Achu Mamman: The Rebel Who Became Kerala's Conscience

"Kanne Karale VSee! Njangalude Chankile Rosaa Poove" (Dearest, Most Beloved VS! The Rose Flower In Our Hearts) is the chant that would most likely define what Vellikakath Sankaran Achuthanandan (popularly ‘VS’) would be for Malayalis. The veteran CPI(M) leader passed away at the age of 101.

He had largely retired from active politics after 2016, with his last public appearance in 2019, after he suffered a minor stroke. His life and legacy are intertwined with that of the CPM and the broader Communist movement in India. In his passing, CPM has lost the living link it had with the 32 members who walked out of the CPI Central Committee Meeting in 1964 causing the split.

VS’s death comes just as the CPIM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) completes a historic second successive term under the leadership of his erstwhile ally turned bête-noire, Pinarayi Vijayan.

His life and political legacy was defined by his active interventions in protests and strikes, those that the ‘Party’ (CPM) would describe as “people’s movements”.

His speaking style, unmistakably his own with pauses and what can only be described as small jumps, and a tongue with wit and humour that won him a huge fan following, was something that dominated mimicry circles for a good while and made him memorable to the public.

His first activity that brought him attention was his participation in the Punappra-Vayalar protests (also called uprisings or riots) in 1946. He never held a state Government post until the stupendous victory that he had led the party and front to in 2006, becoming Chief Minister for his only term in office.

At more than 82 years, VS was the oldest Chief Minister Kerala has had so far. But more than the CM-ship, Achu mamman (Achu Uncle) as he was fondly known, spent around 14 years in total as the Leader of Opposition, making the role and the issues he raised his own.

The Making of a Populist: VS and the Turning Point of Mararikulam

There are arguably two “VS”s that Kerala knew. The VS that preceded the 1996 elections and the one we saw after that.

Heading into the 1996 elections, the UDF Government under A. K. Antony was widely thought to be headed into defeat, and VS Achuthanandan was the man who was expected to be the CM, as the sole Polit Bureau candidate of the CPM that contested. But he was defeated in what can only be described as one of the great twists of Kerala politics in Mararikulam, Alappuzha, a sure-shot seat of the CPM that he himself had won in 1991.

That defeat, which was purely due to the internal machinations of the CPM, seemed to visibly alter VS.

He angled himself with E. K. Nayanar and Pinarayi Vijayan to actively cut down the CITU faction, led by A. K. Gopalan’s wife Susheela Gopalan. It was this alliance that led to Susheela’s candidature for Chief Ministership being edged out (apparently by a single vote) to Nayanar.

It was in that 1998 party conference, backed by VS, that Pinarayi also became the State Party Secretary for the very first time, a position he held until 2015.

After the LDF suffered a humiliating defeat in the 2001 Assembly elections, VS again came to the forefront of party and front leadership. He became an iconic Leader of Opposition in his 70s, and he transformed into a populist politician.

The Long Shadow of VS v. Pinarayi

This eventually led to his conflict with Pinarayi, who increasingly came to create his own ‘official’ faction within the party compared to VS’s more populist faction.

A good amount of his later political life was dominated by VS running roughshod over the ‘opinions’ of the party. For him, it came to be that the party’s decisions and opinions could be different from his own ‘public’ decisions and opinions.

One of the low points of this conflict that lasted for more than a decade was in 2007 when both were suspended from the CPM polit bureau for criticising one another.

In fact, every single state party conference from 2005 until the 2015 conference was subject to some drama between the VS and official factions. Many times, it felt as if both parties were willingly creating situations to infuriate one another.

Yet through it all, a vast majority of CPM sympathisers or the general public seemed to back VS. That was the case in 2006 and in 2011, when VS was initially denied a seat by the state unit of the CPM before public outburst led to the party reversing course.

As CM, more often than not it seemed that VS was in conflict more with his party than he was with the opposition. VS took up positions on issues and even obliquely criticised many of Pinarayi’s associations and connections, and Pinarayi did the same to him.

His term did see some major progress in terms of social benefit schemes and approval of many infrastructure projects. Moreover, it was during his term that the CPM changed its position on private investment, welcoming it in the IT and ITes sectors.

Another saga that began during his term is the Mullaperiyar dispute between Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which is still ongoing. His term though is more remembered for his interactions with the media and his quips.

VS’s public attack on Popular Front and his usage of ‘Love Jihad’ are to be remembered too. He, like many CPM members, was an avowed atheist. There is a famous video of him explaining to a child why he stopped going to the temple.

While he was vocal in his criticism of ‘Hindu communalism’, he was also not blind to Islamist radicalism.

His sharp tongue and quick wit was a joy. He has many memorable quips and sayings, but the most famous and most likely what is going to be an enduring quip is VS describing Rahul Gandhi as an ‘Amul baby’.

This came in the 2011 campaign, when Rahul criticised VS for his age, and VS’s quip turned around the accusation in quite a fashion.

VS’s popularity in the 2011 elections came close to ending the decades-long pattern of power shifting between the LDF and UDF since the 1980s. The LDF won 68 seats compared to UDF’s 72 in the 2011 elections.

It is another twist of history that Pinarayi achieved this feat a decade later by winning in the 2021 Assembly elections.

You could however argue that the 2016 election victory had a lot to do with VS leading the charge as Leader of Opposition, though Pinarayi’s ascendancy in 2016 was quite inevitable.

VS’s style, way of functioning as CM and his positions have been in stark contrast to Pinarayi’s, a contrast that has only grown clearer as Pinarayi marks 10 years in office.

VS’s transformation to a populist had made him a memorable character and politician for anyone even cursorily following Kerala politics. His no-nonsense and clear approach won him many admirers, especially among the youth.

For a generation of Malayalis, VS was the first politician they saw and experienced. That he rejected party positions to take up those common sense positions on issues made him even more popular.

An example that may be seared into the memory of many persons would be when T. P. Chandrashekaran, a CPM rebel who founded his own party, was murdered in 2012. The murder had implicated CPM leadership in Kozhikode district, and had led to an uproar in the state.

In a move that defied party positions, VS went to console Chandrashekaran’s widow, K. K. Rama. It will not be an exaggeration to call him the conscience keeper of the party.

‘The Fidel Castro of Kerala’

His last term as Leader of Opposition in the state assembly saw him make many active interventions within the assembly and outside. So much so that at times it even felt as if the UDF Government held together by a razor thin majority would fall.

But it did not.

He contested again in the 2016 assembly elections, but the writing was on the wall. VS was already 92, and age was finally catching up with him.

In the press conference announcing the decision to make his rival Pinarayi the CM, Sitaram Yechury described VS as the ‘Fidel Castro’ of the party in Kerala.

VS served out some time as the Administrative Reforms Commission Chairman of the state, but by 2019 he had retired from public life effectively.

His constant defiance of party norms led to him consistently getting into conflicts with the state party leadership, but that was complicated by suggestions time and time again that VS would leave the party.

Arvind Kejriwal, for example, famously invited him to join AAP, leading to another controversy in which the official faction chastised VS. But he did remain a party man throughout, though arguably without the deference and discipline that the official faction would have preferred.

VS was a spirited politician. He never gave up on the ideas and ideals he valued.

His dogged pursuit of a case against K. Balakrishna Pillai that eventually led to his conviction and imprisonment is a testament to the sort of politician he was. He did not see the limitations he had as a party man, and went to espouse views and take actions that he viewed were right.

Yet he never crossed the proverbial line in the sand, and history has more often than not validated him. His integrity set him apart from the rough and rabble that surrounds politics in Kerala today.

In some ways, he may be the last great populist Kerala will see, at least for a while.

In losing him, CPM is poorer, but more than that Kerala has lost a dear son.