Thiruvananthapuram: Soon after T Siddique took oath as MLA from Kalpetta and walked into his minister’s office at the Kerala Legislative Assembly complex on Thursday, his phone rang with a request that briefly cut through the bustle of supporters and party workers around him.
The callers did not want to discuss politics. They simply wanted to see him sitting in the minister’s chair.
Siddique answered the video call, and a collage of students appeared across his phone screen- joining in from Mangaluru, Kanyakumari, Chennai, Puducherry, Nilgiri, Kozhikode, Kalpetta, Minnesota…
A year ago, many of them feared they would quietly drop out of higher education after the 2024 Wayanad landslides ripped through their homes, families and futures.
On Thursday, they wanted to witness the moment the man who helped rescue their education entered office as Kerala’s new minister.
Siddique, MLA from Kalpetta and Working President of the Congress in Kerala, has been assigned the portfolios of Agriculture, Soil Survey & Soil Conservation, Kerala Agricultural University and the Warehousing Corporation.
Eleven students whose education he helped restore after the landslide joined together on the video call to congratulate him. Some smiled shyly. Some simply watched him quietly on the screen. “Thank you, thank you. All of you should also come up with good results,” Siddique told them.
“You all are heroes of a silent revolution. Many have already got appointments. Once you all pass out, we can arrange jobs for you, too.”
He then spotted Vishnu and Saraj among the mosaic of faces on the screen. “Vishnu and Saraj are role models for others,” he said.
Saraj was pursuing MCA at Pondicherry University when the landslide struck Mundakkai and Chooralmala on July 30, 2024, killing six members of his family. Today, he works as an IT associate at Malabar Gold & Diamonds headquarters after completing his studies under the initiative anchored by Siddique.
Among those who separately called Siddique over the past few days were Shimron Alakkal and Muhammed Asif, who are pursuing their PhD in the US.
The video call turned emotional when one of the students, Arya C J, recalled a moment from March this year that many landslide survivors had found painful to watch. “When they booed you, our eyes filled with tears,” she told Siddique. “Today, seeing you fills our hearts with pride.”
Arya was referring to the inauguration of the government-built township for landslide survivors at Elston Estate on March 1, where Siddique was booed by sections of a CPM crowd during a function attended by Pinarayi Vijayan.
The students on the call had survived not only the landslide but also the devastation that followed: overdue fees, interrupted courses, uncertainty over hostels, and the fear of slipping out of higher education unnoticed.
In the months after the disaster, Siddique coordinated what became one of Kerala’s most ambitious higher education rehabilitation initiatives. Through partnerships with corporate houses and educational institutions, 143 students affected by the landslide received full educational support until completion of their courses.
The assistance went far beyond tuition fees, covering hostel accommodation, food, uniforms, internships, examination expenses, air travel and even vacation journeys home during the course, ensuring students could complete their education without falling into debt.
One of them was Niranjana KR, daughter of a construction worker and a tea plantation worker, who secured admission to a BDS course at Yenepoya University after Siddique intervened when her family could not arrange a mandatory Rs 2.05 lakh caution deposit in time.
Others went on to pursue aeronautical engineering, medicine, PhDs abroad and various professional courses across India.
Malabar Gold Charitable Trust chairman M P Ahammed, who funded the project, named the initiative “Uyirp”- resurrection- for the students of Chooralmala and Mundakkai.
Siddique, whom many survivors recall as a constant presence during the rescue operations and the long months that followed, won the Kalpetta Assembly seat by a margin of 45,031 votes, defeating RJD candidate P K Anil Kumar. In 2021, he had won the constituency by just 5,470 votes in a seat once held by the CPM.
But on Thursday, inside the crowded minister’s office, the conversation was not about victory margins, portfolios or power. At least for a brief while, it was about students calling from hostels and campuses across the country simply to see the man who helped them stay the course step into a role where he would now help nurture many more lives.
