Inside the communist den : History of political violence in Kerala

Politically polarized media persons and ignorant souls keep on harping about intolerance and freedom of speech and try to narrate the reason for Kerala losing its peaceful atmosphere due to CPM-RSS clashes.

The display of the real picture is either incomplete or distorted. Then, what is the fact? Are there really CPM-RSS clashes? Or they are the naked exhibition of CPM terror and violence against their ‘political enemies’?

Communists, that is, Marxists as per modern terminology, are always dead against other ideologies is a well known fact. World over, it is the same experience since the October Revolution which took place in Russia in the second decade of the last century.

The very basic tenet of Marxism, Dictatorship of the Proletariat, espouses the authoritarian rule of the Communist party. This dictatorial euphoria leads to intolerance and hatred in the mindset of communists wherever they are. It is worse and grave wherever they get power.

In Kerala, whichever political clash we witness, CPM is a common factor on one side. It could be CPM vs Congress, CPM vs RSS, CPM vs BJP, CPM vs Kerala Congress, CPM vs (even) CPI and sometimes (one group of) CPM vs (another group of) CPM.

It proves the CPM’s intolerance towards other ideological groups and their ideologies. RSS and affiliated organizations are the worst affected ideological groups in this violent mess lashed out by the CPM.

The history of this ‘murder politics’ started during the 1940s itself, well before undivided Communist party could taste the power in Kerala political scenario.

Undivided CPI's, first significant physical attack against the RSS was in 1948 at Thiruvananthapuram. It was significant because the attack was against an RSS Samghikh (RSS programme focused on physical exercises) addressed by the then RSS Sarsanghchalak M S Golwalkar, popularly known as Guruji.

They attacked the gathering while Shri Guruji was on the dais. Veteran RSS swayamsevak P Parameswaran was the Mukhya Shikshak (main instructor).

The swayamsevaks retaliated in a befitting manner. And, the young Marxists led by a student leader fled the spot. The programme went on. Guruji spoke as if nothing had happened. He did not even refer to the incident he witnessed.

Another major attack by CPI took place in 1952 on the similar gathering to be addressed by Guruji at Alappuzha. The sequence of events replicated here as well and the programme went on without much discussion on the violent attack.

CPM and the Culture of Violence

After a lull for almost a decade, CPI underwent a vertical split in 1964. Though CPI resisted from physically attacking the RSS swayamsevaks, CPM, the other group, after a few years’ of calm, took the violent route again.

Next major CPM attack against RSS was in January 1969, near Varma College, Thrissur.

College management had invited Swami Chinmayanandaji to deliver a lecture. But, Kerala Students’ Federation (KSF), the precursor of SFI, with their CPM bosses of the area, used all sort of dirty tricks to insult and physically attack Swamiji.

To avoid any physical assault on Swamiji, ABVP students encircled and guarded Swamiji and led him to the car to leave the place safely.

The next day when the ABVP staged a protest rally against the CPM’s attempt to assault Swamiji, the CPM goons attacked the ABVP students.

It resulted in a fierce street fight, perhaps first of that sort in the State. Thereafter, almost every year KSF and later SFI workers, with the help of CPM men outside, attacked ABVP workers in the college.

In 1969, the local workers allegedly led by Pinaryi Vijayan and Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, presently politburo (PB) members and former and present State secretary respectively, killed RSS worker Vadikkal Ramakrishnan, a sweets maker, in Thalassery.

The cold blooded murder was without any sort of provocation. After a month, they killed Sreedharan Nair, an RSS worker in Ponkunnam, Kottayam District. The same year Ramakrishnan, an RSS worker in Palakkad, was killed.

Veliyathunadu Chandran, a senior RSS worker and former Pracharak, was the next victim of the CPM attack in Parur of Ernakulam District on January 11, 1970. Mandal Karyavah Sankranarayanan was killed in Nallengara, Thrissur District, in 1973. In 1974, CPM men killed RSS Mandal Karyavah Sudheendran in Kochi.