There is something intriguing about Achuthanandan’s popularity. Despite having little formal education he commands enormous respect among the intelligentsia of this highly literate and intellectually-sophisticated state. Despite being 89 years old, he has remarkable appeal among the youth. And despite being an old Communist from the Comintern days, he enjoys substantial support among “civil society” activists. He is truly the last of the great communist leaders produced in Kerala which has been a bastion of the Communist movement in India. Communism in Kerala, which has been a legatee of the egalitarian upsurge of the twentieth century that found expression in the Temple Entry movement, and above all in the social reform movement of Shree Narayana Guru, has been a major contributor to the remarkable transformation that the state has witnessed: from being a strongly feudal society, with such horrendous practices as “untouchability” and even “unseeability” at the beginning of the twentieth century, to being what it is today, a progressive society with egalitarian values, and with the most impressive Human Development indicators anywhere in the third world. The basis for V.S.Achuthanandan’s popularity lies essentially in the fact that, with his simple life-style, his integrity, and his abiding commitment to these egalitarian values, he embodies this great tradition of Kerala. Prabhat Patnaik - See more at: barazaonline.org/reflections-and-reactions/item/70-5qachu#sthash.KeVoxSqU.dpuf
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 03:09:37 +0000
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