V.S. Achuthanandan, former Kerala CM and icon of communist movement, passes away
Mr. Achuthanandan had withdrawn from public life after he suffered a minor stroke in 2019. He had since led an assisted life at his son, V. Arun Kumar's, residence in Thiruvananthapuram.
The veteran communist and freedom fighter was an iron-jawed icon of the communist movement in Kerala and a towering, if not fiery, presence in State politics for decades.
As a crusading Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Achuthanandan was a standard-bearer for underdogs and uphill public causes, including environmental protection, gender equality, wetland conservation, better pay for nurses, transgender rights, and free software.
Mr. Achuthanandan began his political odyssey at the age of 16 by joining the popular opposition against the feudal landlords and colonial rule in Alappuzha. He cut his teeth as an activist and agitator by organising indentured agriculture labourers and Aspinwall factory workers in Kuttanad.
Mr. Achuthanandan was actively involved in the militant Left agitation against the colonial government in 1946, which culminated in the storied and tragic Punnapra-Vayalar uprising. He went underground but was arrested and tortured in police custody.
Mr. Achuthanandan later recollected that the police beat him and pierced his underfoot with a rifle bayonet. He said the police left him for dead and would have ended in an anonymous grave if not for a fellow prisoner who spotted signs of life.
Early life
Born into a family of agricultural workers in Punnapra, Alappuzha, in 1923, Mr. Achuthanandan faced numerous trials and tribulations, including the daily deprivations of poverty alongside distressing personal and political struggles.
Mr. Achuthanandan 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. He would later term Krishna Pillai as a 'guru' who gave him a clear political purpose and direction in life.
Mr. Achuthanandan often joked that he would immerse himself in a temple pond until the only set of clothes he owned dried on the steps. The temple priest fed him leftovers of puja rice, and he briefly apprenticed as a tailor.
In 1964, Mr. Achuthanandan left the national council of the undivided Communist Party of India to become one of the founding members of the breakaway Communist Party of India (Marxist). Later, during the Emergency, the government jailed him.
A rebel
Mr. Achuthanandan had officiated as CPI(M) State secretary. But he was not always a stickler for iron-clad party discipline as Chief Minister. In 2009, the CPI(M) expelled him from the party's Polit Bureau for defying the CPI(M) State secretariat.
In 2012, as Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Achuthanandan defied the party's diktat. He called on the wife of slain CPI(M) dissident and Revolutionary Marxist Party leader T. P. Chandrasekharan, K. K. Rema. The Congress party weaponised the visit to assail the CPI(M), which it blamed for the killing.
Mr. Achuthanandan was a dogmatic communist who rarely retreated 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.'
A magnet for crowds
As an orator, Mr. Achuthanandan's speech was distinctive, characterised by a rustic drawl, bristling with biting sarcasm and hard-hitting humour. He was a magnet for crowds and a staple of political satirists.
On his 100th birthday, CPI(M) leader and dramatist Pirappancode Murali, a former MLA, sought to place Mr. Achuthanandan in a Left-historical context. 'Mr. Achuthanandan is the last of the communists active in politics during the life and times of Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara, and much beyond,' he said.
Candid about faith
As a rationalist and atheist, Mr. Achuthanandan's take on faith was remarkably candid. When he was Chief Minister during the 2006-11 period, a school student playfully queried Mr. Achuthanandan about his favourite Hindu god.
'Like all of us, the tales of gods absorb me. But, like everybody else, I wonder whether they exist and, if so, which plane they inhabit,' he replied.
Mr. Achuthanandan's wife, K. Vasumathy, and their two children, daughter V.V. Asha and son V. A. Arun Kumar, and grandchildren survive him.
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