Thiruvananthapuram : A leading Hindutva thinker, a hugely popular Christian bishop, a tribal traditional healer and a palliative care specialist are among the Padma awardees from Kerala.
While 91-year-old P. Parameswaran, considered as the senior most Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak and ideologue, and already a Padma Shri winner was on Thursday named as the Padma Vibhushan award winner, Philipose Mar Chrysostom Mar Thoma Metropolitan of the Mar Thomas Syrian Church of India, who completes 100 years in April, was selected for the Padma Bhushan award.
Parameswaran, a bachelor, came in touch with the RSS during his student days and became a RSS pracharak in 1950.
He served as the organising secretary of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh in 1957 and later became vice president of the Jan Sangh.
He was jailed during the Emergency and after that he moved from politics to social thought and development and became the Director at the New Delhi-based Deendayal Research Institute.
In 1982, he shifted base to his home state and gave shape to a new organisation, Bharatiya Vichara Kendra, and continues as its Director to date.
Chrysostom Metropolitan — as he is referred to — has won the Padma Bhushan. Despite his age, he travels and attends meetings and is a much sought after speaker not just in Churches but across clubs and other organisations because of his wit and humour-laced oratory.
He was ordained as a priest in 1944 and became a bishop in 1953 and went on to head the Church as its Metropolitan in 1999 before voluntarily stepping down as the head of the church in 2007.
A 75-year-old tribal woman, Lekshmikutty, living in Vidhura near the state capital inside the forest and preparing herbal medicines to cure snake and insect bites, has been awarded the Padma Shri.
She gives lectures on traditional medicine and is a teacher at the Kerala Folklore Academy at Kallar near here and lectures on how she learned the art of her medicines from her mother.
Seventy-year-old M.R. Rajagopal, a medical professional who runs a palliative care unit for specialised medical and nursing care for people with life-limiting illnesses or terminal illnesses in the state capital, has been chosen for the Padma Shri.
He has specialised in pain-free neonatal surgeries and brought down post-surgical neonatal deaths from 75 to 28 per cent in the 1980s.
Rajagopal is credited to have set up India’s first palliative care unit in Kozhikode in Kerala in 1993 and introduced safe anaesthesiology procedures. He is ranked among the top 30 anaesthesiologists globally.
(Business standard)