Achuthanandan funeral: VS gone, but legends, slogans, ideology live on
As the embers dimmed at Valiya Chudukad, and the rain finally began to let up, one thing was clear—this was not just the end of a life, but the farewell of an era
From 79-year-old Mohammed Ali of Karunagappally to 17-year-old Goutham Sajeev of Kayamkulam, and 6-year-old Aira Hameed of Puramattom HSS, who at one point led the sloganeering in her sweet voice, with comrades echoing her, they all came. Wet, weary, and waiting. Not for a spectacle, but for a final glimpse of a man who belonged to them more than he ever did to power.
The final journey of VS Achuthanandan, Kerala’s towering Marxist statesman, took more than 24 hours to wind its way from Thiruvananthapuram to Alappuzha. A journey of barely 150 kilometres stretched to a full day, not due to mismanagement, but because people simply wouldn’t let him pass. Every corner, every median, every culvert, every bend had someone waiting.
Some stood silently. Others waved red flags. Many wept. And through it all, the rain came down steadily, as if the skies too had lowered themselves to mourn.
Roads choked with emotion
The body of the 101-year-old Leftist veteran left Thiruvananthapuram on Monday (July 21), in a KSRTC bus refitted as a hearse, draped in red, and escorted by vehicles of the state and the party. It was expected to reach Alappuzha by evening, but such timelines had no place in a farewell like this. From Thiruvananthapuram to Alappuzha, the roads choked not with traffic, but with emotion.
Mohammed Ali, 79, stood by the Karunagappally highway from 3 pm to 3 am. He had skipped dinner, missed his medication, and stood on aching legs for 10 hours straight.
“VS didn’t do me any favour. I never even met him,” he said. “But because of people like him, people like me—ordinary workers—could live with dignity. What else do you wait for, to give a man a farewell? I wasn’t a communist. But he had stood out in my heart from way back. In the years they sidelined him, I hurt. This was something I had to do. Not for him. For people like me.”
Also read: VS Achuthanandan obituary: The biography of resistance
A heartfelt goodbye
Nearby, a schoolboy from Kayamkulam clutched a placard saying ‘Adieu VS’ and stood quietly, taking it all in.
“He’s a politician from the past. But we heard the legends. We heard how he lived, and why people respected him. It was worth standing for hours in the rain just to say goodbye,” said Goutham Sajeev, a Class 12 student.
Further north, Sidharth and his friends had taken a train from Cheruvathur in Kasaragod—over 500 km away. “He stood for all the values we believe in. He was the embodiment of our idea of an egalitarian society. How could we not come?”
And in Alappuzha town, Sarada, 71, an agricultural labourer, stood at the Thiruvambadi junction since dawn. At 2 pm on Wednesday (July 23), she was still waiting. “I will go home only after I see him,” she said, her umbrella now more ritual than shelter.
Also read: IN PHOTOS | Lakhs bid emotional adieu to comrade VS Achuthanandan
‘Our eyes, our heart’
Elderly women leading sloganeering was a common picture throughout the procession. In Alappuzha, it gathered a different texture, the grain of working-class uprising and agrarian struggle.
“You didn’t let us call them lords. You didn’t let us eat without dignity,” they chanted.
And most of all: “You’re Our Eyes, You’re Our Heart, You’re the Rose Blooming from Our Heart.”
This slogan was born for him in 2006, when the party initially decided not to field VS as a candidate. The rest is history—people took to the streets, the party had to relent, and he went on to become the chief minister.
Thousands defied the rain and the delay for a last glimpse of their beloved leader | PTI photo
An afterlife
Throughout the route, this slogan echoed. Once dismissed by the party apparatus as “too individualistic”, it became the funeral’s unofficial anthem. Children sang it. Elderly women whispered it. Bus conductors and toddy tappers yelled it with defiance. It rose above the rainfall, louder than any loudspeaker.
A leader who was once a hardliner and strictly adhered to the party programme had long since transformed into an emotional compass for the marginalised.
“Who says you are dead? No, no—you will live through us!” the slogans continued.
“The ideology he upheld continues through our lives. It didn’t die with VS, it won’t. Just look at who all came—women, children, youth, farmers, factory workers, drivers, IT professionals, government staff, people across generations. Many hadn’t seen or heard him in years, yet they came, moved by a century-long life of struggle and by their faith in the communist dream he embodied. Yes, even communists have an afterlife, right here, in memory, in action, in history,” said MB Rajesh, state Minister for Excise and Local Self-Governments.
Also read: Achuthanandan: Farewell to world’s longest-lived card-holding communist
Through rain and dark
By the time the body reached Valiyachudukadu from the Recreation Ground near Alappuzha Beach, where the final public homage was arranged, night had fallen and washed out with heavy downpour, but still the crowds swelled. The rain never let up. Neither did the people. There was no public access to the cremation area, but it didn’t stop thousands from flooding in and standing with thunderous slogans behind barricades. They had no view of the pyre. But they had come to be near him, to be a part of his final departure.
At the designated site, Valiya Chudukadu, a large pyre was built. This was the very ground where the martyrs of the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising were once buried in mass graves by the Travancore Police. The first Communist government later declared it a memorial, and handed it over to none other than Achuthanandan, then party district secretary.
Many Communist icons—party founder P Krishna Pillai, R Sugathan, and KR Gouri Amma—had been laid to rest here.
Also read: ‘Irreplaceable loss to Party and State’: CM Vijayan’s tribute to VS Achuthanandan
A life walked along path of sacrifice
At 9.15 pm, his son, Dr VA Arunkumar, lit the pyre, as thunder rumbled and slogans broke the sky. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was present, along with his full Cabinet, top leaders from both factions of the Communist movement, and public figures from across cultural spheres.
But this wasn’t their show. It was the people’s funeral; their presence was enough.
The chief minister kept his remarks brief, as did the other leaders. No elaborate eulogies marked the ceremony. Yet, it was Pinarayi’s carefully chosen words, about the man who had once been his fiercest critic within the party, that carried a quiet gravity and stood apart.
“The political movement known as the CPI(M) began with a decision made by 32 leaders, including Comrade VS. Today, the last link in that historic chain was laid to rest. Words fall short when trying to describe the depth of our connection with Comrade VS. In every sense, he was a leader, one whose place inspired reverence in all of us. His was a life walked along the path of sacrifice—unparalleled, incomparable, and enduring,” said the Chief Minister.
Also read: Why VS Achuthanandan was Kerala’s moral compass: MG Radhakrishnan
Final defiance
Even in death, as in life, VS defied protocol. The cremation was initially scheduled for 5 pm. But by then, the body had only left the party district committee office for the recreation ground, for the final public homage. Not once was the public viewing hurried. Not once was the crowd asked to disperse. There was no rush to conclude, no attempt to reduce the funeral to a photo-op or PR exercise. Even as exhaustion crept in, the dignity of the moment was maintained by the sheer will of the people.
By Wednesday night, as embers dimmed at Valiya Chudukad, and the rain finally began to let up, one thing was clear—this was not just the end of a life, but the farewell of an era.
More than a former chief minister, more than a Politburo member or freedom fighter, VS Achuthanandan was remembered as something rarer, a comrade who never broke faith with his class. He was never a mass orator. Even when in power, he spoke like an outsider—unpolished, often unpredictable, but always grounded.
That grounding was what brought tens of thousands into the rain—skipping meals, travelling overnight, defying age and illness. They came not for a ritual, but for a last salute. A salute to a comrade who never asked for loyalty, but earned it. Who never stood above the people, but among them. And who now, in flame and chant, returned to them, fully and finally.
