V S: Hardcore Comrade Who Rose from Working Class to Become CM

Thiruvananthapuram: A hard-core Marxist who never doubted the truth of the creed, V S Achuthanandan goes down in India’s political history as the first communist leader from working-class ranks to become chief minister.

Achuthanandan (102) passed away on July 21 in a hospital here due to multiple organ failure. For over five years, he had been confined to bed at home.

Unlike his predecessors E M S Namboodiripad, Jyothi Basu, and E K Nayanar, who all hailed from privileged backgrounds, for Achuthanandan the indignities and repressions of the class and caste-ridden social order were a lived reality in his formative years.

Popularly known as ‘VS’, Achuthanandan served as chief minister of Kerala during 2006-11, marking the high point of a long career, mostly as the organisational man and rough and tough party boss with an insatiable zest for in-house feuds.

A founder leader of the CPI (M) post-1964 split in the undivided Communist Party of India (CPI), Achuthanandan’s life was defined by unceasing struggles not just against the feudal-colonial-capitalist order but also against factional adversaries in his own movement.

One of Kerala’s most popular politicians with an unsullied reputation for uprightness and probity, Velikkakath Sankaran Achuthanandan was born in a family of highly straitened means on October 20, 1923, in today’s Alappuzha district.

A primary school dropout, he had a childhood hobbled by deprivations and discrimination, as was the case with the vast majority in the then princely state of Travancore, where graded inequality was the unchallenged social and economic norm.

He lost both parents at a very young age, compelling him to work to support the family. As a teen, he picked up some skills by helping his elder brother, a tailor. Soon, he found a poorly paid job in a coir factory in Alappuzha, then a business hub and the cradle of the trade union movement.

Achuthanandan’s long political journey began at the coir factory at a time when Travancore was a boiling cauldron of freedom struggle, movement for social justice, nascent trade unionism, and a botched communist-led uprising.

All these intersected under the repression unleashed by the royal rule and its power wielders, opening an ideal setting for the communist movement to make an emphatic entry on the scene. Achuthanandan, and scores of others fired by revolutionary zeal, emerged as committed comrades out of this turbulence, which eventually went on to make communism an enduring political creed in Kerala.

Simultaneously, similar struggles had gained momentum in the princely state of Cochin and the British-ruled Malabar regions, paving the way for the united Kerala campaign.

Having been inducted as a whole-timer, the Communist Party assigned him to organise farm and plantation workers, the worst exploited lot of the time.

Even as the Travancore administration mounted a ruthless crackdown on communists, Achuthanandan displayed immense grit and persuasive skill in organising plantation workers on the eastern hill tracts of Kerala as an underground activist. Running into the hands of police, he suffered brutal torture, marks of which he bore till the end of his life.

With the Communist Party of India shedding armed struggle from its official programme and adapting itself to parliamentary democracy, the party drafted frontline cadres to key organizational roles. This transition saw Achuthanandan steadily rising in the party apparatus to become a member of the state committee and the secretary of the Alppuzha district committee.

Also Read: Amit Shah’s Assertion: Will BJP Walk the Talk in Kerala?

Though he prided himself as a hardliner, VS was part and parcel of the party’s shift to gradualism within the constitutional framework of India, which it had despised in the initial years of Indian independence.

The 1964 split in the CPI was yet another turning point in Achuthanandan’s career as he was one of the 32 national council members of the CPI to break ranks to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

The breakaway faction held the CPI leadership under veterans like S A Dange as having seriously deviated from the correct path, especially by adopting a soft line towards the Congress regime.

Achuthanandan was elected to the assembly in 1967 and 1977 but did not make a big mark as a legislator as organisational work was his forte.

The big break in his career came when he became the state secretary of the CPI (M) in the early 1980s and presided over the purge of ‘deviationists’ led by once-powerful M V Raghavan.

After tightening his grip over the party’s state unit, he steadily positioned himself as a chief ministerial candidate. This phase saw the popularity of Achuthanandan soaring to new heights.

During this time, he also assiduously built a strong media presence, intervening in live public issues, including environmental matters. Unburdened by the sophistications of formal education, VS’s sharp tongue, mocking tone, and unique intonation resonated well with masses even outside the party’s bounds.

As his stock kept rising within and outside the party, his rivals pulled all stops to halt his march. Achuthanandan suffered a shock when he was defeated in assembly elections in his home constituency Mararikkulam in the 1996 assembly elections, despite the Left Democratic Front (LDF) gaining power.

Though many then wrote his political obituary, the resilient VS made a spectacular comeback, wresting victory from the jaws of defeat. In five years, he returned as the opposition leader in the state assembly.

A born factionalist, it was VS who roped in the present chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan as CPI (M) state secretary to cut his rivals down. But soon they fell out with each other, triggering a murky phase of the ‘VS-Pinarayi’ faction feud in Kerala CPI (M).

On the eve of the 2000 elections, the party state committee virtually ruled out VS as its chief minister face. But dumping him sparked instant protests across the state, compelling the central leadership to step in and prevail upon the state unit to project the veteran leader as its electoral face.

Though he had a full five-year tenure as the chief minister, he was forced to run the government under the close oversight of the party.

One enduring image of his stint in power was the decision to send bulldozers to the picturesque hill station Munnar to pull down the illegal structures that came up on encroached land, deeply hurting the fragile Western Ghats ecosystem. While it was applauded by environmental campaigners across the country, the mission still ended unaccomplished as the governments that followed watered down the bold move.

In 2011, the LDF was defeated and VS was steadily sidelined, with Vijayan emerging as the most powerful leader.

In 2016, the LDF made a big comeback under the leadership of Vijayan. The day the government was sworn in, Achuthanandan was given the ceremonial post of the chairman of the administrative reforms committee, with which began his silent march to political insignificance.

Thiruvananthapuram: A hard-core Marxist who never doubted the truth of the creed, V S Achuthanandan goes down in India’s political history as the first communist leader from working-class ranks to become chief minister.

Achuthanandan (102) passed away on July 21 in a hospital here due to multiple organ failure. For over five years, he had been confined to bed at home.

Unlike his predecessors E M S Namboodiripad, Jyothi Basu, and E K Nayanar, who all hailed from privileged backgrounds, for Achuthanandan the indignities and repressions of the class and caste-ridden social order were a lived reality in his formative years.

Popularly known as ‘VS’, Achuthanandan served as chief minister of Kerala during 2006-11, marking the high point of a long career, mostly as the organisational man and rough and tough party boss with an insatiable zest for in-house feuds.

A founder leader of the CPI (M) post-1964 split in the undivided Communist Party of India (CPI), Achuthanandan’s life was defined by unceasing struggles not just against the feudal-colonial-capitalist order but also against factional adversaries in his own movement.

One of Kerala’s most popular politicians with an unsullied reputation for uprightness and probity, Velikkakath Sankaran Achuthanandan was born in a family of highly straitened means on October 20, 1923, in today’s Alappuzha district.

A primary school dropout, he had a childhood hobbled by deprivations and discrimination, as was the case with the vast majority in the then princely state of Travancore, where graded inequality was the unchallenged social and economic norm.

He lost both parents at a very young age, compelling him to work to support the family. As a teen, he picked up some skills by helping his elder brother, a tailor. Soon, he found a poorly paid job in a coir factory in Alappuzha, then a business hub and the cradle of the trade union movement.

Achuthanandan’s long political journey began at the coir factory at a time when Travancore was a boiling cauldron of freedom struggle, movement for social justice, nascent trade unionism, and a botched communist-led uprising.

All these intersected under the repression unleashed by the royal rule and its power wielders, opening an ideal setting for the communist movement to make an emphatic entry on the scene. Achuthanandan, and scores of others fired by revolutionary zeal, emerged as committed comrades out of this turbulence, which eventually went on to make communism an enduring political creed in Kerala.

Simultaneously, similar struggles had gained momentum in the princely state of Cochin and the British-ruled Malabar regions, paving the way for the united Kerala campaign.

Having been inducted as a whole-timer, the Communist Party assigned him to organise farm and plantation workers, the worst exploited lot of the time.

Even as the Travancore administration mounted a ruthless crackdown on communists, Achuthanandan displayed immense grit and persuasive skill in organising plantation workers on the eastern hill tracts of Kerala as an underground activist. Running into the hands of police, he suffered brutal torture, marks of which he bore till the end of his life.

With the Communist Party of India shedding armed struggle from its official programme and adapting itself to parliamentary democracy, the party drafted frontline cadres to key organizational roles. This transition saw Achuthanandan steadily rising in the party apparatus to become a member of the state committee and the secretary of the Alppuzha district committee.

Also Read: Amit Shah’s Assertion: Will BJP Walk the Talk in Kerala?

Though he prided himself as a hardliner, VS was part and parcel of the party’s shift to gradualism within the constitutional framework of India, which it had despised in the initial years of Indian independence.

The 1964 split in the CPI was yet another turning point in Achuthanandan’s career as he was one of the 32 national council members of the CPI to break ranks to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

The breakaway faction held the CPI leadership under veterans like S A Dange as having seriously deviated from the correct path, especially by adopting a soft line towards the Congress regime.

Achuthanandan was elected to the assembly in 1967 and 1977 but did not make a big mark as a legislator as organisational work was his forte.

The big break in his career came when he became the state secretary of the CPI (M) in the early 1980s and presided over the purge of ‘deviationists’ led by once-powerful M V Raghavan.

After tightening his grip over the party’s state unit, he steadily positioned himself as a chief ministerial candidate. This phase saw the popularity of Achuthanandan soaring to new heights.

During this time, he also assiduously built a strong media presence, intervening in live public issues, including environmental matters. Unburdened by the sophistications of formal education, VS’s sharp tongue, mocking tone, and unique intonation resonated well with masses even outside the party’s bounds.

As his stock kept rising within and outside the party, his rivals pulled all stops to halt his march. Achuthanandan suffered a shock when he was defeated in assembly elections in his home constituency Mararikkulam in the 1996 assembly elections, despite the Left Democratic Front (LDF) gaining power.

Though many then wrote his political obituary, the resilient VS made a spectacular comeback, wresting victory from the jaws of defeat. In five years, he returned as the opposition leader in the state assembly.

A born factionalist, it was VS who roped in the present chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan as CPI (M) state secretary to cut his rivals down. But soon they fell out with each other, triggering a murky phase of the ‘VS-Pinarayi’ faction feud in Kerala CPI (M).

On the eve of the 2000 elections, the party state committee virtually ruled out VS as its chief minister face. But dumping him sparked instant protests across the state, compelling the central leadership to step in and prevail upon the state unit to project the veteran leader as its electoral face.

Though he had a full five-year tenure as the chief minister, he was forced to run the government under the close oversight of the party.

One enduring image of his stint in power was the decision to send bulldozers to the picturesque hill station Munnar to pull down the illegal structures that came up on encroached land, deeply hurting the fragile Western Ghats ecosystem. While it was applauded by environmental campaigners across the country, the mission still ended unaccomplished as the governments that followed watered down the bold move.

In 2011, the LDF was defeated and VS was steadily sidelined, with Vijayan emerging as the most powerful leader.

In 2016, the LDF made a big comeback under the leadership of Vijayan. The day the government was sworn in, Achuthanandan was given the ceremonial post of the chairman of the administrative reforms committee, with which began his silent march to political insignificance.