VS Achuthanandan obituary: The biography of resistance

“You are our eyes,

you are our heart—

Long live Comrade VS!”

This was the thunderous slogan that often greeted VS Achuthanandan wherever he went. In a political tradition like Kerala’s, where personal veneration of leaders is rare—especially within the Communist movement—VS stood out as a striking exception.

The former Kerala Chief Minister passed away on Monday (July 21) after a prolonged illness.

Remarkable transformation

From the late 1990s onward, through the peak of internal factionalism in the CPI(M), and later as Leader of the Opposition and then chief minister, VS underwent a remarkable transformation. Once known as the stern, uncompromising party man who bulldozed opponents with ideological clarity, he gradually evolved into the most beloved Communist figure in Kerala’s political history. His persona shifted from that of a disciplinarian to a people’s leader—without ever diluting his core principles.

Also read | Confident of LDF's third term in Kerala; efforts on for Left parties' unity: CPM chief Baby

By the time VS Achuthanandan withdrew from public life, he had already become more myth than man. Since 2017, the veteran leader had been largely confined to his home, making only rare and fleeting appearances.

For most of the Pinarayi Vijayan regime, he remained removed from the hurly-burly of politics, his world narrowed to the four walls of his room in Thiruvananthapuram. His physical absence marked the end of an era, but his ideological shadow loomed large across Kerala’s political landscape.

Political journey

Born on October 20, 1923, in the coastal village of Punnapra, Achuthanandan’s political journey began with his joining the Communist Party in 1940. He soon found himself at the heart of the turbulence that swept Kerala in the 1940s, culminating in the 1946 Punnapra-Vayalar uprising—a peasant revolt brutally suppressed by the Travancore princely state. Nearly 470 farm labourers, armed with little more than wooden spears, were killed. Achuthanandan was arrested and imprisoned for over five years, followed by nearly four-and-a-half years spent underground.

From there began his long and often embattled journey within the Indian Communist movement. A founding member of the CPI(M) after the 1964 split, VS’s life was defined as much by his ideological steadfastness as by his clashes with authority—often his own party’s. He joined the party’s state secretariat in 1957 and later became a Polit Bureau member. In the 1960s, he was demoted for organising a blood donation campaign for Indian soldiers during the Indo-China war—an act considered ideologically out of step at the time. But VS rarely allowed the party line to override his moral instinct.

His electoral journey was no less remarkable. He was elected to the Kerala Assembly from Ambalappuzha (1967, 1970), Mararikulam (1991), and Malampuzha (2001, 2006, 2016). In 1996, after a shock defeat in Mararikulam, he lost the opportunity to become the chief minister. The position instead went to EK Nayanar, who had not contested the election. But Achuthanandan’s stature only grew, and when he eventually took charge as the chief minister in 2006, he brought with him a style of politics that reached beyond the boundaries of the party.

Formidable figure

Within the CPI(M), Achuthanandan was both revered and feared. He locked horns with figures like KR Gouriamma and the powerful CITU lobby inside the party and was the most vocal internal critic of his long-time adversary, Pinarayi Vijayan. In 2007, even while serving as the chief minister, the party removed him from the Polit Bureau—an unprecedented step reflecting the deep fissures within.

Also read | Kerala Congress denies Tharoor's claim on Nilambur bypoll campaign

Yet it was precisely this spirit of internal dissent that made him such a formidable figure in Kerala’s public life. As Leader of the Opposition and later as the chief minister, he evolved from a classic cadre leader into a mass figurehead. He led high-profile campaigns against environmental degradation, land encroachment, and corporate exploitation. He took on Coca-Cola in Plachimada, fought land mafias in Munnar, and brought attention to sexual violence cases often ignored by the system.

Achuthanandan also built bridges with civil society and championed causes the CPI(M) had been slow to embrace. His solidarity with KK Rema, the widow of TP Chandrasekharan—a former party leader who was murdered after breaking away from the CPI(M)—sent tremors through the party’s ranks. That act of defiance, like many others, added to the legend of VS: a man who stood for what he believed, no matter who stood against him.

Left’s moral compass

To his supporters, Achuthanandan was the moral compass of the Left—resolute, unbending, and incorruptible. To critics within the party, he was a perpetual dissenter who disrupted collective discipline. But even those critics could not ignore his sincerity or the loyalty he inspired among the masses. He remained committed to working-class ideology even as the party and the world around him made uncomfortable accommodations with neoliberalism.

His final years in office were marked by silence, but not irrelevance. Though confined, his presence lingered—his life’s work acting as both conscience and caution to those in power. In Kerala's deeply polarised political culture, VS was one of the few figures who transcended party lines. He didn’t merely represent a faction or ideology; he represented a possibility—a vision of politics rooted in integrity, sacrifice, and the dream of social justice.

For today’s generation of political activists, his life remains a moral anchor. Whether in the quiet resilience of a peasant uprising or the firebrand resistance against encroachments, Achuthanandan’s journey is a reminder that leadership is not merely about command—it is about conscience.

Also read | How Kerala CM Pinarayi used a book to claim Congress-RSS 'tacit understanding'

He may have spent the last eight years in retreat from public life, but Comrade VS never truly disappeared. His story—etched in sacrifice, rebellion, and unwavering principle—always animated Kerala’s political imagination. And in the annals of Indian democracy, Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan will endure as the man who stood his ground when it mattered the most.