Agitations of any form and intensity have always been an inalienable part of communist politics the world over but the Kerala Marxists are now under pressure to search for new and different forms of agitation due to the increasing protests from common people against the roadblocks and shutdowns they have been organising traditionally.
It is true that almost all the stirs that the CPI(M) had organised in Kerala in the recent past had failed but what has prompted the party strategists to search for new forms of agitation now is the popularity gathered by the intense protest raised by a lonely woman against the roadblock caused by a stir being held by the party-led lDF in Thiruvananthapuram.
On last Thursday, Sandhya openly questioned the right of the communists to block the roads, denying the common people their right to travel, and eventually forcing Marxist leaders to pass the blame on to the police who had barricaded the road to block the leftist activists from holding a march to Cliff House, the official residence of the Chief Minister, over the infamous solar scam.
A day after this, a strong group of 100 people from a local residents’ association marched to the venue of the leftists’ for a 140-day blockade demanding to open the road they had been using for years. Along with this, industrialist Kochouseph Chittilappally, a known anti-communist, declared `5-lakh gift to Sandhya for questioning the Marxists openly.
left with no option and in the face of the blazing rage of the local people against the roadblock that had been continuing since December 9, the agitators (and the police) came to a decision to keep one side of the road open for traffic.
However, the leftists are not yet prepared to withdraw their agitation against the Chief Minister despite the loss of face.
What is actually forcing the CPI(M) to search for newer methods of agitation which would not imply actions that put the common people to trouble is the fear that the rough stirs on the traditional lines could propel apolitical and non-political elements to launch counter-agitations taking cue from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Demand for new methods of agitation has come from within the lDF itself. TJ Chandrachoodan, general secretary of front partner RSP, said that it was time the left thought of new forms of stir.
“Agitations should get the people’s support. Movements should reflect the changes occurring in thoughts,” Chandrachoodan said
in Kollam.
“I could see an invisible broom (AAP election symbol) in the hand of Sandhya when she was scolding the agitating Marxists in Thiruvananthapuram. Kerala politicians should learn some lessons from people like Sandhya. Brooms would shower down on them if they fail to learn those lessons,” said novelist M Mukundan, himself a Marxist fellow-traveler.
Marxists are feeling the necessity of inventing some new forms of agitation also because the failures their stirs in Kerala have been facing repeatedly. Not even a single agitation held either by the CPI(M) on its own or by the Opposition lDF it leads has achieved the desired results since they had lost power in the State in May, 2011.
The longest among these futile agitations is the current one over the solar scam involving money, sex and power in which Chief Minister Oommen Chandy is accused of direct involvement. These agitations had involved black-flag protests, hurling stones and rotten eggs at Chandy, a siege to the State Secretariat and even a physical attack on the Chief Minister.
These stirs have been going on since June when the scam erupted after newsbreaks in the media but the left has not so far been able to force Chandy to agree even to their minimum demand of bringing himself under the purview of a judicial probe despite the fact that his Government is surviving with a wafer thin majority of just 73 seats in the 140-member Assembly.