MARXIST PRAXIS: COMMUNIST EXPERIENCE IN KERALA: 1957-2011 E.K. SANTHA DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY SIKKIM UNIVERSITY GANGTOK-737102 November 2016 To my Amma & Achan... ACKNOWLEDGEMENT At the outset, let me express my deep gratitude to Dr. Vijay Kumar Thangellapali for his guidance and supervision of my thesis. I acknowledge the help rendered by the staff of various libraries- Archives on Contemporary History, Jawaharlal Nehru University, C. Achutha Menon Study and Research Centre, Appan Thampuran Smaraka Vayanasala, AKG Centre for Research and Studies, and C Unniraja Smaraka Library. I express my gratitude to the staff at The Hindu archives and Vibha in particular for her immense help. I express my gratitude to people – belong to various shades of the Left - who shared their experience that gave me a lot of insights. I also acknowledge my long association with my teachers at Sree Kerala Varma College, Thrissur and my friends there. I express my gratitude to my friends, Deep, Granthana, Kachyo, Manu, Noorbanu, Rajworshi and Samten for sharing their thoughts and for being with me in difficult times. I specially thank Ugen for his kindness and he was always there to help; and Biplove for taking the trouble of going through the draft intensely and giving valuable comments. I thank my friends in the M.A. History (batch 2015-17) and MPhil/PhD scholars at the History Department, S.U for the fun we had together, notwithstanding the generation gap. I express my deep gratitude to my mother P.B. Ganga for her huge support. I also express my gratitude to my father in law Vaidyanathan as he was proud that I was continuing my education after many years of break and my mother in law Lakshmi for her support. Moreover, I owe my thesis to four persons- my grandfather P. V. Balan, a communist in the 1940s who was fatally wounded in an “action” and subsequently died at a young age of 29, my younger brother E.K. Balan who was killed by the RSS, when he was only 16 years old and my uncle P.B. Velayudhan, who introduced me to communism when I was still in my teens. They inspired and provoked me with their huge absence in my life. I also owe this to my father who wanted to see me getting a doctorate; unfortunately, he is not here when I finally made it. And finally but most importantly, I owe a lot to my family- Krishna and Chinku- who have been with me, day in and day out of my work, encouraging, chiding and bearing with my occasional tantrums. Our long evening walks and discussions helped me enormously to get clarity on the topic (we did disagree a lot and agreed to disagree). I love you guys for being in my life. I thank Dorjee Tamang of M/s Gloria Galleria for printing and making the final output beautiful. A Study & Travel Grant from ICHR, New Delhi and UGC non-NET fellowship call for acknowledgement. CONTENT Introduction 1 - 18 Chapter 1: Marxism as Praxis 19 -79 Chapter 2: Understanding the Context of the First Elected 80 - 132 Communist Government in Kerala Chapter 3: Communist Party in Power 1957- 1959: Theory and Practice 133 - 197 Chapter 4: The Spilt of 1964 and Aftermath 198 - 273 Chapter 5: Liberalisation and the Globalisation: Its Impact and Implications on the Communist Movement 274 - 333 Chapter 6: Culture, Ideology and the Communists 334 - 387 Conclusion 388 - 398 Bibliography 399 - 410 Appendix i-viii INTRODUCTION The Communist Party of India (CPI) won a majority in the State Assembly elections in Kerala and thus came to head the government in April 1957. This, in fact, was the first ever election to the Kerala state assembly after the formation of the state on linguistic basis on November 1, 1956. It may be noted here that the CPI had contested and won elections to the Madras Legislative Assembly from constituencies that fell in the Malabar district (which was later a part of the Kerala state as well as in the Andhra region that was part of the Madras state until 1956). However, it was in 1957 that a communist party would end up forming a government for the first time in the history of the World communist movement, winning a majority in a multi-party parliamentary democratic set up based on universal adult franchise under a constitutional framework. This was unique as it was the first democratically elected communist government in the world. In a sense, every single revolution is unique; events in different times and space do not repeat exactly the same way. It is, however, possible to draw some broad similarities between events. Prior to Kerala‘s experience with communism, the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the protracted Chinese Revolution presented distinct blue prints. The Chinese revolution, perhaps, provided a roadmap to the national liberation movements for the Marxists; but beyond that, the communists of different countries had to lay their own road according to the concrete situation of their country. Both the revolutions referred above were armed revolutions against the existing system- whether it was against the Tsar in the case of Russia or against the warlords and the imperialist powers in the case of China. Socialism made an entry into the war ridden Eastern Europe in yet another way. In that sense, the Kerala 1 experience too constitutes a Marxist praxis. The Cuban, Vietnam and Korean experiences are to be mentioned in this context. Drawing parallels is difficult here. The experience of Chile and Nicaragua, many years after Kerala, where the communist party captured state power through elections, were one where the elected regimes were ousted; it was after a counter-revolutionary coup in Chile and a multi- party election in Nicaragua. In the context of the Structural Adjustment Programme (beginning 1970s) and then the advent of neoliberalism, we see a new set of Marxist praxis. Latin American countries showed the way. The highlight here is that the political praxis of the new Left has been distinct in each country, whether it was in Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina or elsewhere. It takes different forms and shades; the indigenous movements, worker run factories, squatters‘ movement are fewexamples. The common thread of these movements, perhaps, is the space for democracy and participation. Therefore, the basic premise of this study is that there are a large number of Marxist praxis from all over the world and Kerala‘s experience with communism or the communist party‘s experience in the State, in a predominantly parliamentary set up guided by a Constitutional scheme qualifies as one of the Marxist praxis. In other words, this is a study of Kerala‘s experience with communism as one of the many Marxist Praxis. The study looks into the experience of the communist party in control of the State Government from a theoretical, historical and strategic perspective. To place the communist experience in perspective, it is necessary to go into some details of the historical circumstances in which the CPI emerged into a political force in the Kerala society; the social reform movement in Kerala in the late 19th and early 20th century, the peasant struggles in Malabar beginning the 1920s, the organisation of the working class and the peasantry by the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) within the Indian 2 National Congress (INC) in the 1930s and the formation of the unit of the Communist Party in Kerala in the early 1940s and the active participation of the communists in the freedom struggle (here is meant those leaders who formed the Communist Party later but were active for many years before they launched the CPI), bringing the peasantry and workers in the forefront fighting against their social oppression and class exploitation that finally led to the formation of the communist ministry in the state. The period between 1957 and 1959 (the formation of the ministry and its dismissal) is seen as a phase of learning and understanding as this exposed the limitations of functioning in a democratic set up and re-defined ―radicalism‖ within the structure. Land reforms legislations for agrarian restructuring, administrative reforms and reforms in the education and police policy were the major initiatives by the government. Legislations that sought radical changes in the education system and agrarian relations provoked a violent reaction from the vested interests and eventually leading to the dismissal of the state government by the Centre in 1959, headed by Jawaharlal Nehru. And then there was a split in the CPI in 1964 leading to the formation of the CPI(M). The period that followed was marked by an ideological battle between the two communist parties with both the CPI and the CPI(M) seeking to hegemonise the Left space in Kerala; this, at times took a theological colour too and the CPI (M) won the fight with a robust cadre base. The CPI (M) suffered another split in 1969 with the emergence of the CPI(ML), also known as the Naxalite movement; this too did not affect its prospects in Kerala as such. While the wounds of the split were still open, the CPI and the CPI(M) had an electoral arrangement and the coalition with other parties (a seven party bandwagon), including the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), formed a government, headed by 3 E M S Namboodiripad in 1967. This government, however, had a shorter life than the first communist government of 1957; it is also important to note that, this time, its fall was under its own weight rather than any force from outside as in 1959.