Kerala honoured veteran Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leader, freedom fighter and former Chief Minister of Kerala V.S. Achuthanandan on his 100th birthday on October 20 (Friday).
Mr. Achuthanandan, popularly known as V.S., has been a standard-bearer for the underdogs and uphill causes, particularly environmental protection, gender equality and free software.
He has been a towering and fiery presence in Kerala politics for decades till a minor stroke in 2019 forced him to retreat from public life.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan described “Comrade VS” as a battle-scarred warrior of bitter anti-feudal agitations and violent agrarian struggles who marched in lockstep with Kerala’s history.
Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan tweeted: “My heartiest greetings and best wishes to former Chief Minister Shri #VSAchuthanandan on his 100th birthday. I join the people of Kerala in wishing the beloved & respected people’s leader good health &happiness.”
Politicians across the aisle and hundreds of people from different walks of life feted the centenarian on social media.
Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan wrote that Mr. Achuthanandan has been a corrective force in society.
News channels repeatedly broadcast footage from Mr. Achuthanandan’s heydays as a hard-charging Opposition leader and activist-Chief Minister.
Assisted living
Mr. Achuthanandan currently leads an assisted living with his wife and son’s family in Thiruvananthapuram.
CPI(M) State secretary M. V. Govindan, General Education Minister V. Sivankutty and Minister for Culture Saji Cherian called on Mr. Achuthanandan on his birthday. Mr. Govindan said: ”Comrade VS continues to inspire the party and the people.”
Scores of party workers gathered outside Mr. Achuthanandan’s house and distributed sweets to passers-by.
Autorickshaw drivers and headload workers at Neeleswaram in Kasaragod district prepared and served payasam to mark the occasion.
Former CPI(M) legislator and dramatist Pirappancode Murali, a staunch V.S. ally, said Mr. Achuthanandan is perhaps the only remaining communist leader who lived in the times of Lenin, Stalin and Mao. “His life has been one of severe trials and tribulations and harrowing political and personal struggles,” Mr. Murali said.
Deprivations of poverty
Mr. Achuthanandan was born into a family of agricultural workers at Punnapra in Alappuzha in 1923. He lost his parents early – his mother to smallpox – and was initiated into the freedom movement at 16 by the pioneering communist leader P. Krishna Pillai.
As a youngster, Mr. Achuthanandan suffered the worst deprivation of poverty. He joked later that he survived on a single set of clothes for years and immersed himself in a pond till they dried. Mr. Achuthanandan briefly apprenticed as a tailor in a small shop run by his elder brother.
During a light-hearted interaction with school students when he was Chief Minister during the 2006-11 period, Mr. Achuthanandan said he considered “Comrade Krishna Pillai my guru.”
Candid take on faith
Mr. Achuthanandan’s take on faith at the event was remarkably candid. When asked by a curious student whom Mr. Achuthanandan considered his favourite Hindu deity, he replied: “Like all of us, the tales of gods absorb me. But, like everybody else, I wonder whether they exist and, if so, which world they inhabit.”
Rich political legacy
Mr. Achuthanandan’s political legacy harks back to his active participation in the popular struggle against feudal landlords and colonial rule in Alappuzha.
He cut his teeth as a political organiser and agitator by organising workers at Aspinwall factory in Alappuzha.
Communist movement
He joined the Communist movement in 1940 and was actively involved in the militant left agitation against the colonial government in 1946, which led to the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising that claimed the lives of scores of communist revolutionaries, mostly farm workers equipped with little other than wooden spears.
Mr. Achuthanandan was among the scores of communist leaders imprisoned and tortured by the colonial powers in the aftermath of the uprising.
Left for dead
He later said the police repeatedly poked his underfoot with a rifle bayonet to force him to reveal the whereabouts of other communist leaders who had gone underground. The police left him for dead till a fellow prisoner, a petty thief, alerted them that Mr. Achuthanandan exhibited faint signs of life. The officers hospitalised him.
CPI(M) founding member
In 1964, Mr. Achuthanandan left the Communist Party of India’s (CPI) national council to become one of the founding members of the breakaway CPI(M). Later, the government jailed him during the Emergency.
Mr. Achuthanandan made a mark as an anti-corruption crusader by impleading into corruption cases, including the Idamalayar trial that resulted in the late Kerala Congress leader R. Balakrishnan Pillai’s conviction.
Standard-bearer for causes
Mr. Achuthanandan pursued issues that resonated strongly among the ordinary people. He railed against misogynists and fought for the rights of transgender people.
His high-profile pro-victim stance in the infamous Kozhikode ice cream parlour sexual exploitation case arguably helped the Left Democratic Front (LDF) rout the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Malabar in the 2006 Assembly elections that saw the CPI(M) storm to power.
He famously asked the electorate: “Do you want to see exploiters of women walk free or paraded, shackled in chains?”
As Chief Minister, he initiated a demolition drive to evict land grabbers from Munnar with mixed results amid strong opposition from within the CPI(M).
Mr. Achuthanandan campaigned for open-source software and hailed Richard Stallman, the archangel of the global free software movement.
He also spearheaded the drinking water agitation against Coca Cola company at Plachimada, fought against land grabbers at Mathikettan and championed gender rights.
He acquired the public image of a relentless crusader for people’s causes. His green activism pushed environmental protection to the forefront of national politics.
Oratorial appeal
As an orator, Mr. Achuthanandan’s speech had a distinctive flavour characterised by a rustic drawl, bristling with biting sarcasm and hard-hitting humour.
His style of articulation became the staple of political satirists and television comedy shows. His speeches became a big draw for the public.
A rebel at times
Mr. Achuthanandan, who had officiated as CPI(M) State secretary, was not always a stickler for party discipline.
In 2007, the CPI(M) ejected him from the party’s Polit Bureau for defying the CPI(M) State secretariat.
In 2012, as Opposition Leader, Mr. Achuthanandan defied party diktat and called on slain CPI(M) dissident and Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader T.P. Chandrasekharan’s wife, K. K. Rema. The Congress weaponised the visit to assail the CPI(M), which it blamed for the killing.
Dogmatic communist
Mr. Achuthanandan is widely viewed as a dogmatic communist who rarely retreats from ideological moorings.
However, his critics have blamed Mr. Achuthanandan for allegedly being out of tune with the harsh realities of neoliberalism, accusing party colleagues of right-wing deviation and “abetting factionalism.”
However, such ideological conflicts are all water under the bridge now. At 100, Mr. Achuthanandan stands tall as an iron-jawed icon of the communist movement in Kerala.
