The CPM has always been on a killing spree in Kannur and there is not a single political party in this district who has not faced the wrath of the CPM cadres and its leaders who had framed a policy of ‘kill and maim’ to rule the district
Arun Lakshman
CPM and Pinarayi Vijayan, seem to have no change. The party which has lost its relevance, both ideologically and in mass followership, is now finding only one way to catch hold of its cadres, force and brutal killings. The present Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, as a first time member of Kerala Legislative Assembly in the early seventies, had created history by throwing a chappal (a slipper) towards the treasury benches and even after four decades he seems not to have changed an inch with the utterances and speeches that would lead the Taliban to shame.
It was the CPM state secretary and politburo member Kodiyeri Balakrishnan who had called for a war cry against RSS and had declared that the party would not allow Sangh to work freely. This was after the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) came to power in May 2016. This war cry by the party’s senior-most leader in the state did not go to deaf years and the CPM cadres of Kannur got the green sign as to what has to be done towards RSS. The result is the killing spree we are witnessing, with the latest being Remith (20), son of late Uthamman, a Sangh Swayamsevak who was butchered by the CPM goons in 2008.
The killing spree unleashed by CPM since 1969 in Kannur District began with the martrydom of Vadikkal Ramakrishnan, a Sangh Swayamsevak who was killed by CPM goons in Thalassery area. Incidentally the present Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan was an accused in that case. It may be recalled that Kannur District is the second largest home of the CPM after Midnapore in West Bengal. The party has two politburo members from Kannur District: Pinarayi Vijayan and Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, the state Chief Minister and the party state secretary respectively. The CPM has always been on a killing spree and unleashing violence in Kannur and there is not a single political party in this district who has not faced the wrath of the CPM cadres and its leaders who had framed a policy of ‘kill and maim’ to rule the district.
The CPM after a lull from 1969 unleashed violence with the killing of Sangh Swayamsevak Panunda Chandran after attacking a Sangh shakha and this was followed by three continuous killings (Panniyanoor Ravindran, Puthiyottil Vijayan and Pandakkal Pavithran). This was following an exodus from the CPM cadres after Emergency when the cadres found how RSS had faced the Emergency and how callous was CPM during Emergency. This led to a mass exodus from politically volatile Kannur District to RSS and this led CPM to think violently and a leader like MV Raghavan who was holding the reins of the party during those turbulent times was more than a monster and had planned and executed the murders of the RSS cadres. The reason was simple, the CPM was losing its mass base and the replacement was RSS with its nationalistic ideology. This attracted the youngsters in large numbers into the sangh fold which led to the CPM getting nervous and ordering mass killings of RSS cadres.
RSS had to resort to self-defense and the then Kannur District Pracharak of the RSS, VN Gopinath who is still active in nursing the wounds and souls of the swayamsevaks across the state reminisces that sangh had to fight against all odds in Thalassery and Panoor areas, the epitome of violence in Kannur District. The CPM has now directed its ire towards sangha and nationalist organisations as the party wants that just like post emergency period, there is an exodus of party cadres towards RSS. This has made the party intolerant and violent towards sangh and its affiliates.
The CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan who has always been in the forefront of instigating violence by his venomous speeches has once again called upon RSS to go with a begging bowl towards the Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan if Sangh wants peace in the district. As RSS Prant Karyavahak P Gopalankutty Master has rightly pointed out, Sangh is an organisation which has to do self-defense and not precipitate in violence. The BJP state general secretary MT Ramesh also retorted to the call of Kodiyeri and said that it is for the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan as the Administrative Head of the State to call for a peace meet and to take an initiative to bring in peace in the district. However, there has still not been any positive response from the Chief Minister or the party secretary. This shows again how the CPM and its leaders are perpetuating violence in the political heartland of Kannur which has been a red bastion all through and with RSS and its affiliates attracting masses through its people friendly and nationalist programmes, the party and its leadership as always have started resorting to violence to somehow crawl back into its fiefdom terrorising the young workers of RSS and its affiliates.
In the recent Assembly elections in Kerala, the BJP even got its deposit back in Thalassery assembly constituency gaining a hundred percentage leap from its earlier vote share and this also has unnerved the CPM as Thalassery has been the epitome of violence and a bastion of the CPM wherein the party secretary had won several elections earlier and is the hometown of both the party secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan and the state Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The adjoining Kuthuparamba Constituency which is represented by the State Health Minister KK Shailaja also reaped rich dividends for the BJP after the party fielded C Sadanandan Master who was RSS Kannur District Sahakaryavahak in 1994 and had lost both his legs to the CPM killer squad turning him into a physically handicapped person at a very tender age.
In the prevailing political situation of Kerala, the only hope alive is for the top leadership of both the CPM and RSS to sit and discuss the issue deeply and to bring an end to the unnecessary violence in the name of politics and political ideology. The CPM Kannur District leadership has never tried to encourage this as according to insiders in the party, the survival of these leaders is only through violence as the party has nothing new to offer to the youngsters as also no development agenda. It may also be noted that Thalassery and Kuthuparamba have been two of the most underdeveloped areas of Kerala even after returning the CPM legislators since the inception of these constituencies.
CPM is ruing the day when the private news channels have come to the forefront in the state as there was time when the party would never allow any other mainstream newspaper to reach its villages and the people were allowed only to read the party mouthpiece Deshabhimani which is notorious for the blatant lies it has been spreading. With the advent of the news channels in the country, the CPM also jumped the bandwagon to start its own news channel, Kairali but the people were smarter enough to switch over to more popular news channels which were unbiased. This is one reason which the CPM knows that it has been exposed but still the party local leaders who are the most powerful among the CPM leaders of the state would never step down from the politics of violence which they have been propagating, promoting and executing.
The CPM which has been totally against promoting Hindu festivals has now started promoting Sri Krishna Jayanti and Vinayaka Chaturthi but resulted in total failures as RSS has taken these festivals up as major festivals in the state which is earmarked by grand processions across the state with major public participation. This also shows how insecure the party and its leadership are to note as to which direction the wind is blowing and that the party and the edifices it has built across the state would fall like nine pins and that the party doesn’t have any ideological answers to offer in the intellectual sphere. So the only manner in which the party expects to stay afloat is to try and threaten the cadres from jumping the fence and joining sangh and its affiliates and to award cruel punishment to those who try to ignore the warning.
There have been stories as to how the CPM had once post emergency killed a Congress worker and during his funeral, how the party goons came in and after driving out the relatives and neighbours of the dead person performed the funeral themselves. This was the height of CPM autocracy and feudal psyche which had come into being. The CPM had unleashed terror even during the funeral procession of slain BJP secretary Panniyanoor Chandran wherein a country bomb exploded within bus in which the sangha cadres were travelling after the funeral back to Thalassery in which sixteen persons were injured. This writer was in the ill-fated bus in that attack. The CPM had also attacked the funeral procession of Shri Uthaman, the father of Remith who was killed recently in which the driver of the Jeep, Shihab, a Muslim and an old woman were killed. This is how the CPM behaves even towards dead bodies and without even showing any semblance of respect towards a dead person. The party believes in insulting even the memories of the slain persons.
The CPM of Kannur District is not the English speaking, suave CPM which Delhi has been witnessing in the form of Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat or Brinda Karat but the rugged CPM which has scant respect towards democracy or pluralism. Another irony is that the CPM Kerala leadership has scant respect for the party national leadership as the CPI-M state leaders know that the feeding to Delhi is being done by the Kerala party as there is no other state where the CPM is in power other than Kerala and a very backward Tripura. n
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