Oommen Chandy had a sense of humour. You probably need one if you come to politics at an age when other kids spend time in the playground, while you find yourself at the head of a political march of high school students in small-town Kerala. You especially need one if you are going to stay put in politics for another six decades and don’t intend to be shaken off. An admirable perseverance glows through the long political life Congress leader Oommen Chandy had – a man who twice became the Chief Minister of Kerala, got reelected from his home constituency 11 times in a row, and carried the country’s oldest political party on his loyal shoulders until his death – now retold in his posthumous autobiography, Kaalam Sakshi (Time is witness).
OC – as the media names him in frugal headlines – passed away in July 2023, after a few unwell years, when he was nearing his 80th birthday. The autobiography, as told to writer-journalist Sunnykutty Abraham, would have been a perfect way to celebrate his 80 years, 53 of which he spent as a Congress legislator, representing Puthuppally, his hometown in Kottayam. The first candidacy was by chance, he recalls in the book, when an ally rejected Puthuppally and wanted to contest from another constituency in the Assembly elections of 1970. When OC was made the Congress candidate, party leader KM Chandy told him that they would consider it a ‘win’ if he came in second place. Surprising everyone, OC won comfortably after relentless campaigning, day and night, setting a pattern for the future political life he would lead – a man always on the move.
He was 27 then. That year, three big names of Kerala politics entered the Assembly together – Oommen Chandy, AK Antony, and Pinarayi Vijayan – all in their 20s. Oommen and Antony, both Congressmen, had begun their friendship – one of the most talked-about in political circles – earlier when they were both leaders of the students’ wing of the party, the Kerala Students Union (KSU), and later the Youth Congress. They also worked closely together in the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee or KPCC. At several junctures in his book, Oommen speaks highly of Antony’s discipline and honesty, and how the two men had always stood together when splits within the party manifested over and over again. Expressing his fondness for his friend, Oommen says that he had always followed Antony’s path from the KSU days to the time they became CMs one after the other.
In contrast to his scruffy appearance, Oommen Chandy clearly had an order in his work approach. Even the autobiography follows a linear path – beginning with his school days in the late 1950s, when as a student he led a protest called orana samaram, against the hike in boat fare by the first democratically elected Communist government of Kerala. Revealing his funny bone, Kunju Kunju (as he was called in close circles) adds how he lost all his courage when he saw his dad – who was headmaster of the school he marched into – and ran away, jumped a fence, and fell on broken glass!
His path appears to have been laid for him even before he had time to pause and think. His grandfather VJ Oommen was a member of the Travancore Legislative Council from 1928 to 1931. His father KO Chandy got him interested in politics when as children, he and his brother Alex were taken to political events in the neighbourhood. The autobiography promptly becomes a narrative of his political life, indulging in little else, his family understandingly taking a back step to let him wage his wars.
A chunk of those wars appears to have been in-house, with pages after pages detailing the political differences and splits within the party. His famous feud with the late K Karunakaran, another towering figure in Kerala politics, began quite early on. It also put Oommen and Antony in a different camp from those who supported Indira Gandhi, India’s Prime Minister of the time. They became Congress (A) and Congress (I). In 1970, when the Congress and the Communist Party of India (CPI) became allies to rule Kerala, the younger group of Antony and Chandy didn’t want to join the ministry but Karunakaran and his camp did. The Karunakaran - Chandy faceoff was rumoured to have led to one of the biggest scandals of the last century, the ISRO spy case which was later ruled fake by the court. Chandy denies this, as well as rumours of his role in Antony's premature resignation of 2004 that led to OC's first term as Chief Minister.
In his jottings about rivals and allies, Chandy goes overboard in singing paeans of friends, mincing criticism for those on the same political side, while admonishing the opposition without mercy. Allies of the Congress-led United Democratic Front get their due mention. Even with Karunakaran, he does not hesitate to appreciate the practical qualities of the man who earned the moniker of 'leader' among his coworkers. Chandy defends Karunakaran as he recalls the Rajan case that shocked the state during the Emergency when the engineering student was nabbed by the police and never found again.
Pages after pages are written about the splits and reunions of the Congress party and its allies, without maligning anyone. Most of these are observations, a stating of what occurred, and rarely a meditation of what could have been. The only time he lets his emotions run free is when pointing fingers at the archenemy, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and their doings. Oommen minces no words to criticise leaders from EMS, Kerala’s first elected CM, to VS Achuthanandan, against whom he appears to have nursed a grudge for long. The one mistake he readily admits the Congress made is the decision to join the Left Democratic Front in 1980 and form a government with the CPI(M). He does not recall a single memorable experience from the time and counts it a blessing when Congress finally left the alliance in '81.
Even as he maintains a certain modesty, he speaks volubly of the achievements made during Congress ministries, especially his own, and ridicules the Left Democratic Front as taking credit for the work his government had done.
But he seems happy with the individuals when they are separated from their politics. Chandy describes the meetings with Communist leaders like AKG and EMS as friendly and polite and quotes an uplifting incident concerning Pinarayi Vijayan, another Communist veteran and current Kerala CM. At a time when Oommen Chandy’s elder daughter Mariam was going through marital troubles, her husband’s family had called a press meeting to slander her. However, when they attempted to take it to Pinarayi, who was the then Party Secretary, he sent them running. Pinarayi told Chandy the next day that they wouldn’t stand with such dirty games.
Chandy does not name Pinarayi in his narration of the infamous TP Chandrasekharan murder of 2012, of which CPI(M) workers are accused. But he mentions the Lavalin case, in which Pinarayi figured. He also unleashes a scathing attack on the Pinarayi government of the last few years, listing all the controversies one after another in a single paragraph.
About his own most scandalous Solar case, Chandy offers a chapter, detailing the incident and sticking to his innocence in the whole matter, including what he calls trumped-up charges of sexual harassment that rose towards the end. At two places he mentions an earlier episode of a similar nature when rumours of his train journey with a woman sprung during his reign as Chief Minister in 2005. Yes, there was a woman, and that was my wife Mariamma, Chandy says. In all such difficult times, he would hold on, he recalls, knowing that he did nothing wrong and therefore his name would be cleared in the end – a philosophy he repeats across the chapters of his life, more than his assertion of religious faith, which he limits to a few mentions.
Oommen Chandy had been very vocal in his protests against what he perceived as the Communist government’s attack on religion during the textbook controversy of 2008 and the Sabarimala women’s entry of 2018, but neither finds a mention in his book. He also skips the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, after his eulogy of Indira Gandhi. Unwilling to take a critical look at his party even in his sunset years, Chandy is defensive of the Congress’s darkest period in history, the Emergency of 1975. He calls it a time of discipline and peace, something the people wished for. The only issue he had was with the curtailing of press freedom. He does not even denounce Sanjay Gandhi’s brutal years of forced sterilisation. To be fair though, he does not hail him either, reserving all of his praise for the brother and former PM Rajiv Gandhi. He seems to be in awe of Sonia Gandhi too, who took up the reins years after Rajiv’s death.
So unwavering is his loyalty to the party that even at a time when he was apparently snubbed by the leadership, putting newer leaders in charge and disregarding his opinions, Oommen Chandy appears benevolent in welcoming the changes. He had wanted Ramesh Chennithala – Opposition leader during the previous Pinarayi government – to continue in his role after the LDF won a second time, but the party had chosen VD Satheesan, he notes. Nobody had asked his opinion when K Sudhakaran was appointed the state leader of the party, he says. He sounds a trifle hurt about the time when his colleague Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, heading the Home Ministry at the time of the solar scandal, didn't let him know beforehand of his PA Joppen's arrest. No complaints, just the stating of events -- a method that works in his favour more than loud reproaches would have.
Personal life is barely mentioned, but his political was his personal. Mariam, Achu, and Chandy Oommen -- his three children -- get a few lines each. Bhava, as he called his wife Mariamma, is duly credited for raising the family. It is still interesting to note a few personal traits, like how he has tasted alcohol only once, that too unknowingly when a friend gave him a “medicine” concocted with eggs and arrack. He must have also been popular with his friends, reading how the door to his MLA quarters room was always open and it once led to senior leader KK Viswanathan getting poked with a stone by mates who thought it was Oommen sleeping in his bed.
About his famous haircut too, there is an anecdote of how his young bride got a barber who gave him a “step cut” prompting an article in the Times of India about the politician’s style. After that, it was Bhava who always cut his hair, he says. Though few and far, love can be dug out from all these words.