Financial constraints had forced V S Achuthanandan to give his studies after passing Class VII. “The lack of books and study can be resolved in some way. But one needs to have food at least once a day.” That was how he later summed up those days.
Achuthanandan joined as an apprentice at his brother Gangadharan’s stitching shop. It was here that he picked up the basic nuances of political activism. He joined the Aspinwall factory in Alappuzha when he was 14. ‘Comrade’ P Krishna Pillai used to visit the place. Achuthanandan realilsed how the workers were being exploited and his initiation in the proletarian politics happened soon. Within a year he became a noted union worker and attended the first conference of the undivided Communist Party as a delegate in 1943.
Later Krishna Pillai deployed Achuthanandan as a full-time party worker to Kuttanad. The labour strikes in Punnapra and Paravoor were successful. After the Punnapra uprising, the police went after him. He went into hiding in Poonjar from where Travancore Divan C P Ramaswamy Iyer’s police took him into custody in 1946. He was brutally tortured in custody.
In 1964, Achuthanandan and 31 others stormed out of the CPI national council and formed the CPM.
As the CPM state secretary, he was committed to implementing the party policies ruthlessly. A group decided to oust Achuthanandan as party secretary, and the decades-long factional feud within the CPM started.
Though he subjugated to the party, Achuthanandan realised that the image of a rebel could make him a hero and reached out to the public. He spearheaded protests on ecological issues and led a crusade against corruption. Soon he emerged the darling of the masses. It was his rebellious nature that catapulted him from a stubborn man to a popular leader.
(The writer is a political commentator)
This photo was taken just before the 2001 assembly election. VS had shifted to Malampuzha. His wellwishers wanted to hold a photoshoot for images to be used in publicity material. But the veteran rejected the request to use photographs in campaigns. It took a lot of persuasion before he agreed, recollects Muraleedhara Kaimal, a member of the team that held the photoshoot. This photo was used for VS’ posters in the election.