Late Congress leader Vakkom Purushothaman will perhaps be best remembered for ingraining Onam as Kerala’s national festival in the public mind.
As Tourism Minister under the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] government led by E.K. Nayanar in 1980, Mr. Purushothaman brushed aside reservations about Onam’s religious facets and established the holiday as a secular State festival.
A hard-charging administrator who cut his teeth as Minister under the institution-building Achutha Menon government (1971-77), Mr. Purushothaman seemed preternaturally prescient about Onam’s profound tourism potential and persuasive soft power to unify Keralites under a distinctly ethnic identity that transcended provincialism, politics, and religion.
