M M Mani, the CPI(M) leader who has mixed the Old Testament with the Communist manifesto of an eye for an eye has applied for anticipatory bail. Justifying murder comes naturally to this CPI(M) district secretary in Idukki, Kerala, whose oratorical ambition has brought disrepute to the party and possibly jail for him. Now, ally CPI, which has been in conflict with Mani has handed over a taped speech to the cops in which he states: “Wherever we are strong, we will hit you. Wherever we are not very strong, we will exercise restraint… If we get attacked, we will give it back with interest. You have to perish and we will certainly do it —wait and see.”
Since his youth as a Communist leader, Mani has played a significant role in making the Center of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) a formidable force in his area—mainly using violence to settle scores with enemies such as feudal landlords, plantation owners and rival labour unions like Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) and All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC). A CPI(M) member since 1966 when he was just 21, Mani was elected as the local committee secretary in 1970 and 1971. In 1974, he became a party district committee member and a District Secretariat member in 1975. His claim to fame was spending 13-days in jail during the Emergency.
Mani is one of CPI(M)’s longest serving district secretaries in Kerala: 8 times for 26 years since 1985. A former V S Achuthanandan acolyte, five years ago he turned on his mentor after the LDF government unleashed stringent action against encroachments in Idukki. Mani reportedly tried to protect some contractors who belonged to the party, but Achuthanandan refused. Mani crossed over to the Pinarayi Vijayan camp. On Achuthanandan’s sympathetic stance on slain CPI(M) dissident TP Chandrasekharan, Mani accused his former leader of strengthening an anti-party conspiracy. “He goes there and calls him an ideal communist. Was he his father-in-law? How can a rogue be a good communist? Achuthanandan’s behaviour was similar to dirtying drinking water,” Mani said.
Born poor, Mani couldn’t finish school. He became a labourer in a plantation to supplement the family income, soon rising to the leader of plantation workers. Today, Mani holds sway in eight gram panchayats, where seven political murders have occurred since 1982, and his has been a bloody reign. Mani’s brother-in-law Thankappan’s murder was avenged with the murder of a BJP worker. In 1991, CPI(M) activists murdered cardamom estate owner I L Naicker. A key witness to the murder was mysteriously killed later. Kuttachan Valariyil, a CPI(M) activist who had left the CPI(M) and was emerging as a political threat, was stabbed to death in 1993. The CPI(M) has lost men too in the area, but in much lesser numbers. SFI district vice- president Aneesh Rajan was killed at Nedumkandam in March this year. The CPI(M) is on record stating that the killing will be avenged. As the police has reopened the murder cases which Mani proudly attributes to the CPI(M), the Communist himself has gone into hiding. In the process, it is the CPI(M) that is getting a hiding everywhere.