reach out to the people. It is important in the age of social media to tell people about the importance of certain issues that are affecting them daily. Social and electronic media is flooded with so much news that it has become difficult for common people to pick out the important issue. So, in that sense, jathas are helpful in spreading awareness.\u201d
\nP Sreeramakrishnan of the CPM\u00a0calls the jathas<\/em> \u2018mass contact programmes\u2019. \u201cCPM’s Nava Kerala March is not a mere yatra but a string of events including breakfast discussions among other things,\u201d says Sreeramakrishnan. \u201cThough such processions are not irrelevant, they do need to be changed according to the present times.\u201d According to him, cpm has realised this and is working towards making topics more attractive and contemporary.
\nSreeramakrishnan also refuses to believe that the youth is moving away from taking part in the political affairs in the state. \u201cWe cannot say that youth is not interested in taking part in these jathas. The jatha<\/em> conducted by the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) last month witnessed a huge participation by the youth.\u201d
\nEven this time around, the enthusiasm among parties regarding these jathas<\/em> is quite clear. It goes to show that even though new forms of reaching out to people have emerged, it will be long before the traditional methods of doing politics in the state go out of fashion. With more and more road shows set to ply the roads in the coming days, the relevant question for the common voter in Kerala is: will these jathas<\/em> do them any good?
\nadarsh@tehelka.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Assembly polls just months away, political parties in Kerala rush to organise political jathas with the aim of wooing their voter base and mobilising party cadre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":265418,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56],"tags":[6358,236,1605,6563,466,6564,6526,6565],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}