Autumn of a Naxalite

Preface

I met Bhaskaran, on a monsoon evening in Palakkad. The fiery ex-Naxalite struck me as a rather withdrawn foot soldier of the extremist movement; not particularly intellectual. But very strange memories rushed into me and I was quite shaken by the experience. Without the ideology of his life, I kept thinking of a person, out of jail, struggling for sustenance. Saddled with a family and memories of an all but dead movement. I sensed a great human interest story in this. I didn't sleep for many days thinking about it. I requested many of my journalist friends to write his story. My friend Hari said that he might refuse to talk to any journalist. Bhaskaran was keen that my association with him should not in any way affect me. He believed that he is still on the watch list of intelligence agencies. He thought it is not exactly good for someone who works in the Govt to be involved with him in any way. (But that is what everyone says when I admit that I have been reading the Pakistani newspaper "Dawn" for the last ten years- How could you do that ? working in the Defence Ministry and all that? Don't they put you under surveillance for doing such things? But I suppose there lies the greatness of our country and its' democracy. There is space for every stream of thought and access to a lot of stuff on public domain) I thought if his story had to be written, let it be written by me- not exactly a skilled writer. But the story must be told. I wanted this to be comprehendible to an international audience- Hence the foot notes. I never tried to send this to any publication to print it. I felt the protagonist in this story may not like this. I sent this script to him to see. He corrected many portions from his ideological stand point.I didn't really like the changes he made to it. I felt the story would be lost unless I tell this as ordinary folks do. I never found the time to glean through archives searching for press clippings to relate the story of the murder, jailbreak and aftermath. Some facts are given below.

The date of murder was 30.7.1970. The accused including Bhaskaran were captured after eight months. Some of them escaped from jail in May 1971. They were again caught nine months later. Finally Bhaskaran was released in 1986. Best part of his youth and life in the jail. Amazingly, he rebuilt his life, settled down with family etc. Some of the details which he missed out in his narration were published by Mundur Ravunni(the Political commander of the Naxalites who committed the murder) recently in a Malayalam Magazine. Like ... two guys in the team just did not show up: And that some of the alleged cruel deeds of Narayanan Kutty Nair were (a) killing Changan the farm labourer,who used to guard the tapioca crop during nights accusing him of sorcery and (b) snipping off the nipple of a woman who did not accede to his sexual demands. Interestingly the leaders of the execution were seeing the man for the first time on the night of murder. They knew of him only through the dossier they had collected and chargesheet prepared against him.
This story does not in any way dilute the other dimension. Children of the murdered man have been rendered fatherless, a wife turned widow.... a way of life destroyed. Some day I hope the story of the victim's child will also be told....

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It was one of those trips back to my village in Palakkad to meet my ailing mother. My home and the Palakkad Railway Station are about 40 kilometers apart. Out of sheer habit, on these trips, I would visit my friend, Hariprasad, who runs a Nursing Home opposite to the Railway Station. (He no longer does. Well, that’s another story). I normally reach his place a couple of hours before the train is scheduled to leave. We chat and catch up with whatever has been happening to our lives. His place was certainly more hospitable than the Railway Station waiting room and I enjoyed these moments. We would talk about old friends, often go down to a local eatery for a banana fry 1 or appam 2 and egg curry.
It was a July evening and the sky was overcast. I reached his place a little earlier than usual and my train wasn’t leaving until 8.30 PM. We had about 3-4 hours to kill. Hari was explaining to me about the minor repairs, which had to be done to the Nursing Home to keep the place from falling apart. A dispute among family regarding the property was raging for a long time. He wasn’t sure how long he would be able to retain possession of the Nursing Home. He mentioned in passing that the Ex- Naxalite3 Bhaskaran is now a civil contractor who carries out petty civil Construction work, Plumbing etc. He was entrusted with small jobs in the Nursing home. The name struck a chord in my mind immediately. “Isn’t he still in Jail?” I asked. “ He has been released more than twenty years back. He is married and settled in Palakkad, on the foothills of Dhoni hills” Hari replied. Dhoni Hills is not very far from the Railway station. In fact it is at the end of the Railway Officers’ accommodation in Palakkad Railway Division.4 I have lived in the Palakkad Railways’ living quarters for some time during college days. Much later, I married a Railway Officer. She was living in one of those large Bungalows close to the Dhoni hills. I remember the captivating sight of that picturesque place.
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I will never forget the famous Narayanan kutty Nair murder case. Nothing comes close to it in terms of cruelty or sheer chutzpah. I was an impressionable eight-year-old boy when it happened. We had just migrated to India from Malaysia. The racial riots in Malaysia and the trend towards banishing English from schools only to replace by Bahasa5 Malaya had prompted my father to take this momentous decision. We - my mother and five children were living in a huge newly constructed house in Padur, a village in Palakkad District. I was an unhappy soul. Life had taken a sudden u-turn. There was no TV, no running water. Electricity connection had to be given by pulling the lines from several kilometers away and there were frequent disruptions. I had to learn a new language, Malayalam, my mother tongue in which I could barely converse. Even in the local English medium school everyone spoke Malayalam. I was not very comfortable with it. I had no friends and used to play around with a ball alone.
I still recall the day the news appeared in the Malayalam Daily, “Mathrubhoomi”. There were pictures of a headless body lying in a pool of blood. The severed head was at a few metres away near the gate. It was sensational. It was then referred to as the Kongad murder case. (Kongad is the name of the village where this happened). Narayanan Kutty Nair was a local Landlord. He was brutally murdered late at night by a group of people considered to be followers of Naxalite ideology. The perpetrators of the crime were apprehended soon. Seven of them who were housed in the Viyyur Central jail escaped from captivity after a few days and were at large. On the day following their escape the photographs of all the escaped convicts were displayed prominently in the papers. I remember the photograph of Bhaskaran staring at me from the newspaper. He had hazel coloured eyes: Cold, staring and unforgiving. At an age when I didn’t know anything about the ideology that drives youth to murder, this was truly scary. Viyyur was not far from my house. Viyyur is close to the District Headquarters of Trichur District. We were living close to the Palakkad- Trichur border. Our newly constructed house was in a huge compound and if the murderers were to strike in the dead of night, even our screams would not be heard by anyone. I had these gory visions of the Naxalites entering our house and slaughtering all of us. I spent sleepless nights. I would often imagine myself saving my mother and getting myself killed in the process.
Bhaskaran and some others were students of Govt Victoria College6 - A century old institution where I studied much later. Story had it that the whole conspiracy was hatched in the college accommodation where I stayed during my college days. Bhaskaran was considered one of the first three accused that actually carried out the beheading. Later, I would often wonder how any one could be driven to kill a fellow human being in cold blood. I would visualize the plot of a murder being hatched in the college and its’ laid back environment. In the idyllic villages of Kerala where life goes on peacefully in the seventies, it was just a bit too gruesome to be true.
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Hari and I decided to drive down to Dhoni and meet Bhaskaran at his house. The sky had cleared a bit by then but it was still drizzling. The roads were slushy and wet. We drove through the narrow Railway colony road and reached the dead end of the road. The Dhoni Hills loomed ahead, full of greenery, touching the sky. The trees were in monsoon bloom. Having always seen it from afar, even a small hill like Dhoni looks like a huge presence when seen at close quarters. There were just one or two houses at the end of the road and Hari led me to this small house named “Sri Sri”. It was located in a small compound with fencing of Bamboo shoots and thorns.
Bhaskaran was wearing a Black T shirt and a coloured Lungi.7 He had gone bald. But the eyes looked the same. He smiled as he welcomed us into the house. There was minimal furniture in that small house. His wife, son and daughter live in the house. The daughter is studying for graduation in College at Palakkad. The son has completed Tenth standard and is hoping to join the Industrial Training Institute for vocational training.
Bhaskaran had heard about me from Hari. He appeared quite used to the idea of people still coming to see him out of curiosity. I told him about my nightmares of him as a child. He was quite amused. His wife came and gave us tea. She was a short, fair woman. I asked Bhaskaran about his marriage. He said it happened as soon as he came out of jail. He was released from jail sometime in 1980s. His mother was alive then. She asked him to meet someone known to the family. He met her. Told the story of his life and told her to drop a post card if she is willing. He went thinking that she may never agree to a relationship with a former convict accused of a gruesome murder. He received her post card and they got married in a small function. Life after jail was quite difficult. His friend and co accused Chacko was involved in a low cost housing project in Badagara near Kozhikode. It was a co-operative society which was set up to teach life skills to the under privileged and to train them to earn a living. After a few years, politics caught up with this venture and he had to leave this and start tuition classes for children. This venture also did not last for very long. The local mainstream communist parties had probably played an important role in dissuading parents from sending their children to an Ex Naxalite.
Meanwhile Chacko had gone on and settled in Palakkad near Dhoni. A lifetime of shared past, jail term and ideology had gravitated him to Chacko and Palakkad. He bought a small plot of land adjacent to Chacko’s and built a house. He has been living here with family ever since. Life is OK. The vocation is such that income fluctuates depending on seasons. But the past seems so far away. No, he is not an activist now. Nor are others except Ravunni, another co accused, who is into the Ayyankali movement for resettlement of Tribals.
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“It was a July evening like this. A rainy night lay ahead. I was living with my uncle’s family in the Railway Colony in Palakkad. No, not in the hostel as you think. Only Chacko and I were students of the Victoria College. Others were activists from the movement. Those were the days following the Naxalbari uprising. The activities of the movement were picking up momentum and the tremors were felt in the red bastion of Kerala also. Kerala, the land, which holds the record for bringing the first democratically elected communist Government to Power in the World, could never remain insulated from the happenings around the world. Those were the heady days of the Chinese line of Mao Tse Tung, of a thousand flowers and the Cultural Revolution; of the Spring thunder and visions of villages surrounding towns; of overthrowing the symbols of the state by armed uprisings. The Pulpulli Police station attack case was the first of its’ kind. Comrade Varghese of Wayanad8 was the first leader of the movement. He organized the Tribals and other landless labourers. The movement was organized into cells, where the individual’s identity got submerged in the collective vision of the Movement.
In Palakkad, All Kerala Students’ Federation elections were held. We, the hardliners wanted a stronger ideological slant to the movement. I still recall Pinarayi Vijayan, the latter day CPI (M) leader, bringing in a lot of delegates who didn’t look like students to defeat the Hardliners agenda. We had already drifted away from the Political mainstream communist parties. The Chinese line was our motto and inspiration.
There was an imminent need to activate the movement with demonstrable action and results on the ground. Narayanan Kutty Nair was chosen as an example of feudalistic exploitation in the villages. He was the example to be set. He had the reputation of a tightfisted, cruel landlord with a weakness for women. No, I have never seen him before in my life before that fateful night. The Movement chose him. We were three groups of seven each. We didn’t know the members of the other groups well. My interactions were confined mostly to the seven comrades in my group. At nightfall we arrived in Kongad. No, buses didn’t ply in the villages of Palakkad after nightfall. We went walking the whole distance of more than eleven Kilometres. It was drizzling slightly. We arrived at the house of Kongad Narayanan Kutty Nair. There was a story doing the rounds much later that we had gone to kill a senior Police Officer who was Narayanan Kutty Nair’s relative. No, that wasn’t the intention. But if he were around, it would have been a bonus. Eliminating the feudal exploiter and the symbol of their protectors in one fell stroke would have been an achievement for the movement.
We woke up all the members in the household. We then hustled all the Women, children, other male members and servants into a room and locked the room. The house was located in an isolated large tract of land at the remote part of the village. So the noise of our arrival didn’t wake up anyone. We took Narayanan Kutty Nair to the Padippura9.family Ravunni read out the charges against him. The other members of the movement who constitute the peoples’ court gave the verdict of death sentence. Another person and I performed the killing. No, I would rather not talk about it. No the head didn’t split the body in one fell stroke. We had to cut at the neck many times. We left the house shouting slogans. When did you change clothes? Well, we did that as soon as we left the house.
We were caught very soon and put in captivity. After my escape from Viyyur Central jail, I was at large for a long time. It was sheer arrogance that got me back in jail again. I used to visit the printing press several times in connection with our publication. On one such visit someone tipped me off and in a few minutes a whole contingent of Police was at the premises of the Press to arrest me. In jail we held hunger fast several times for privileges like tea etc. During the emergency10 we would shout slogans while being taken to jail and back. We would get only rice broth and vegetables and had to fight for even small privileges by going on hunger fast etc. But jail was a great leveler. Even today I carry my intense craving for several cups of tea.
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Bhaskaran had finished his narration and it had become dark outside. The sky turned cloudy and it started raining. The smell of wet earth, a typical Palakkad monsoon feeling overpowers your senses. I asked him whether he has any regrets in life and whether he still believed in the movement. He said that he felt that instead of carrying out justice on behalf of the oppressed, he would perhaps motivate the oppressed to carry out justice today. The movement died because of the lack of involvement of the truly oppressed and it could not have survived with the intervention of a few ideologically charged youth. We then went on to talk about the life of other Naxalites. Philip M Prasad, who turned spiritual, Chacko who turned domestic Ravunni who works among tribals and K.Venu who is still at the forfront of the movement. He felt that the movement has picked up in the Andhra Pradesh/Orissa/ Chattisgarh belt primarily due to the oppression by landlords which still continues. In an evolved society like Kerala, the movement faces a bleak future.
Bhaskaran brought an umbrella to see us off. We got into the car and left. On the drive back we were silent. After a long time Hari asked me what I thought. About a wasted youth, about commitment to ideology, or a life on the edges of survival ? I had no answers. I found Bhaskaran very reluctant to talk about the actual murder. I was almost like a little boy probing about small details. I sensed his discomfort. Initially I thought of it as the communist’s reluctance to talk about oneself and to place the collective interests before individual ones. I also sensed some disquiet about the present. Hari told me about Bhaskaran’s frequent inability to afford his daughter’s College tuition fees and his worries about his son. I went to meet him to exorcise the ghosts of my childhood. I went back with more ghosts lurking inside. I had to buy a toothbrush and we stopped somewhere.
Hari told me that the murdered Naranyanan Kutty Nair’s son also lived very close to Dhoni. He is a Gulf returned entrepreneur and has started an Long Distance calling and Photocopying shop in the front of huge house. For ironies in life, this takes the cake. Hari told me that Venu (Narayanan Kutty Nair’s son) is also a good friend of his and has told him many times that he has wondered why his father was killed. He had seen the killing through a keyhole along with a servant. He had in fact identified Bhaskaran when he was arrested. They came to call him from school. He was 11 years old at that time.
Maybe we will visit Venu another time and hear his story. My train was leaving in half an hour.
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1 Pazham Pori in Malayalam
2 White rice based pan cakes
3 Naxalism- An ideology of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thoughts. The name has its’ origins from Naxalbari, a village North Bengal, where tribals staged an uprising against exploitation by Landlords. The uprising was suppressed by the Govt of W.Bengal, ironically a democratically elected Communist Govt . Charu Mazumdar, the ideological precursor to the movement wrote the historic eight documents, drawing inspiration from Maois Leninist Thoughts.
4 The Palghat Railway Division is strategically located as a gateway to Kerala. The Walayar provides a 20 km long opening in the Western Ghats which separate Kerala from Tamilnadu, the two southern states of India. The Railway Division exists from British colonial times during which Palghat was part of Madras Presidency– Now renamed as Palakkad in a vernacularization drive by Kerala Govt- The exercise being a favourite past time among politicians to obliterate names , symbols of colonial past.
5 Bahasa Malaya – The Malay Language
6 Established by British during the nineteenth century. Named after Queen Victoria I
7 A coloured piece of cloth tied around the waist. Popular in S.India, Burma and certain SE Asian countries.
8 Wayanad is in the North of Kerala. Later on Varghese was killed by the Police in cold blood and was termed as an encounter death.- as one of the Policemen who took part in his killing would confess several years later
9 In old tharavads (matrilineal family in Nair caste is called a Tharavad) the home and the gate will be divided by a courtyard where the harvesting activities take place. The entry to the courtyard is called the padippura
10 The brief interregnum to the uninterrupted run of democratic India. Mrs Gandhi, the then Prime Minister declared a state of Emergency, curtailed human rights and put opposition leaders in jail