Of royal family and present times

Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) general secretary T.J. Chandrachoodan has said that devotion and loyalty towards royal families of erstwhile kingdoms continued in the present times and this was a shame for a democratic society.

He was speaking after releasing ‘Ente Sree Padmanabha’, a book on the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple that has been authored by former Director of Public Relations Thottam Rajasekharan, here on Saturday.

Prof.. Chandrachoodan held the view that facts pertaining to the royalty have always remained concealed to ensure that their exalted positions remained intact. Such families have been viewed as being on a higher pedestal than the common populace since times immemorial.

“We have been taught much about the achievements and history of erstwhile royal kingdoms since our primary school days. Royalty and faith have always been closely linked in our culture. Over the years, certain writings including those of members of such families have succeeded in twisting facts and painting a rosy picture regarding such topics. As a result, there has been very few to question the activities of erstwhile royal families,” he said.

Speaking after receiving the first copy of the book, former Minister and Communist Party of India (CPI) leader C. Divakaran expressed hope that the assets within the six vaults of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple would come under either the State government or a trust in accordance with the court directive.

He, however, admitted that the previous Left Democratic Front (LDF) government, of which he was part of, had been unable in clearing encroachments that included land which came under the Kowdiar Palace.

“Every government is expected to function within a system. We would have faced several legal issues had we proceeded as per the findings,” he claimed.

Delivering the introductory remarks at the function, Mr. Rajasekharan rued that there were several falsehoods that prevailed in the State regarding erstwhile royal families. However, there have been very few attempts to expose the ‘royal looting’ of assets that come within the temple. There were also many thousands of manuscripts of immense historical relevance that were yet to be surrendered to the Manuscripts Library.

He was also critical of former Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan and former Devaswom Minister G. Sudhakaran for failing to implement the Kerala High Court order to take over control of the temple by constituting a trust or any other authority on the lines of the Guruvayur Devaswom.

Swamy Sookshmananda, former Cooperative Department Deputy Registrar Vishwambharan, advocates Vakkom Vijayan, R. Rajasekharan Pillai and M. Balagovindran also spoke on the occasion.