Thiruvananthapuram, 19 July (HS): Leaders and activists of the Congress in Kerala are on an investigative mission, and that too on a war footing. Congress workers have been instructed by the party leadership to dig up local history and find out details of former leaders who died unrecognised and unsung. Last week saw the Congress observing the death anniversary of T K C Vaduthala, a Dalit leader of the party who had passed away in 1988.
Though he died in 1988, this is the first time the party is observing his death anniversary. Chathan Vaduthala had represented the Congress in the Rajya Sabha during 1986-1988. He was the Dalit face of the party and had written novels, short stories and essays highlighting the plight of the Harijans in Kerala even under the Communist rule.
The Congress leaders had the shock of their lives when the BJP and the Sangh Parivar organizations observed the birth anniversary of Chettur Sankaran Nair, the one and only Malayalee who had been the president of the All India Congress Committee. Present-day Congress leaders had no idea about Nair, who was the executive council member of the Viceroy. He had a fight with Mahatma Gandhi over the style of agitation to be held to drive away the Britishers from India. While Gandhi exhorted the people to boycott schools, colleges and courts to snub the colonial masters, Nair was totally against such agitation and he had warned Gandhi that such actions would create anarchy in the country. Nair was of the firm conviction that Indians should complete their education and then wage the battle for freedom, lest they end up as uneducated and unemployed.
Gandhi disagreed with Nair and ensured that the latter was smoked out of the Congress and the freedom movement. Sankaran Nair retaliated by writing the book Gandhi and Anarchy to which the father of the nation had no answer. It was while addressing a public meeting in Haryana that Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked the people to celebrate the life of Sankaran Nair who fought tooth and nail for India’s freedom.
Since then, the Congress leaders in Kerala as well as across the country are digging up local history to find out the roles played by party leaders from the area who led agitations during freedom movement. The fear that the BJP is likely to “hijack” the memories of their leaders has made the Congressmen go after late leaders. The Grand Old Party leadership is yet to recover from the shock given to them by the BJP, which elevated Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to the status of a glocal icon. To eclipse the possibility of the BJP walking away with the credit for bringing the martyrs back to mainstream, Congress leaders have started reading history books, a quality hitherto unknown to them.
Hindusthan Samachar / Manohar Yadavatti
