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A
hardliner in personal life too, VS begins his day with 20 minutes
of pre-dawn yoga followed by three idlis. Lunch is rice and vegetables;
dinner is three rotis and a banana |
Kerala is not Venezuela
and Velikakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan, the Kerala chief minister, certainly
is not the tough-talking Hugo Chavez. But for the grassroots-level cadre
and Kerala’s working class, Achuthanandan has more than a few
shades of Chavez and commands a standing diametrically opposite to that
of his West Bengal counterpart, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. The aura of
this school dropout, who lost his mother when he was four and his father
when he was 11, has introduced new meaning to Left politics in Kerala.
The CPM veteran’s
decision to enforce a blanket ban on the production and retailing of
Coca Cola and Pepsi in the state may have been quashed by the Kerala
High Court, and his attempts to go on appeal before the Supreme Court
may also not succeed. But, as a doughty fighter, he has succeeded in
winning Kerala’s public consciousness in favour of his decision
to ban the colas, whose manufacturers’ exploitation of the Palakkad
groundwater has forced the residents of the district to walk miles to
collect potable water. As a recent opinion poll conducted by a television
news channel found, Achuthanandan’s decision to ban colas has
only increased his popularity. He is yet to take to task the party’s
youth activists for attacking cola godowns in the state saying they
would not allow the mncs to re-enter the Kerala market.
Apart from being
the first chief minister to impose a ban on Pepsi and Coke, Achuthanandan,
affectionately called VS by his comrades, is also making headlines by
logging the mighty Microsoft out of Kerala schools and saying a firm
‘no’ to investors with shadowy backgrounds. That the Achuthanandan
effect is hitting where it hurts most was evident recently when US Undersecretary
of International Trade Franklin Lavin wrote to the Union commerce secretary
warning the Centre of a possible fall in US investment if US companies’
interests were not protected.
Following Achuthanandan’s
decision to promote free gnu/Linux software, nearly 1.5 million students
in the state’s 2,650 government and government-aided high schools
will no longer use the Windows platform for computer education. About
56,000 high school teachers are now acquainting themselves with the
Linux platform as a result. “There is no ban on any it company
in Kerala. However, we wish to make Kerala the foss (Free and Open Source
Software) destination of India,” said Achuthanandan, in response
to criticism. In 2000, as Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly,
he was the first Indian leader to have discussions with free software
guru Richard Stallman. Stallman is now one of Kerala’s it advisors,
much to the embarrassment of Achuthanandan’s party rivals led
by state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. Vijayan’s group had favoured
introducing Microsoft software in schools during the AK Antony regime.
However, Achuthanandan stuck to Linux and warned Antony against Microsoft.
His decision to
re-examine the Internet City proposal with Dubai’s Tecom Group
to set up a smart city and an exclusive global it park in Kochi over
a 100-acre area at an investment of $ 300 million also evoked widespread
criticism. Achuthanandan detractors accused him of taking Kerala back
to the Stone Age. But, to the utter shock of his adversaries, the promoters
agreed to strike off clauses in the agreement they signed with the previous
government that were found objectionable by the new chief minister.
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Achuthanandan’s
copybook Communism has been the reason why his rivals can’t
stand him. But the same quality had them begging him to start
their poll campaign |
His opposition
to the Internet City clauses has now drawn supporters from unexpected
quarters. This week, the Union commerce ministry has its guns on the
abuse of Special Economic Zone (SEZ) incentives. Predictably, some of
his other decisions have led to Achuthanandan being labelled an anti-development
CM. Like when he directed the state labour department to ensure that
all companies in the state should shut shop on August 15. Objections
raised by bpos located in Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram and at Info
Park in Kochi had no effect. He still opposes the Rs 7,000-crore express
highway project and another multi-crore venture for mineral sand mining
along the Alappuzha coast. Both projects have severe environmental consequences
and his opposition to them has earned him encomiums for being a ‘green
chief minister’. The lobbies, which influenced the previous udf
governments to sanction the two controversial projects, are now active,
and as a result some of his Cabinet colleagues have started diluting
their opposition to these projects. But Achuthanandan is not ready to
relent.
Born on October
20, 1923 to Sankaran and Accamma in Alappuzha, Achuthanandan faced poverty
from a very young age. Orphaned early, circumstances forced him to discontinue
his studies in Class vii and join his elder brother working at his tailoring
shop. Later he earned his living meshing coir at a local rope factory.
“I may have been able to continue even without buying books but
I didn’t have the strength to starve in school everyday,’’
he has said. However, he has remained an ardent reader. He began his
political career as a trade union activist and joined the Congress in
1938. Like most Congress leaders of that time, he was attracted by Communist
ideology. He joined the Communist Party of India in 1940 and soon became
the Alappuzha district secretary. As a freedom fighter, he was imprisoned
for over five years and spent a further four-and-a-half years underground.
He found a position for himself in the history of the Communist movement
in Kerala by actively participating in the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising
where a police bayonet was driven through his leg. And now he is one
of the three surviving leaders of the undivided cpi, who walked out
of the national council in 1964 to float the CPM.
The CPM veteran
is also a hardliner in his personal life. Known for his strict sense
of discipline, his day begins with 20 minutes of pre-dawn yoga followed
by a breakfast of three idlis. Lunch is a handful of rice and vegetables;
dinner (always before 6pm) is three rotis and a banana. He sleeps for
exactly five hours a day. “My strict diet helps me walk kilometres
and climb hills even at this age,’’ he said once. He is
not a fan of either music or films. Recently induced to watch a Malayalam
movie with a heavily political theme, he later revealed that he was
watching a film for the first time in 30 years. His wife Vasumathi worked
as a nurse; she retired about 15 years ago. Son Arun, an mca holder,
is deputy director of a government firm in Thiruvananthapuram. Achuthanandan’s
daughter Asha holds a PhD in pharmacology and works at the Rajiv Gandhi
Institute of Biotechnology.
The main reason
for Achuthanandan’s popularity is his simplicity and straightforwardness.
Also, it is said that he has never been known to hesitate to raise his
voice whenever he discovers irregularities. And if later proven wrong,
he has always been quick to publicly acknowledge it. Whether it is the
drinking water scarcity in Plachimada or the multi-million dollar mnc
software war, Achuthanandan is heard with rapt attention because the
Kerala voter is confident of him. He has relentlessly pursued corruption
cases and harassed mafia that deal in ganja, sandalwood and land. The
sand mafia and the sandalwood mafia, the plantation companies encroaching
on public land, the tourist resort operators who ravaged God’s
Own Country to fill their coffers, the sex lords who exploited women
and minor girls, the private hospital owners who built a business of
trading in human organs — all have met their match in this diminutive
man. Political leaders, who compromised with these elements for their
personal safety and growth, cynically describe Achuthanandan as a fool
who rushes in where angels feared to tread. “I have gone after
several of them... like the owners of the steel smelting factories...
the cola factories, looting groundwater when people did not have water
to drink. So, these forces opposed to me have sent agents here to ensure
that my votes could be bought over. But the people’s political
reasoning cannot be bought like that,” he told this correspondent
during the last Assembly election when asked about the free flow of
money to ensure his defeat from Malampuzha constituency.
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Nearly 1.5 million
school students will no longer use Windows for
computer education. About 56,000 teachers are now brushing up
their Linux skills |
The chief minister
is also one who believes in doing his homework. Two months ago, Agriculture
Minister Mullakara Ratnakaran said in the Assembly that no death was
reported from Kasargod district following the spraying of the killer
pesticide Endosulphan. The statement irked Achuthanandan, who as Opposition
leader had campaigned vigorously for the over 300 people crippled by
due to use of Endosulphan in state-owned rubber plantations. Within
a week, he went to Kasargod with Ratnakaran and asked him to verify
the official data with the victims’ families. The minister tendered
an apology and, days later, Achuthanandan announced a compensation and
rehabilitation package.
His appointment
of economist Prabhat Patnaik as vice-chairman of the state planning
board is perceived to be an attempt to address the agrarian crisis plaguing
the state, which has seen a large number of farmers’ suicides
in Wayanad district. The government is now floating an agricultural
commission, a debt relief commission and a price stability commission
to tide over the crisis. As immediate relief, he ordered the waiver
of all loans to farmers who had committed suicide and a moratorium on
all agricultural loans. As with his anti-cola stance, the courts stayed
the implementation of the Bill on self-financing educational institutions
but it boosted the morale of dalits and economically weaker sections.
The Bill had set aside 50 percent seats in professional colleges for
Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, Backward
Classes and economically weaker sections. The Kerala Assembly passed
the Bill unanimously but the private college managements appealed in
the Kerala High Court and the Supreme Court.
But the challenges
from his party colleagues are yet to ebb. Should Kerala have a Buddha-type
pro-reform CM like Pinarayi Vijayan or a doctrinaire and Stalinist VS,
asks www.pinarayivijayan.org,
a new website promoted by his party rivals. In the 1996 Assembly election,
his adversaries ensured that Achuthanandan lost in Mararikkulam constituency
even as the party won a thumping majority. He first won Malampuzha in
2001, but the Congress-led United Democratic Front took the Assembly
majority. In the run-up to the state elections earlier this year, the
pre-poll drama saw his rivals try to cold shoulder him by denying him
a ticket. The cadre, however, saw it as punishment for doing all the
right things. Ultimately, his popularity forced the Vijayan faction
to eat humble pie and the party declared his candidature from Malampuzha.
On the day he was to take over as chief minister, the party’s
Malayalam mouthpiece Desabhimani carried photographs of all ministers
on page one except Achuthanandan’s. The paper also carried a front-page
advertisement from a business tycoon wishing the new government luck.
This tycoon is not known for his transparent dealings and had been on
Achuthanandan’s wrong side. Party sources say the businessman
splurged crores to ensure his defeat.
It is Achuthanandan’s
copybook non-pragmatic Communism that has been the reason why his rivals
and critics can’t stand him. The same quality endowed him with
such influence that rivals, MA Baby and TM Thomas Isaac, begged him
to visit their constituencies and inaugurate their campaign. As a disciplined
party cadre, Achuthanandan went and spoke for about three hours in each
constituency on the party manifesto. At the end of the speech, he urged
voters to cast their ballot for party candidates.
Achuthanandan’s
supporters range from tribal leader CK Janu and women’s leader
K. Ajitha to women and youth. To Kerala’s Marxists, he is one
of the last of the galaxy of stalwarts like AK Gopalan, BT Ranadive,
Pramode Dasgupta and EMS Namboodiripad. His politics is also known to
be shrewd and one that doesn’t favour opportunism. The CM’s
political line was proved correct when former Congress leader K. Karunakaran’s
Democratic Indira Congress (Karunakaran) was denied entry into the ldf.
There was considerable pressure from the Vijayan group to ally with
Karunakaran. According to Achuthanandan, such an alliance would smack
of political opportunism.
“Those who
are opposed to my political philosophy and style of approach never missed
opportunities to shower me with abusive language. Comic programmes being
aired by Malayalam television channels are also trying to portray me
in poor light. On most occasions, they stoop to the level of character
assassination. However, I have no vengeance against anybody who is involved
in such activities. There is no need to be insensitive to the artists
behind these comedy programmes, who make a meagre earning out of them
to support their families,’’ he said in response to the
public outcry against television programmes, which showed him in poor
light.
Achuthanandan may
be the lone CM in the country who has no friends in any industrial house.
And unlike Buddhadeb, he is proud of his Communist lineage. Addressing
a rally in Hyderabad recently, he remembered the sacrifice of more than
4,000 Communists who took part in the Telangana rebellion.
“I wish to
salute the martyrs who bring me courage to decide in favour of the poor.
My government would strive to achieve what the martyrs of Telangana
dreamed about,” he said.
