Political intervention a blot on cultural acade

KOCHI: Too much of political interference has put a blot on the functioning of cultural academies, Minister of Cultural Affairs K C Joseph said. He was speaking at book release function organised by the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi at Durbar Hall in Kochi on Saturday. A total of 16 books were released at the function.The present government’s approach with regard to the functioning of various cultural academies was to make them independent. The government will only support the organisations, he said.Speaking at the function, Akademi Chairman K A Francis said the 16 books were the result of the efforts of the members of the last term, and he was merely carrying forward that effort. “There have been instances where enormous amount of money and effort have been wasted due to the reluctance of succeeding academy members to complete the projects laid down by the earlier office bearing due to petty political reasons. At present the academy was trying to reverse this trend, he said.Speaking at the function, writer K L Mohana Varma said there was a lot of work that needed to be done on the history of our performance arts. “Even today, there is hardly any literature available on the history of Kerala between the fifth and eighth century. Whatever fact is available seems to be fictional,” he said. Even the information that was available on the arts were restricted to those of upper class Hindus. “Art has always been caste based and religion based. But there is hardly any information available on the history and the arts of many of these groups,” he said.