VS Achuthanandan: Revolutionary who donned role of corrective force in Kerala politics

Legendary Communist leader and former Kerala chief minister VS Achuthanandan, who passed away on Monday here, was a revolutionary who donned the role of a corrective force in Kerala politics.

Achuthanandan started his political journey as a trade union activist and joined the Congress in 1938. Like most Congress leaders, he was later attracted by the ideology of communism.

Advertisement

He formally joined the Communist Party of India (CPI) in 1940 and was soon elected as the party’s district secretary in Alappuzha.

Born on 20 October, 1923, in a working-class family in Alappuzha district, the Left leader lent new meaning to Left politics in Kerala and across the country.

Born in poverty and brought up amidst adversity — he lost his mother when he was hardly four years old and his father when he was 11.Orphaned early, he was forced by circumstances to discontinue education in Class 7 and join the tailoring shop managed by his elder brother.

“I may have been able to continue my studies without books. But I lacked the stamina to starve in school every day,” he said once when journalists asked about his discontinued education. However, he remained an ardent reader.

He had found a place for himself in the long and chequered history of the Left movement in India by being active in the Punnapra-Vayalar peasant uprising.

Achuthanandan never hesitated to raise his voice whenever he spotted irregularities or breaches of rights. Over the years, he relentlessly pursued corruption cases and went after the mafia that thrived by engaging in illegal businesses involving ganja, sandalwood, and land.

He regularly stood with civil-society movements and their more significant concerns, even when they conflicted with his party’s decisions. In the process, he invited numerous disciplinary actions from the party.

He always maintained his own stance even at the cost of opposing the party. VS was a leader who always struck a chord with the masses.

He always had to bear the brunt of scores of disciplinary actions by the very party he helped form. Public censuring and demotion from the Politburo were just a few of the punitive actions that VS had to face in the course of his long political career as an uncompromising Communist.

VS at first faced party disciplinary action during the Indo-China war in 1962. He was demoted from the Central Committee. He was warned in 1998 and suspended from the Politburo for factionalism in 2007. Though he was taken back keeping in mind his mass appeal, VS had to leave the Politburo again in 2009. This was followed by censuring by the Central Committee for his visit to Koodamkulam.

For the cadres and civil society, he was always a doughty fighter. Both when in and out of power, he fought against corporations that plundered natural resources, including water and biodiversity-rich forests.

He became the Chief Minister of Kerala at a record age of 84, more than 67 years after he joined the communist party as a member.

An ardent anti-corruption crusader, Achuthanandan continued to be a powerful symbol of probity and transparency in public life.He fought legal battles against several high profile political leaders — the 1994 palm oil import case against former chief minister K Karunakaran, corruption cases against former power minister R Balakrishna Pillai, the ice cream parlour sex racket of 1990s as well as the 2015 bar bribery case against former minister K M Mani are some among these most high-profile cases.

As chief minister, he led the historic Munnar eviction drive against illegal encroachments despite opposition from within his cabinet.