Conversation with MP Joseph at ‘Krithi’ International Book Fair

KOCHI:
The killing of 3 million out of a total population of 6 million people, that happened during the time of the dictator Pol Pot in Cambodia in the late 1970s, should not be seen as an isolated incident that occurred in the distant past in a distant country, said MP Joseph, former collector of Ernakulam.
Joseph who authored the book “My Driver Tulong and Other Tall Tales from a Post Pol Pot Contemporary Cambodia” said that it can again happen anywhere in the world and given the set of wrong circumstances of a power-hungry leader or party driven by a hate ideology, can happen in India and even in our own Kerala.
And once the genocide starts, the killing does not make a distinction between opponents of the ideology and its proponents. As happened in Cambodia, the killings get a momentum of its own and even the strictest adherents of the party and the ideology will get eliminated.
This is because such killing takes a life of its own and even the strongest proponents of that ideology soon become its victims. The only way to defend our freedoms is to speak out against fascist and fascism and against autocratic tendencies of leaders and parties and ideologies. It is when we cease to speak and cease to take a stand that such dictators get the upper hand.
This is the warning that M. P. Joseph, former Labour Commissioner Kerala, who spent many years in Cambodia working for the UN gave and stressed during the Conversation that he had with K. J. Sohan, former Mayor of Kochi on Joseph’s book.
Sohan said he was struck by the level of detail that the book had gone into on Cambodia and amazed at the fine etching of the characters in it. The Author, had pointed out even the weakness of the UN in the book, driven as the UN is by the US and Western Powers. The UN needs to change, was the common understanding that emerged during the Conversation.
K. Jayakumar former Chief Secretary and Vice Chancellor of the Malayalam University, and a batch mate of the Author in the IAS pointed out the role that Joseph had played during the Gulf War when Joseph headed a GoI Team that evacuated safely over 120,000 Malaylees from Kuwait. Jayakumar said that this was also a subject area that Joseph should write about.
K R Viswambharan, Chairman Oushadhi and former VC of the Kerala Agricultural University, introduced the book, ‘My Driver Tulong’ to the audience. He said it was a book that explained Cambodia, which is the Kamboja-Desa of our Puranas to the Indian Public. It also explained the Hindu and Indian base upon which Cambodia has been built and its strong India and Sanskrit culture and links.
Navya Paul, the young upcoming woman entrepreneur welcoming the gathering explained her own understanding of the book and the strong and touching portrayal of Cambodia’s young people in the book.