K M Mani is no more. He was a genius who turned a small political party, which would have otherwise relegated to the sidelines of history, into a crucial force in Kerala politics. Mani was endowed with skill, intelligence and luck. The Kerala Congress would not even have born without P T Chacko’s death at a crucial moment in Kerala's political history.
Mani would not have been in Kerala Congress had the Congress given him a party ticket to contest the poll.
He was a DCC president in 1965. Mani and K M George would not have split up had R Balakrishna Pillai not insisted on becoming a minister and an MP at the same time.
The party would have remained a monolith until the next crisis. Similar instances can be found in Mani’s career later also.
His only misfortune was to get involved in a bar bribery scandal and having to carry the taint to the grave without convincing the people through courts. The Kerala Congress (M) escaped the fate of the other Kerala Congress factions and smaller parties like the NDP and the RSP due to Mani's acumen.
The Kerala Congress grew from a powerful group within the Congress to an independent political party blessed with Mannath Padmanabhan.
But for Mani, it would have ended up as a collective of the Catholics in Kottayam district after Mannath Padmanabhan distanced himself from it. Mani built an ideological pinning for the collective through his Aluva economic resolution and the “theory of the toiling class”.
When the Syrian Christians migrated from Kuttanad to Kanjirappally to tap into the rubber plantations, Mani convinced them that they needed a political alternative to rely on. The Syrian Christians are a minority among Christians in Kerala.
And rubber planters are a minority among farmers.
Mani knew that his party would not get anywhere with such a constituency. He had to claim the representation of the entire Christian community.
He made contacts with all sections once he became a minister and projected himself as the saviour of the farming community.
He created an impression that all Christians and farmers belonged to the Kerala Congress. He moulded the party with clear economic, social and political views. The party nurtured by Mani may not survive him. Mani became an MLA in 1967. He ensured a surprising access to the secretariat files, perhaps through Josey, who served in his personal staff when he became a minister.
He used the then rare photostat medium to expose many government files in public domain.
This was the secret of Mani’s success. Mani was hard working. He slept for hardly four hours. He could do with power naps like Napoleon. He did not mind going without food or sleep until he reached a solution that satisfied him. Mani’s strength lied in his dedication to his constituency. I had to pass Pala twice a week when I was the district collector of Idukki. Anyone younger than 40 is unlikely to have any memories of that Pala before Mani’s rise.
Mani has brought in almost all institutions to Pala - except a mental asylum and central prison. Pala now qualifies to be a district headquarters. Mani was not only interested in the public affairs of Pala, but took an active role in the constituency irrespective of political loyalties. Mani would not hesitate to recommend a communist party worker’s child to a sought-after school. Mani’s personality was attractive. Mani was an expert in taking officers into confidence. Even if Mani had to override an officer’s objection, he did it without any ill-feeling.
He would own it up. He seldom disowned an officer like many other ministers. We were not in good terms during later years, but that had nothing to do with job-related disagreements. I had worked with Mani and T M Jacob. We were close friends for many years. Most of the things we discussed are not fit for print. Sophocles has said that the day would be appreciated only at dusk. When Senator Dirksen died, President Nixon said: “We, who were privileged to be his friends, can take comfort that Dirksen, in the rich evening of his life, his leadership unchallenged, his mind clear, his great voice still powerful across the land, could look back upon his life and say, ‘The day has indeed been splendid’.”
