SILVERLINE

 

SILVERLINE

I have been thinking of writing this ever since the controversy erupted over Silverline. Kerala, a city state like Singapore, is bursting at the seams. Villages, towns and cities overlap each other from the north to the south Unlike most states in India, Kerala has no unutilized space. Since opportunities were limited the people of Kerala had to emigrate or migrate for survival.

Mumbai or Bombay grew because of industrialization. The city was networked by good roads and suburban railway that made it easier for people to commute to work. Similar is the case of Chennai and Bangalore.

What does Silverline propose? It is an ambitious project to cut the travel time between the north and the south of Kerala. It aims at making it possible for everyone to stay at his own place and yet commute to work. It would curb the need for cross migration. The Gandhian concept to make the village self-reliant would finally come true. Development becomes holistic.

What happened to Gandhiji? We know.

The planks of opposition to Silverline rests on several contentions – it divides the state into two halves, it annihilates agriculture, it destroys nature and more and more.

They forget that the roads we travel and the railway line that has become the lifeline of Kerala had been built much earlier splitting the state into two halves. They forget that whatever scanty development that has occurred in the state has been a product of the roads and the railway line that exist today.

Then why the objection?

It is nothing but politics. To come to power keep on throwing mud at everything that the ruling Government brings forth. Malayalis are perfectionists at this game. It is not the State that matters to them. It is the acquisition of power at any cost. Add to this the machinations of the Corporates or the merchants or manipulators of power who know very well the danger to their empires if Kerala becomes an industrial hub. It is an existential issue for them. 

We have a host of examples. We did not have enough institutions for higher education or professional courses at one point of time in our history. Our students had to go in search of institutions elsewhere for higher learning or education. Why no one saw, the ridiculousness was draining the resources of the people and of the state, needs a lot of introspection. The animated fight against computers had delayed their introduction by a good number of years slowing the pace of our own development. The icing on the cake was the abandonment of the Pre-degree Board that was soon replaced by the Plus Two. The institutionalization of corruption too had a role in our failures.

Perhaps there is an element of Don Quixote in us.

But if we have no other interests than structuring Kerala to where it ought to be or if we have  nothing but the good of the people and nothing but the development of the state at heart we have to accept that Silverline would do wonders for the state and the people of Kerala once it becomes operational.