Keralities did not need a Zumba step when confronted with needless tragedy

For a change, Keralites united over a cause, forgetting their political affiliations or any of their other usual strong likes and dislikes.

This bonding is around the issue of Nimisha Priya, a Malayali nurse who is on death row in a jail in Yemen.

Yes, she’s guilty of a murder – and compounded it by trying to dispose of the victim’s body parts.

But for Keralites, it’s not about whether Nimisha is guilty or not, but trying to find some ways to prevent her execution according to the laws of the land she’s in.

Kerala politicians too have shown maturity in bringing wider attention to Nimisha’s situation, and working with the central government to reach out to Yemeni authorities for the death sentence to be commuted. All of those efforts and hope did help in getting a stay on the execution. As of now, it’s a temporary reprieve – and Keralities will keep on hoping that it will lead to a permanent one.

But for one unfortunate teen in Kerala, there will be no tomorrow.

Midhun, a Class 8 student in Kollam, died in the most horrific of circumstances – playing with classmates at school and getting electrocuted by a live wire. This was a tragedy that could have been avoided if the school authorities and the Kerala State Electricity Board had shown even a basic level of good sense and precaution. It was not to be and a life was lost, needlessly.

Just as unfortunate is the reaction of Kerala state minister Chinchu Rani to the student’s death. Seemingly without much understanding of the circumstances, her first reaction amounted to excusing the school and the electricity authorities from any of the blame. As a minister, she might have her reasons to say what she did.

But did she really need to do a Zumba dance step at the same event where she was giving the reply about Midhun? This is the bit that grates, and there really can be no excuse for the minister’s action when confronted with such deeply upsetting news.

These are the instances where politicians need to step up. They have to be the ones creating the words and responses where the rest can try and make some sense of why such tragedies take place.

Chinchu Rani need only have taken some hints from how Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and then Health Minister Shailaja handled the worst of the Covid phase. Yes, Covid deaths were happening as was the case all over the world, but in those darkest of moments, their words delivered at daily briefings were what most Keralities clung on to. For sheer hope to get through…

Only if Chinchu Rani showed some of that maturity. Shifting the blame now onto the school authorities is not the answer Keralites need. And what they certainly didn’t need at all was to have Chinchu do the Zumba…