In 1964, he left the Communist Party of India’s national council to become one of the founding members of the breakaway CPI(M)
In 1964, he left the Communist Party of India’s national council to become one of the founding members of the breakaway CPI(M)
Former Chief Minister of Kerala, freedom fighter and veteran Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] leader V.S. Achuthanandan turned 99 on Thursday.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan greeted the nonagenarian communist on his birthday by posting a smiling picture of Mr. Achuthanandan on his Facebook account.
“My wholehearted compliments to Comrade VS on his 99th birthday,” Mr. Vijayan wrote.
Health condition
Mr. Achuthanandan, widely designated by his initials, “V.S.”, faded out of active public life following a minor stroke in 2019.
Doctors have put him in quarantine, given his advanced age and vulnerability to infection.
Mr Achuthanandan currently leads an assisted living with his wife and son’s family in Thiruvananthapuram.
V.S. Achuthanandan on his 96th birthday at his residence in Thiruvananthapuram
| Photo Credit: MAHINSHA S
As usual, Mr. Achuthanandan’s birthday was a subdued affair, with no visitors allowed. Mr. Achuthanandan rarely stood on ceremonies, even at the apogee of his public life.
V. A. Arunkumar, his son, told a television channel that Mr. Achuthanandan retained his awareness and was visibly saddened when informed about the death of his long-time party colleague and CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, recently.
Revolutionary life
V.S. Achuthanandan addressing a large crowd at a CPI(M) party conference
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Mr. Achuthanandan was born into a family of farm workers at Punnappara in Alappuzha. He lost his parents early and was initiated into the freedom movement at 16 by the pioneering communist leader P. Krishna Pillai.
“I consider Comrade Krishna Pillai my guru,” he said at an interaction with primary school students when he was the Chief Minister during the 2006-11 period.
Mr. Achuthanandan cut his teeth as a political organiser and agitator by organising workers at the Aspinwall factory in Alappuzha.
Punnapra-Vayalar uprising
V.S. Achuthanandan and P.K. Chandranandan (right), who had fought alongside Achuthanandan in the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising, participating in a meeting in commemoration of the uprising in Alappuzha.
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 life of an estimated 470 communist revolutionaries, mostly farm workers equipped with little other than wooden spears.
Mr. Achuthanandan was imprisoned and tortured by the colonial powers in the aftermath of the agrarian uprising.
Founding member of CPI(M)
V.S. Achuthanandan hoisting the flag for the delegates conference at the CPI(M) State conference at Malappuram in 2005. Looking on are the then CPI(M) General Secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet, and State Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan
| Photo Credit: RAMESHKURUP S
In 1964, he left the Communist Party of India’s national council to become one of the founding members of the breakaway CPI(M). Later, the government jailed him during the national 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.
Track record
V. S. Achuthanandan, in 2015, at Munnar where thousands of tea garden workers, most of them women, were on a strike demanding 20 per cent bonus and Rs. 500 per day in daily wages.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
As Chief Minister, Mr. Achuthanandan initiated a demolishment drive to evict land grabbers from Munnar. Moreover, as espoused by Richard Stallman, he campaigned for open-source software.
Mr. Achuthanandan also spearheaded the drinking water agitation against Coco Cola company in Plachimeda, fought against land grabbers at Mathikettan and championed gender rights. He acquired the public image of a crusader for people’s causes and a standard bearer for underdogs and lost causes.
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.
A rebel within the party
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 openly defying the CPI(M) State secretariat.
V.S. Achuthanandan consoling K. K. Rema, wife of slain CPI(M) dissident and Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader T. P. Chandrasekharan
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. Congress weaponised the visit to assail the CPI(M), which it blamed for the killing.
Mr. Achuthanandan is widely viewed as a dogmatic communist who rarely retreats from his 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”.
