KOZHIKODE: As the CPM expels two students- Alan Shuhaib and Thwaha Fasal- from the party citing their Maoist links, an interesting episode from the political history of Kerala shows how a Left government in the past took a lenient stance towards students who took part in a more serious and sensational Maoist attack case that rocked Kerala in the 1960s.
The year was 1968. A Left government was in power in Kerala. And on November 21, the state witnessed the first ever Left-wing extremist violence in the form of an attack on Thalasserry police station. The attack was carried out by a Naxalite group led by Kunnikkal Narayanan and over 300 armed cadre, including Narayanan’s daughter Ajitha, took part in it.
There were four students of Government Brennen College Thalasserry - Choorayi Chandran, Koroth Dasan, E Balakrishnan and Unnikrishnanamong the attackers. As it was an armed attack on a police station, swift action followed. Many were arrested and jailed. But the Left government was lenient to the students who took part in the attack. They were not included in the case.
“We were members of Left students organisation KSF (Kerala-based students outfit that preceded the Students Federation of India (SFI)). Dasan and myself were first-year degree students. Balakrishnan and Unnikrishnan were predegree students,” recalls Choorayi Chandran, who is now 74. The students’ exoneration was learned to be a decision by the then state government led by E M S Nampoothiripad.
The Saptakakshi Munnani (United Front) consisting of CPM, CPI, Samyukta Socialist Party and Muslim League was ruling then. “At that time, the Naxalite movement had publicly exhorted its cadre to take up armed struggle against the state. The attack on the police station was a result of this. But the interesting thing was that even in such a serious case, students were spared. Then, why the present state government is indicting Alan and Thwaha against whom there is no concrete evidence at all is intriguing,” says Chandran. The CPI had even formed a defence committee to handle the cases of all the accused on the ground that they were not terrorists but those who had deviated from the path out of over-enthusiasm,” says Chandran.
“The police never considered us as serious. I was summoned to the court and made a witnesses. That’s all. Soon, we all returned to our classrooms,” E Balakrishnan told TNIE. Balakrishnan pursued his studies further and took doctorate on the topic ‘History of Communist Movement in Kerala.’ Balakrishnan was an active member of CPM’s teachers’ wing. Later he distanced from the party citing its ‘Stalinist face.’ Koroth Dasan and Unnikrishnan are not alive now. The attack on the Thalasserry police station was an utter failure and the Naxalites themselves accepted it. The incident is in sharp contrast to the case of Alan, the 19- year old who was pursuing law in Kannur University, and 24-year-old Thwaha, a journalism student in Kozhikode, who are being entangled in cases over Maoist links.