Born of the uprising

Integrity. Humility. Selfless commitment. Conviction. These loaded words are grabbing media space with unending tributes to VS Achuthanandan, the former chief minister of Kerala who passed away recently, aged 101. Born out of the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising of 1946 when he was barely 23, Achuthanandan belonged to a unique generation that fought feudal, royal, colonial and capitalist forces for over eight long decades. His colleagues, CPI-M party leaders, diapersons, and even political opponents acknowledge him as the ‘last of the communist tita ns’, ‘his life an epitome of struggle’, ‘a champion of the working class’, and ‘Kerala’s moral compass’.

Hidden in these tributes, the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising of 1946 merits a quick mention while it was in fact a historical event of immense significance not just for the communist movement in India but the entire struggle for India’s independence. It irrevocably shaped the life and times of a young coir worker who was learning the ropes of how to survive hard life as an orphan. Drawn to trade union struggles in 1938 and inspired by leaders like P. Krishna Pillai, Achuthanandan joined the Communist Party of India (CPI) in 1940. In 1987, when marking 40 years of Independence, the West Bengal government published ‘India’s Struggle for Freedom’, a compilation of photographs and historical accounts depicting the contribution of various movements and individuals towards the country’s freedom.

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As a homage to Achuthanandan, it is fascinating to read through the pages devoted to the PunnapraVayalar uprising and the conditions prevailing in Travancore in the 1940s. “In the middle of 1946, a famine loomed large in Travancore. The communists organised a hunger march against this… in the town of Alleppey, communist trade union leader TV Thomas was conducting a workers’ demonstration. And against all these movements, a terrible repression had been unleashed by the autocratic Dewan CP Ramaswamy Iyer.

At this time, the most popular and established mass leaders in Kerala were the founders of the communist party there ~ B. Krishna Pillai, EMS Namboodripad and KC George,” is how the readers are led into those dramatic years. “The communist party of Kerala decided,” the chroniclers of ‘India’s Struggle for Freedom’ noted, “that general strike throughout Travancore shall have to be organised combining the issues of the workers, unrest in Alleppey, the impending famine and the autocratic behaviour of the Dewan. In nearby coastal villages of Punnapra and Vayalar, the communists had strong bases.

In October 1946, KC George and TV Thomas arrived there to give leadership to the movement. On 22nd October, the call for a general strike was given. At once CP Ramaswamy declared illegal the communist party and the Coir Workers Union. The police also started a brutal regime of terror. On 24 October, apart from a total general strike, the people started attacking the police camps and the houses of an oppressive landlord. The police opened fire, killed 10 workers, but the police officer was also killed. Ultimately, the landlord’s house was captured and the police fled from their camp.

On 26 October, the Army of the Dewan twice tried to enter Vayalar but they were twice repulsed by the militant people. Ultimately, at dawn on 27th October, taking advantage of a fog, 500 soldiers came in a motor launch and entered Vayalar. Then what happened was a mini-Jalianwalla Bagh. The soldiers opened machine gun fire, killing more than 500 workers and peasant activists. In this way, Sir CP Ramaswamy crushed Punnapra-Vayalar uprising in blood.” In the brutal aftermath of the uprising the young Achuthanandan went underground on party orders. From his hideout in Poonjar in Kottay am, he was captured by the police and locked up.

The torture and brutality he underwent would have crac ked a lesser mortal but Achuthanandan did not betray party leaders nor divulge any information to the police. After repeated beatings and bayoneting, he lost consciousness and the police, thinking he was dead, thought of disposing the corpse in a nearby forest. When the young rebel showed some signs of life, he was tak en to a nearby hospital where he suffered a long painful recovery. It is Robin Jeffrey whose ‘India’s Working Class Revolt: Punnapra-Vayalar and the Communist “Conspiracy” of 1946’ in Indian Economic Social History Review 1981, keeps alive the dra matic traumatic moments: “When the boats carrying the soldiers reached the camp at Vayalar they met a fairly determined lot of young men armed with areca nut staves and…iron weapons of all sorts.

They said that they (were) not afraid of this military and would not surrender… they lay down and started crawling… and as it was obvious they were manoeuvring for a hand to hand encounter, fire was opened and some persons were killed…” This was the report of H. Keene, Inspector General of Police, “Short Note on the Communist Activity and the Consequent Disturbances at Alleppey and Cherthala in October 1946,” which Jeffrey shared, after his research in modern-day Trivandrum archives. Jeffrey explained, “the police described the final encou – nter in what was probably the only time an organized working class in India has led an armed revolt against a government. In – dian working classes, to be sure, have conducted long, bitter stri – kes, and peasants have staged sustained revolts in the co u – ntryside.

But only once, it appears, have workers in an industry fashioned weapons, set up armed enclaves and fought the military in pitched, if one-sided, battles.” Come to think of it, why should the workers of the town of Alleppey and its neighbourhood have taken up arms when no other proletariat in India had done so? Jeffrey wrote, “a small provincial town in a remote corner of the country was not Moscow or Petrograd; nor was it Bombay or Calcutta ~ the revolution was not going to be won, or even prov – ok ed, around Alleppey alone… It was, in fact, the result of a peculiar conjunction of international, national and local events that for a short time appeared to offer Communists in Travancore the opportunity to be the vanguard of revolution in India. It was for very special reasons that the workers of Alleppey were encouraged to throw themselves into a rising that cost the lives of hundreds and added an important chapter to Communist martyrology.”

In 1975, KC George who had been at the forefront of the uprising wrote ‘Immortal Punnapra-Vayalar’, published by the CPI. From George’s perspective, the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising in 1946 represented a glorious chapter in the freedom struggle not only of Travancore but of India as a whole. Many readers may not be aware that the government of the Maharaja of Travancore was planning to declare independence once the British left India. For the Royals, the Communist Party and the organized working class were its most powerful foes who were dedicated to keeping Travancore within a post-Independence India. The Travancore government, therefore, set out to smash the workers and the Communist Party.

Though bloodied, the working class emerged stronger than ever, its brave sacrifices having scotched forever. There is of course the anti Communist version which accu – ses the communists of attempting to re-establish their sphere of influence in the State. The communists, as one exponent of this view wrote, “had gone down so low in public esteem that to regain the prestige they had lost… they decided to stage an insurrectionary movement”. Though no first-rank communist leader died, hundreds of ignorant workers were sent, not led, one should note to the slaughter to prove the vitality of the Communist Party. In Jeffrey’s paper, the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising is also looked upon “so much like a rehearsal for the large-scale Hyderabad uprisings of 1948” that one is tempted to believe that it was planned by the Central Committee of the CPI as the beginning of a national campaign of insurrection.

By March 1948, indeed, the CPI was claiming that in July-August 1946 it had realized “the existence of the revolutionary upsurge throughout In dia”, the result of post-war dis location and impending independence. The party therefore embarked on a course of developing the partial struggles taking place spontaneously throughout India for the achievement of the democratic revolution and for the seizure of power by the people. According to this interpretation, based on the documents of the History of the Communist Party of India, Volume 7, the CPI was aiming by August 1946 to light sparks throughout a restless land that would come together in a nati – onal conflagration leading to the ultimate capture of power.

The Punnapra-Vayalar uprising was, therefore, such a spark. Achuthanandan, on his part, rarely referred to the events of 1946; after his long, painful recovery, he doubled his efforts as a party-worker, dedicating himself to the cause of workers, peasants and toiling masses ruthlessly ruled by the Travancore elitists. It was Sitaram Yechury, the late CPI-M general secretary, who remarked “VS was the Fidel Castro of Kerala”. The epithet stuck for years. VS Achuthanandan was an admirer of Fidel Castro, calling him an eternal source of inspiration for activists around the world. He saw in Castro a unique revolutionary who stood up against US imperialism, demonstrating how a communist country could uplift people’s lives better than many capitalist countries.

(The writer is a researchauthor on history and heritage issues, and a former deputy curator of Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya)