If, in the autumn of 1946, a 23-year-old Communist worker, beaten black and blue and thought dead, had not been discovered breathing, he would have been dumped in a forest somewhere near Pala in central Kerala, his name judiciously added to the list of party martyrs: VS Achuthanandan, comrade who fought against the draconian Travancore Dewan’s rule and breathed life into many worker revolts. But, like in a movie, one of the men tasked with ditching the ‘body’ heard him move and alerted the others. VS Achuthanandan has since lived to tell his tale, continue his fights, rule the homeland, and turn a hundred years old. On Friday, October 20, he became a centenarian.
A Communist Party of India member since before he turned 18, VS (as everyone inside and outside political circles call him) went with the Marxists when the party split in 1964. He and N Sankaraiah of Tamil Nadu remain the only two living members of the original 32 who left the Communist Party of India and formed the CPI(M). Nearly everything, from positions of power to starting a family, happened a little later than others for VS. He was 44 when he first became a legislator, 82 when he finally became Chief Minister of Kerala.
Even after he withdrew from active politics a few years ago, owing to failing health in his 90s, the papers dutifully printed a photo every October 20 of VS having a meal with his family, his trademark laugh visible above a playful caption suggesting that Kerala’s oldest Communist didn’t like revealing his age. But five years ago, VS suffered a stroke and his movements – even his stride with his famously hunched shoulders – were restricted and he was no longer seen in public. He still had the morning papers read to him every day, his son Arun Kumar said, on the occasion of his father turning 100. It’d be hard to separate the man from his passion for public affairs, for knowing what went on in the lives of his fellow beings. Working for the people, among the people, was something he began doing as a child.
VS was born to Venthalathara Ayyan Shankaran and Akkamma alias Karthyayani in Punnapra, a village in Alappuzha that found a place in history books because of the legendary workers’ uprising of 1946 against the Dewan’s rule in Travancore, a year before India became independent and princely states were merged into the union. VS was born into a poor family belonging to one of the lowered castes of Kerala, the Ezhavas. An anecdote about his schooldays (in Palode Divakaran’s VS: Oru Janavikaram) mentions how boys from privileged castes teased him about his caste and how, taking his father’s advice, little VS hurled his aranjanam (a chain worn around the waist) at them.
But he couldn’t study for long. VS lost his mother when he was four and his father when he was 11. He quit school at Class VII to help his brother Gangadharan raise their two siblings. He began helping at Gangadharan’s tailoring shop where he listened to conversations of coir workers who frequented the place, getting drawn to the idea of workers’ movements even as a young boy. In his teens, he took off with a sewing machine to a nearby town and ended up unionising farm workers. Freedom fighter and Communist leader VK Karunakaran is believed to have had a strong influence on him.
In 1940, when he was just 17, he became a worker at Aspinwall House, a British company, and listened to sessions of Communist leaders like P Krishna Pillai. Within six months he joined the party. One of his early revolts was the Kuttanad farmers’ protest against landlords and a march by Punnapra fisherfolk to the police station demanding the release of unfairly arrested workers. By October 1946, when the Punnapra Vayalar uprising took place, VS was already a wanted man by the police. He couldn’t lead the strike all the way. He went into hiding but was caught two days later and taken to the Pala police station. That’s where he endured the torture that nearly killed him – the third-degree had him half in and half out of his cell, his legs pulled between the bars of a prison cell, a lathi tied to his feet and beaten on the soles of his feet. After a while, his feet became numb and every beating rang in his head, he revealed many years later.
After recuperating in a hospital, he was imprisoned for one and a half years. On the night that India won its freedom, VS was in a dark jail cell, still weak from his injuries. When he came out, the Communist party was banned in Kerala, so he had to go underground. He was arrested again in the 1950s, before the ban was revoked.
The party recognised his commitment and made him a state committee member in 1954. Three years later when the Communist party formed the first elected government of Kerala, the most number of party legislators came from Alappuzha, where VS was district secretary. It took another 10 years for VS to come to the legislative assembly, representing Ambalappuzha, a town in Alappuzha. That was also the year he got married, to a comrade called K Vasumathi, who would work as a nurse and earn for the family in the early years. The Venthalathara in his name became Vellikkakathu after his house name, letting his initials remain VS.
In 1980, when CPI(M) leader EK Nayanar became the Chief Minister, VS was given the job of party state secretary. Those were the years when MV Raghavan, a party leader, floated the idea of including the Indian Union Muslim League in the Left Democratic Front, which was strongly opposed by both VS and the party’s general secretary, EMS. In 1986, MVR was kicked out of the party and VS was made a politburo member.
VS became Leader of Opposition for the first time in 1991. In the next Assembly election in 1996, his name was floated as the CM candidate of the Left front but he had lost his seat at Mararikulam, and Nayanar once again became the CM. Pinarayi Vijayan, the current CM of Kerala, became the Electricity Minister and held the position for two years before quitting to take the role of party secretary in 1998.
VS’s second innings as Opposition leader in 2001-06 saw him wage wars against forest encroachments, illegal lottery mafia, the Muthanga police firing that killed tribal people, and the Coca Cola plant in Plachimada that was in fact initiated during the previous LDF government. The feud between VS and late Congress leader Oommen Chandy, who had led the United Democratic Front government, was a constant element in Kerala politics for years on end.
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Around this time, unacknowledged factions developed within the party and gave rise to what came to be known as the VS paksham and the Pinarayi paksham. The rift reached its peak during the SNC Lavalin controversy, when Pinarayi Vijayan was put in the dock for alleged corruption during his tenure as Electricity Minister. When the party took a stand against prosecuting Pinarayi, VS seemed to silently side with the naysayers, making thinly veiled comments such as ‘all corruption is corruption’. This went on when he held the CM post between 2006 and 2011. He was seen as a rebel within his party, refusing to toe the line. The cracks had begun to appear earlier and the party did not even want to give him a seat in the 2006 elections. But after considering popular opinion he was back in the race.
During his time as CM, the Vallarpadam transhipment terminal was opened in Kochi, the Technopark in Kollam, and construction of the Infopark in Cherthala began, the proposal for the Kannur airport was made, and the Kochi Metro project was approved. The government action against encroached plantations in Munnar became a controversy, even as it drew VS closer to the people.
Despite his popularity among the masses – his witty speeches, pointed sarcasm, and apparent indifference to party commands making him a crowd puller – VS was again denied a seat in the 2011 Assembly elections. For a second time he was brought back into the picture after many protests within and outside the party. The LDF did not make it a second time but VS’s fiery campaign speeches made it a close contest, the UDF winning by only two seats. In the next five years, VS continued to be a popular leader, remaining stoutly in the Opposition for a third time and raising issues in that humorous singsong tone of his, stretching syllables, and not mincing words.
There was a row when he took a jibe at the Travancore royal family in 2011, insinuating that the titular head of the time siphoned off gold from the Padmanabha Swamy Temple every day in a tiffin box. VS also took strong exception to sexual harassment of women and refused to present a ponnada (a golden-coloured shawl used to honour someone) to actor Jagathy Sreekumar as he was accused in the Vithura sex scandal case in which a minor girl was sexually abused by multiple people (Jagathy’s name was later cleared). VS’s visit to KK Rema, the bereaved wife of TP Chandrasekharan – a politician who was brutally killed after he left the CPI(M) and floated a new party, allegedly by party workers – also brought attention to the veteran’s actions, unpredictable, and in the eyes of his followers, righteous.
VS on Travancore royal family and temple wealth:
In 2016, when he was a grand 92 and a half, VS campaigned tirelessly for the Assembly elections and many devoted voters thought he’d become the CM if the Left came to power. When Pinarayi Vijayan was pronounced the CM, there were murmurs of VS being betrayed and sidelined, with a nominal post (Chairman of the Administrative Reforms Commission) conferred on him. VS made no complaints and remained politically active for a couple more years, before the stroke made that difficult.
In his birthday message for VS, Chief Minister Pinarayi said that his was a life that journeyed with the history of modern Kerala. VS led strikes against tyranny, monarchy, feudalism, and imperialism, always standing for the rights of the working class, Pinarayi said. A man who led protests for decades until his health allowed him, VS chose to name one of his short memoirs, “Samaram Thanne Jeevitham” – Life is a protest.