Faced with increasing isolation from the people, the CPI(M) in Kerala is considering a reform move that includes abandonment of its traditional method of holding violent agitations and being more tolerant towards religious matters. This reform move is taking place just when the top leadership is trying to formulate an entirely new set of policies and strategies for the party.
It is not certain whether the CPI(M) is entirely dropping its belief in the theory that religion is the opium of the people but its Kannur district committee, the strongest district unit in the entire country, has already allowed its activists and sympathisers to read the Ramayana at agitation venues in the holy month of Karkadaka (of the Malayalam calendar).
The Kannur district committee has also decided to stop holding agitations like roadblocks that tend to become violent and put the general public into hardships. Instead, it would try to make available service to the people in areas where it is needed and indulge in humanitarian activities like palliative care.
“Our policy is to take up slogans which people can directly relate to and to which they can agree,” says CPI(M)’s Kannur district secretary P Jayarajan. Though he refuses to call the present trend as a new reform move, Jayarajan says that the partymen should enter into areas where people need service.
The change in the attitude of the party has caused surprise among the people as it has come particularly from the unit in Kannur district, known as the political killing field of Kerala because of its history of violent clashes. The CPI(M) has invariably been on one side in each of these clashes which had led to the loss of hundreds of human lives over the past four decades.
The foundation for a formal start to the party’s diversion from its traditional means of public activities will be laid on August 19, the 108th birthday of late P Krishna Pillai, one of the founding fathers of the communist movement in Kerala, with the launch of a host of programmes in the area of humanitarian services in Kannur.
The party has also decided to revive its palliative care unit in the district which is lying defunct presently and to start a new centre. The inauguration of this programme will be carried out by none other than State CPI(M) secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, who is often accused of leading the party through the path of violence, on September 22.
More surprising is the positive change in the outlook of the Kannur Marxists towards matters concerning religion. A new kind of tolerance in this area is being seen in the party which had only recently issued directions to its leaders and workers to keep themselves away from indulging in religious practices.
The party has allowed the participants in the Satyagraha over an investment scam in the Thundi Women’s Cooperative Bank at Peravur in Kannur to read the Ramayana aloud, a practice among devout Hindus in Karkadaka, considered a holy month. Satyagrahis said that the leadership had whole-heartedly granted their request for permission to read the Ramayana.
The party is devising programmes to win the confidence of other religions also. Various trusts under the party are currently distributing ‘Ramadan kits’, bags containing supplies to be used in the Muslim holy month, through its 18 minority cells in Kannur district. District secretary Jayarajan had inaugurated this programme at Thalassery recently.
However, it is yet to be known how seriously the party leadership is taking up these reform measures. P Jayarajan who is leading the new move is, however, opposing the call from central committee member EP Jayarajan, another Kannur heavyweight, to the SFI to abandon agitations that necessitate loss of studies at educational institutions.
The reform move and change in outlook in the Kannur CPI(M) have failed to impress its leftist companions. State CPI secretary Pannyan Raveendran said it was up to the Marists to decide what kind of agitations they should carry out but it was impossible for communists to avoid holding stirs that might sometimes cause hardships to people.