No rare feat. An entire archipelago hates Praful Khoda Patel’s guts. That is one for the Guinness Book. Patel became administrator, Lakshadweep, in December 2020. Since then he’s made himself eminently unlikeable. Like Modi and Shah, Patel was part of the ruling elite of Gujarat. And these days they’re burning Patel’s effigies in Lakshadweep, even the local BJP unit!

Patel was once home minister, Gujarat, and later administrator of Dadra & Nagar Haveli. He’s been sent to Lakshadweep on the express orders of the Union Home Ministry, which is the real power behind the administrator’s throne because Lakshadweep is a Union Territory and, therefore, playground and laboratory for the Centre.

Praful Khoda Patel, looks like, had been sent to Lakshadweep with a clearly chalked out agenda, a blueprint for metamorphosis. You see, Lakshadweep not only stands out, it’s also remained largely unchanged for centuries. And if Kashmir is “paradise”, then Lakshadweep is “heaven”. Lakshadweep is also 96% Muslim, which makes it ideal candidate for metamorphosis for the Hindutva.

Three, people over there in Lakshadweep speak a sort of pidgin Malayalam, which is why all of Kerala – irrespective of Hindu, Muslim or Christian – is up against Praful Khoda Patel and his machinations for Lakshadweep. Schools in Lakshadweep are governed by the Kerala school board, and the High Court of Kerala is the high court for Lakshadweep.

And till December 2020 all administrators of Lakshadweep were IAS. Patel happens to be the first full-time politician. That, too, of the Bharatiya Janata Party strain. “He is the latest example of how fascism can convert a peaceful region into an environment of insecurity and conflict,” is how one Lakshadweep native put it. “The new Lakshadweep administrator took over shortly after Dineshwar Sharma’s death – Praful Khoda Patel, best friend of Narendra Modi.”

It’s also alleged that, “in violation of Covid protocols, Patel crossed to Lakshadweep, where no single Covid case visited during one year.” Now, Covid has established itself in Lakshadweep, and the archipelago’s fragile healthcare system is unable to take the load. Quarantine protocols put in place by the late lamented Dineshwar Sharma, IAS, have been thrown to the sea winds. Patel, who’s set in his ideas, notions actually, doesn’t know that he’s uprooting an ages old way of life.

For instance, Patel probably wouldn’t know that the people of Lakshadweep get to see a locomotive/train only after they sail to the “mainland.” Also, for the Lakshadweep native “barking dogs don’t bite” is meaningless talk because there were no dogs in Lakshadweep. For centuries, the coral islands of Lakshadweep had contact with only the occasional seafarer, nobody else.

If anything, Praful Khoda Patel is an interloper, uninvited and his presence resented. Patel is hell bent on changing the very essence of Lakshadweep. From levelling down the landscape of entire islands – broadening roads to highway proportions to battening down seashores to superimpose them with ugly features seen only in a Gujarati child’s sketchbook.

Patel wants to transform “heaven” into a Gujarati moneymaking landscape. There are reports that 190 staff have been dismissed from Lakshadweep’s tourism department. Indigenous temporary staff have been removed from all government departments. “Anganwadis’ have been summarily shut down. And, where Gujarat continues with prohibition, Lakshadweep now has its first liquor-store!

If that’s not enough, non-vegetarian inputs in the children’s midday scheme has been axed. Praful Khoda Patel and his Gujarati masters in Delhi are bent on killing Lakshadweep’s taste-buds, turn Lakshadweep into another outpost of Gujarat. Patel has ruled that candidates contesting panchayat elections shouldn’t have more than two children. He has also curtailed panchayat’s participation in matters agriculture, health, fisheries, education and animal husbandry.

To rub it in all anti-CAA and anti-NRC posters have been scrubbed from the islands. The islanders allege that the archipelago’s link to Kerala’s Beypore port has been severed which has severely hit supply chains. The changes are a total subversion of Lakshadweep’s culture and faith as also and Lakshadweep’s ages-old ties with Kerala. A proposed cow slaughter ban and sweeping changes in regulations governing land development are on the cards. And why would Lakshadweep, where there’s hardly any crime, need the Goonda Act?

Lakshadweep’s 70,000 inhabitants are concerned. They don’t want Praful Khoda Patel amidst them. They want him gone, for good. They don’t want the Gujarat Model of development. Kerala MPs and MLAs have sent a series of SOS to, of all the people, President Ramnath Kovind! Monday, May 24, the hashtag #SaveLakshadweep trended on Twitter, and then the next day it was the turn of #BanTwitter. (IPA Service)