Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan, fondly called as ‘Comrade V.S.’ by the people of Kerala and communists across the country, was not an ordinary communist nor an ordinary human being. For that matter, living to the age of 101 is not a mean feat either.

As one of the 32 leaders who walked out of the Communist Party of India (CPI) to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) in 1964, V.S. was not just the last surviving founding member of CPI(M) but also the longest living communist leader in the country. 

Until yesterday afternoon, 3.20 pm, when he breathed his last at a Thiruvananthapuram hospital.

In many ways, if put across polemically, V.S. could have been the last communist leader in the country. For, the communist parties, which he was part of and the one which he cofounded, have considerably deviated from their ideological moorings.

Blame it on the political imperatives of our time, the mainstream communist parties have assimilated with the neo-capitalist juggernaut, sidestepped the resistance against feudal forces and largely withdrawn the fight against communal and sectarian forces, if not making tacit withdrawals, as alleged in many quarters.

V.S., with his life and politics, showed why socialist values are integral to and inevitable for a human society, and why communism is a dogma that aspires to human betterment and the ultimate unitary society.

In the hours after his demise, the massive crowds thronging the AKG Centre in Thiruvananthapuram remember him as ‘Jananayakan’ (Leader of the Masses) and ‘Viplava Suryan’ (Revolutionary Sun).

The epithets did not come easily but emerged over 2-3 decades when V.S. transformed by a rigid and ideologically-staunch leader of the party to a man of the masses who constantly raised his voice, took up the cudgels for the marginalised, disenchanted and the disadvantaged, constantly brought the customarily-oppressive establishment to its feet.

Much of this activism came into conflict with the official party line, which, in turn, defined Achuthanandan’s rebellious streak in his last decade of active political life, even while occupying the chair of the Chief Minister of Kerala.

The legendary struggle with his once-protégé and later-day bete noire, Pinarayi Vijayan – who presided over his sidelining from the party and even attempted to block his potential accession to the Chief Minister’s chair – framed the contours of his rebellion even while expanding his mass base across the state, and beyond.   

Born to be a communist

Indian communism had stalwarts ranging from P Krishna Pillai, P. Sundarayya, B.T. Ranadive, Ajoy Ghosh, P.C. Joshi, S.A. Dange, A.K. Gopalan, E.M.S. Namoodiripad, Indrajit Gupta, Jyoti Basu, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, P.K. Vasudevan Nair, Somnath Chatterjee and many more.  

No communist leader in the country, however, could have been more deeply associated with popular movements and public causes than V.S. was in his over eight decades of political activism. Following in the footsteps of his mentor, Krishna Pillai, who nurtured him as an understudy during the independence movement, V.S.'s political baptism happened with the Punnapra-Vayalar, an uprising against the British regent, which also established the communist movement in Kerala.

Achuthanandan’s rise, thereafter, as a young leader was rapid, as a foot soldier of peasant movements, organising labourers to fight for their wages and unionising workers, including women, at the peak of the post-independent communist movement when it faced the ire of the ruling establishment.

Veteran Congress leader and former Defence Minister, A.K. Antony, who paid tributes to V.S. at the AKG centre, remembered him as a student listening to Achuthanandan’s speeches in the farming belts of Alappuzha. Comparing V.S. to the popular charisma of AKG, Antony recalled how V.S. emerged as the champion of many causes, including environmental protection, human rights, women's empowerment, minorities, wetland conservation, and so on.

From charging at the land encroachers in Mathikettan hills, landing in Plachimada to support the protest against the Coca-Cola plant, unleashing fury against the sandalwood smuggling in Marayoor, expressing solidarity with the tribal agitators in Mutanga, heading to Kudankulam (against his party diktat) to back S.P. Udaykumar and co. in their protest against the nuclear plant – were all not just passing pages in Achuthanandan’s agitational legacy, but also milestones in Kerala’s recent political history.  

What Antony skipped was Achuthanandan’s emergence as the icon of anti-corruption movements, which mostly put Congress governments in the state, including Antony’s, at the receiving end. But what made V.S.’s activism spectacular was that he did not shy away from seeking prosecution of his own party colleague, Pinarayi Vijayan, in the infamous SNC-Lavalin case.

V.S. ruffled many feathers within and outside his party with his anti-encroachment drive as chief minister and cracking down on illegal construction in ecologically-sensitive zones, echoing his leadership for causes like wetland and paddy farming conservation in his earlier days as party leader.

Achuthanandan also cracked the whip on sexual offenders, including some political heavyweights, which endeared him to women voters, who were also the catalyst, along with the party’s core cadre, that forced the party leadership to revoke their decision in 2006 to deny him a seat in the assembly elections.

If the decision was a last-ditch effort by the party’s paterfamilias to deny another historic moment of V.S. leading the state as a chief minister, it also led to the party cadre and apparatchiks coming down to the streets, in an unprecedented protest against the leadership, to halt another attempt to sabotage Achuthanandan’s political destiny.

Sabotage was an inherent feature in Achuthanandan’s political journey, with his detractors and rivals, mostly within the party, attempting persistently to halt his forward march. The most notable instance, before the 2016 state committee decision to deny him a seat, was the alleged sabotage of 1996 in Mararikulam – the party stronghold in his home district – where his defeat was allegedly engineered to deny him the CM chair.       

The credit for dissensions against V.S. from within his own political universe could be attributed to the resentment against his rigid politics and hardcore dogma. Even veteran Marxists found his hardline politics hard to chew, which, in some quarters, was also described as a ‘Stalinist streak,’ well before V.S. transformed into the mass avatar.  

V.S., though, fought his way as a forlorn journey at many junctures, emerging victorious on many occasions thanks to deft moves and realignment of forces. All throughout his internal organisational struggles, it was the clenched fist hold over the ideology and political principles that saw him through.

Yet, it was interesting how he aligned and realigned his forces. If it was the trade union comrades in the party who helped in overwhelming the old guard led by former chief minister E.K. Nayanar, he eliminated the trade unionists in the power struggle of the 1990s. Incumbent chief minister and currently the senior-most member of the CPI(M) Politburo, Pinarayi Vijayan, was his field commander in that mission, which also saw V.S. propelling Vijayan to the party secretary in Kerala.

Ironically, Vijayan turned against his mentor while at the helm, initially over ideological conflict, which soon turned into an organisational battle with the party split down the middle between the two leaders. In a clinical move, Vijayan finished off ‘factionalism’ in the party, which also cut to size V.S. within the organisation, with many from his ranks crossing over to the ‘official’ side.

Despite such setbacks, the V.S. brand of politics continued to thrive with his days as Leader of Opposition in the Kerala assembly becoming a landmark period for anyone who occupied that office. Acting as a conscience-keeper of the people and a resolute corrective force, V.S. rose above the party edifice and emerged as the most adored leader in the state – a factor which forced the party to field him in the 2006 election and enabled his ride to power.

If Pinarayi Vijayan upended Kerala’s political pattern of swinging between the two fronts every five years, with a return to power in 2021, V.S. had a shot at a return in 2011, falling short of just 2 seats. The LDF lost many seats below the margin of 500 votes, which again gave rise to speculation that the official party machinery did not wish V.S.’s return to power.

Ideologue to administrator

For a school dropout denied the fruits of education due to poverty and feudal circumstances, V.S. Achuthanandan’s pedagogical classroom was the party and the communist literature, and his tryst with life through people-connect and the communist movement.

V.S. had an immaculate grip on the ideology and a deep understanding of social issues, as well as world affairs. Despite being a founding member, it was only his intellect and organisational prowess that enabled Achuthanandan’s belated entry into the Politburo – often termed as a ‘band of Brahmin boys,’ many with a western education – in the mid-1980s.   

Many term V.S. as a ‘legendary’ opposition leader, not just for his performance as the LoP in the Kerala assembly but also for his clarion slogan – “govern and struggle” – which implied that V.S. will continue to be a protester, part of many resistance movements and corrective force even while leading the government in the state.

A testament to this unique approach was Achuthanandan’s support for the ‘open source software’ movement, which showed his deep understanding of global technological trends and their social implications.

V.S. also took a contrarian stand on the Kudankulam nuclear project by supporting the local protest, as he viewed the plant as a threat to the local ecology and livelihoods of people in adjoining Tamil Nadu. Despite being aware of the electricity benefits that even Kerala could attain from a captive power production source in the neighbourhood, V.S. stood with the sentiments of the local people, in the process even rejecting his party’s support for the nuclear power plant.

Despite such restrained approaches to technology and economic development, especially those involving capitalist hues, V.S. as Chief Minister initiated or facilitated numerous projects in Kerala that are today standing tall across the state, be it the Vallarpadam International Container Transshipment Terminal in Kochi, Kannur International Airport, the Vizhinjam port, Kochi Metro, Phase III and IV of Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram, setting up IT parks in Kozhikode and Kollam, and so on.

Former Defence Minister Antony, while paying tributes, reminisced about how V.S. had set aside political differences to approach him for the defence ministry’s clearance for the Vizhinjam port and Kochi Metro projects.

Eventually, the party also recognised Achuthanandan’s prowess as a fair and efficient administrator by appointing him as the chairman of the Kerala Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC). The ARC under V.S. submitted eleven study reports, a report on budget and financial management, and another on performance evaluation across key departments. 

V.S. – a school of politics

Having retired from active politics in 2021, Achuthanandan’s demise at the age of 101 may not make a difference to the CPI(M) or Left politics in the state. However, the crowds thronging his funeral procession indicate that the party stands to gain by the ‘politics of V.S.’ finding resonance among the population, even if as a tribute.

Irrespective of how the CPI(M) harnesses the tributes pouring in for V.S. in a crucial election year – including the upcoming local bodies and assembly polls – the politics of V.S. is a reminder for the party and its leadership to introspect is perceived deviation from the socialist and communist path, in the guise of economic development and political adjustments.

For, the politics of V.S. was always of a socialist way of life and communist principles guiding his life and times as a member of the human society. V.S. never was seen to have deviated from his political principles and ideological foundations, irrespective of the political conditions or demands of electoral expediency.

By that standard, the politics of V.S. will remain an epitome of hope for not just the people of Kerala or for the Left movement, but also the larger Indian socio-political spectrum, which has lost its moral and ethical direction against the blind pursuit of wealth, prosperity and materialism.