THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: “Once the word ‘attack’ is uttered, we are to charge into the station. Both of them should be brought out of lock-up. It should be over in 15 minutes. Once ‘retreat’ is announced, we should’ve left the station. Let’s do this the guerilla way...” Seventeen of them marched into the station in the thick of night to set free two of their comrades - N K Madhavan and Varuthootty.
“I was the last one. It was my job to persuade anyone who would want to back out during the journey, but none opted out!” was how Lawrence recalled the episode. He was only 21 years old at the time. A failed mutiny -- Edappally police station attack - remains a significant revolutionary tale in the state’s history. The Edappally episode could well be termed as the immediate outcome of the 1948 Calcutta Thesis which felt it was time for the rank and file to take up armed resistance.
A revolutionary to the core, Lawrence was one of the very few who chose the path of Communism at a young age, albeit hailing from a Christian background. “It was more of a militant action. Cadres were ready to give up their lives. However the party never openly acknowledged the station attack. People like Lawrence were among those who set the foundation for organising people to fight against injustice,” recounts Appukkuttan Vallikkunnu, who along with Lawrence, was ironically shown the door at a party conference, almost four decades later.
That Lawrence came back to the state committee and served for another decade shows his fighting spirit.
Veteran communist M M Lawrence, who passed away at 95 on Saturday, was a leader who chose to stand by what he felt right, during the tumultuous period of factional feuds within the party. He never shied away from criticising even leaders like VS or K R Gowri Amma. His political gains were always overshadowed by his losses - Right from losing out as Kochi Mayor, in a figurative slip between the cup and the lip in 1967, to losing out at the 1998 Palakkad conference that witnessed the infamous ‘Vetti Nirathal’, where VS ensured the literal decimation of the CITU lobby, when five seniors, including the then LDF convener Lawrence, failed to make it to the state committee.
A trade unionist, he had always nurtured a fighting spirit. In an age of Information Technology, he was the first to organise IT employees. It’s this dare-devil attitude that prompted Lawrence, second only to VS Achuthanandan in terms of age and experience in the Kerala party, to openly take on the iconic leader many a time. In his autobiography that provides an insider’s view of the CPM, Lawrence has categorically stated that VS was the sole leader behind CPM’s factionalism. Decades before the personality cult controversy, he had accused VS of utilising comrades as some sort of a personal squad to boost his own political image.
In fact, had it not been for disciplinary actions following factional feuds, Lawrence’s fate would have been different - both within the party and Kerala politics. That he was elected to the CPM Central Committee along with S Ramachandran Pillai in 1986 and also served as LDF convener for 12 long years, shows that he would have made it to the Politburo too, had it not been for the bitter factional fight.
Many a comrade in Kerala CPM could claim to have witnessed history in the making. But, only a few may have been part of history being created. M M Lawrence was undoubtedly one among them.
