Comrades, don’t bury the idea of revolution

By John Cheeran

A mandatory period of mourning follows when an idea gets buried, given that it was an idea, and not petty posturing for selfish ends. What does the silence in the V S Achuthanandan camp signify after the leader has accepted the inevitable that there is no life after CPM and outside of it? Is it an endorsement of the last of the communists' meek surrender? Or is the betrayal too shocking that his faithful have lost the will to react and fight on their own?

It is important that after VS disowned his populist political positions within the party favouring Pinarayi Vijayan, no one has come forward to expose the hollow nature of the veteran leader’s botched revolution. T P Chandrasekharan’s wife Rema has said she will not disown Achuthanandan despite his opportunistic shift. Does she have a choice?

It is quite understandable that CPM and its official mouthpiece can’t stomach a critical column directed against the party and its new poster boy and take refuge in preaching what media should do or not. The taming of Achuthanandan is the lone victory that CPM can boast of in recent times and it suits Deshabhimani’s agenda. Defending the reformed leader is CPM’s duty but is this dirge, rage, relief or glee?

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VS or the art of having a happy funeral

By John Cheeran

V S Achuthanandan has seen the writing on the wall. It’s every man’s right to have an honourable funeral. And there is no harm in trying to ensure that it takes place appropriately. The veteran CPM leader’s recent rethink on his position within the party and, largely, in Kerala civil society makes it clear that he wants to say his farewell as a good, disciplined CPM member, if not as politburo member, and not as a good communist, an epithet he used to describe the slain rebel T P Chandrasekharan. Those who were waiting all these years for VS to leave the CPM fold and lead the revolutionary charge have been left disappointed. The unkindest cut has been in describing Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) as the tail of the Congress.
But how can VS be blamed for realizing that there is little time left for grand posturing and giving shape to the perfect communist party in the world? It’s remarkable that VS has revisited his controversial positions regarding the party state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan’s “incorruptibility” at a time when an even greater ex-communist came knocking at the CPM door, almost pleading for re-entry. K R Gowri, when she was expelled from CPM, was even a bigger star in 1994 than VS is now. 

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