Kerala lost a pioneering left trade unionist in the passing of CPI(M) leader and CITU State president Anthalavattom Anandan, 85, at a government hospital here on Thursday.
Doctors attributed the cause of death to respiratory illness and age.
Mr. Anandan was an imposing and ubiquitous presence in the capital’s political circles for almost seven decades. His geniality, working-class roots, and values endeared him to the public and political opponents.
Mr. Anandan’s well-articulated and politically nuanced defence of the CPI(M) against cutting opposition criticism and harsh questioning by the television commentariat often saved the day for the party and government.
Mr. Anandan cut his teeth in the 1950s as an organiser of coir workers, an overwhelming number of them women and children living in impoverished circumstances.
As a budding trade unionist, Mr. Anandan fought against entrenched oppression, exploitation and denial of wages in the traditional sector.
As a result of the iconic struggles of coir workers led by communists, Pattom A. Thanu Pillai, the Chief Minister of Travancore-Cochin, ordered a raise in daily wages in 1954.
Nevertheless, the order remained on paper even after the first Communist government led by E.M.S. Namboodirpad assumed office in 1957.
As an idealist young firebrand, Mr. Anandan crossed the political Rubicon by organising coir workers against the communist government.
He is credited with authoring the slogan that the “struggle was for food, not ambassador cars or soft mattresses”, in an oblique and cynical reference to the official privilege enjoyed by the newly sworn-in communist Ministers.
Nevertheless, EMS took kindly to the coir workers’ struggle and lauded the commitment of trade unionists to the cause of labour. EMS famously said that communist governance and revolutionary struggle should always march in lockstep.
Mr. Anandan was also instrumental in organising private motor vehicle employees in the early 1960s. He was a staunch defender of the rights of KSRTC workers and, in a hark back to the days of the EMS government, took up their cause against the Pinarayi Vijayan administration repeatedly.
Mr. Anandan was jailed during the Emergency in 1975. He was elected to the Kerala Legislative Assembly from Attingal constituency in 1987, 1996 and 2006. Mr. Anandan served as the Chief Whip for the LDF in the Assembly from 2006 to 2011. However, a cabinet seat eluded him despite his long years in politics.
Mr. Anandan was born into a family that owned a coir-making unit in Chirayankeezhu, a leafy rural hamlet abutting the expansive backwaters in the Thiruvananthapuram district.
Mr. Anandan grew among coir workers and knew their trials and tribulations intimately. It informed his communist politics and trade union activism profoundly.
Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, KPCC president K.Sudhakaran, BJP State president K. Surendran, and Leader of Opposition V.D. Satheesan expressed their condolences to the friends and family of the departed leader.
The mortal remains will be cremated with full State honours at Santhikavadam in the capital on Friday evening.
