Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan, alias V S Achuthanandan, or better VS, was a communist who did not belong to the selfie culture. Instead he chose to look at the eyes, faces and needs of those around him. He was a communist at a time when many of his colleagues were becoming consumerists. One might disagree with the tactics and the strategies he had adopted in pursuing his goals, but nobody could challenge his clean political image and sincerity towards the issues and causes he had espoused.
Achuthanandan was a leader who carried with him his own notion of communism, a notion based on his own personal experiences. He never imagined things, but saw through them; never talked merely about things, but their meaning; never spoke in the language of the market, but that of life; never spoke like a book, but with conviction.
Like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland, when he used a word, he meant what he chose to mean, neither less nor more. This was clear from the way in which he practised the art of politics, intervening on issues which touched the quotidian concerns of the people, whether corruption, atrocities against women, environmental issues, communalism, or nuclear and tribal questions.
He placed himself in the midst of the confrontation between lifestyle politics and livelihood politics. Once an issue touched his nerve, he studied it meticulously in the true spirit of the marxian saying, “To be a radical is to go to the roots of the matter.”
And once he was convinced, he left no stone unturned to take the issue to its logical conclusion, even at the cost of defying party diktat. As a result, he created too many enemies within his party while gaining lot of supporters outside. In a sense, his increased popularity among the masses was inversely proportionate to his enemies within the party organisation.
Achuthanandan was at his best as a crusader of social and environmental issues while he was the leader of opposition. In fact, he believed that his role in that capacity was more like wrestling than dancing. Interestingly, what he opposed was not the application of science and technology for solving human problems but its use by the market forces to satisfy their quest for profit through wanton exploitation of nature.
Again, it was during his term as the chief minister that the IT industry got a big boost with the entry of foreign companies like Oracle, extending existing facilities in the Technopark, Technocity and Infopark, and establishing new IT parks.
While remaining in politics for more than eight decades, that too against great odds and facing much hostility from his own party, he stayed above board. If the best political leader is one who is not afraid to be bold, then Achuthanandan was one. His was a politics of courage. If the real essence of a politician is the credibility he creates, then Achuthanandan fits the bill. His politics was not poetry, but provocative prose.
This is not to say that he was without any blemishes. Like all human beings, he was certainly interested in power. But this eclipsed before the ideological decay of contemporary politics. Further, most of the issues he had undertaken were those which had a strong baring on the life of ordinary men and women and which most of his colleagues were reluctant to address. Through this he created a politics of everydayness, or better, vernacularised politics.
