CORY

From Australia to study City Corp

By Asha P. Nair

29th October 2009 01:12 AM

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  Cory Manhood in front of Thiruvananthapuram Corporation.

While utter pandemonium reigned in the Corporation Council on Wednesday, there was this one man in the crowd who was watching the entire scene with academic enthusiasm. For Cory Manhood, it was a new chapter in local self-governance. Cory has been frequenting the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation for three months now. He’s been to four Council meetings too. Not for fun, but to jot down some important lessons. The local body and its functioning is one of the main topics of this PG Anthropology student’s research paper.
Cory flew down all the way from Australia, where he is a research student at the University of Adelaide, for the field work of his thesis - political governance. Why he chose the City Corporation, is equally interesting.
“I wanted to use a local lens to study the wider subject of political governance. India is the biggest democracy and Kerala is one of the three states where a Communist rule is on. I wanted to see how a local Communist government is working within a wider Capitalistic (probably he meant the Congress) framework. It was actually one of my Professors in the Adelaide University who suggested Kerala and particularly Thiruvananthapuram,’’ Cory explains.
He, however, seemed taken aback by the din in the Council and the way the meeting stopped short of an altercation. “So this is how an issue finally ends without meeting a solution,’’ he smiles.
Cory has been closely following the issues of Vattiyoorkavu ward,  where he stays. Vattiyoorkavu councillor Hapykumar has been lending all help. Cory took a round of the ward, met people, dropped in when the ward committee was meeting, learned the issues. And in the Council, he has been keeping an eye open, to see if the issues really figured.
But Wednesday’s action gave him ample opportunity to dwell on some other aspects of his study. “Being an anthropologist, I was studying their body language, dress codes and behavioural patterns,’’ he says.
Joby, a native of Kovalam, has been translating the procedures for him. But, Cory has been doing a lot of learning on his own. “I have been going through the decentralisation and People’s Plan. My study mainly focuses on how the state and the individual work for the benefit of each other. One thing I saw and understood at the Council is that people’s participation is important in local governance. You need to participate if your presence needs to be acknowledged,’’ Cory seems to have got the point.
He even spends a couple of hours twice a week with the people who throng the footpath just outside the Corporation office to help with the filling of applications.
Cory is in the city with his Norwegian wife who is into social work. In three months, his field work will get completed. Once back in Australia, he needs to submit his thesis and continue his research for another two years.
Till then, Thiruvananthapuram Corporation will remain one of Cory’s laborious lessons.
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