KASARGOD: K Madhavan had to trod a lonely path within the communist movement because of his "maverick views", said historian C Balan.
"He was in favour of combining the ideals of Gandhi with Karl Marx for the emancipation of the weaker sections," he said. But he was isolated within the communist movement.
In 1962, he called for the coming together of the Congress and the communist parties to keep communal forces at bay. Later, at the CPI national council in Varanasi, he tabled a paper urging "democratic secular parties to join hands to stop communal forces from gain ground".
The proposal got only two votes, said Balan. Today, the situation is such that the Left parties are open to such an alliance. He was able to foresee the growth of communal forces, the historian said. "It just showed Madhavan only made history, he also foresaw history in the making," he said.
Despite his communist leanings, the freedom fighter was a thorough Gandhian. In 1948, when the CPI adopted the Calcutta Thesis, a resolution calling for taking up arms on the premise that 'free' India was only a "semi-colony of British imperialism, Madhavan rejected it. "As the CPI secretary of Kasargod taluk, he ensured it was not implemented here. He was a fighter but gave no space to violence," he said.
When Madhavan brought out the second and third editions of his autobiography in 2000 and 2010, he named it 'Memories of a Gandhian Communist'.