Let not the praise showered on Kerala divert attention from the economic crisis: EMS Namboodiripad |
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Let not the praise showered on Kerala divert attention from the economic crisis: EMS Namboodiripad
In August 1994, EMS Namboodirippad addressed the First International Congress on Kerala Studies in Thiruvananthapuram, underlining the challenges facing Kerala and calling for a consensus on measures to overcome them.
Although called an “unofficial University”, the founders of this Centre [AKG Centre for Research and Studies], including myself, have no claim to academic scholarship. It is, however, our good fortune that, in the course of our work, many distinguished scholars in various disciplines have associated themselves with the work of this Centre. We are socio-political activists and our friends from academics have found it profitable to interact with us.
This Congress is, of course, a far bigger event than ever before. Let me thank you once again for having come and having agreed to give us the benefit of your experience, knowledge and wisdom. The Centre is named after the most eminent Communist of Kerala, and bears the impress of the Communist movement in the state. The birth and growth of the Communist movement in India and in Kerala and the problems of the movement are the concerns of the Centre.
I consider it appropriate to use this occasion to mention some of the contributions that we as a Party have made to academic thinking and scholarship. “Philosophers have in various ways interpreted the world, the point is to change it” – so reads Karl Marx’s thesis on Feuerbach. We Communists of Kerala and of India have not confined ourselves to political activism, and are proud of having made contributions to academic thinking as well.
The Socialist-Communist movement began in Kerala in the mid-1930s, more than a decade after it began in India. In those early years of the movement some major socio-economic, political and cultural problems confronted us, and our work in respect of these problems was the basis of our initial contribution to the development of scholarly and academic thought.
The first of these problems was the existence of feudalism that had a peculiarly Kerala character. I have called Kerala feudalism the combined domination of the feudal landlords (in the economic sphere), the Brahman-dominated upper castes (in social life) and the rule of the princes and chieftains of the different component parts of Kerala. The combination of these three forms of domination and the strength of the people against them were the essential elements of socio-economic life in Kerala.
Our struggle against the British rulers for national freedom was, consequently, integrated with the movement against landlordism, upper-caste domination and princely rule. In 1934, when we formed the Congress Socialist Party in Kerala, we considered this task of integrating the movement for national freedom with the struggle against landlordism, upper-caste domination and princely rule to be the basic task of our movement. We achieved this integration through many-sided political activity.
First, we believed that, after freedom from British rule was attained, the territory of the princely states of Travancore and Cochin, and the Malabar district of Madras Presidency in British India had to be brought together into a united Kerala. While a united Kerala was our ultimate objective, we thought it immediately necessary to work for democracy in the princely states. The struggle for responsible government in Travancore established unity among radical democrats and Communists all over the state, and this unity helped our struggle succeed.
Secondly, we concerned ourselves with the problem of the economic domination of the feudal landlords (janmi). The janmi system dominated agrarian relations in Malabar, and existed in many parts of Cochin and in some parts of Travancore as well. Militant trade union movements in Travancore, Cochin and Malabar, and the militant peasant movement in Malabar were very important features of the radical democratic and freedom movements in Kerala in the 1930s.
As a result of the activities of these mass organisations, and of the local units of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee in Malabar, the Cochin Congress and Prajamandalam in Cochin, and the State Congress of Travancore, socialism and communism became forces to reckon with in Kerala. We built the Kisan Sabha and raised the issue of ending feudal landlordism free of cost to the rural toilers.
This demand was articulated in the dissenting note of three left-wing Congress Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) who were members of the Malabar Tenancy Inquiry Committee which submitted its report early in 1940. To strike a personal note, I was one of the three MLAs, and my note of dissent presented the theoretical argument for ending feudal landlordism and distributing land to the rural toilers free of cost. Although it was written as a matter of practical revolutionary work, that dissenting note of mine had some academic value.
The demand and the document became the basis on which the Kisan Sabha developed in the 1940s. Our agrarian demands culminated in the enactment of an agrarian legislation by the first Communist government of united Kerala (1957-59). The legislation came into force in 1969. The struggle waged from the 1930s onwards and the legislative activities of the first Communist and the United Front........