Analysis | Fall of Socialist parties in Kerala: Splits, lack of focus & CPM to blame?

Last week, JD(S) Kerala chief Mathew T Thomas announced the decision to form a new party. Rashtriya Janata Dal, another ally of the LDF, has asked for a ministerial berth to save its face from the disillusioned party workers.

What’s happening to two Janata Dals, successors of the great ‘Socialist’ political legacy in Kerala?
Two years before the formation of the state, Praja Socialist Party’s Pattom A Thanu Pillai formed India’s first ‘Socialist government’ (1954-1955) in the erstwhile Travancore-Cochin state.

However, the PSP split nationally over the Pillai government’s police firing that killed seven people in the Kanyakumari region of the state.

Congress Socialism
Twenty years before Pillai became the Travancore-Cochin Chief Minister, delegates from the then divided Kerala had participated in a meeting in Patna on May 17, 1934 to form the Congress Socialist Party (CSP) along with comrades from Bihar, the United Provinces, Madras and Bengal. The CSP’s first session in Bombay the same year elected Jayaprakash Narayan aka JP as its general secretary.

Among those influenced by JP’s 1936 book 'Why Socialism?' was EMS Namboodiripad, one of the joint secretaries of CSP.

After the Kerala state formation in 1956, Pillai again became a chief minister (1960-1962 )when the first EMS government was dissolved. At least one legislative measure connects both Pillai and Namboodiripad governments ideologically.

''Land reform bills piloted by PS Nataraja Pillai in the Travancore-Cochin Assembly and Gouri Amma in Kerala Assembly had one common factor among others, both placed a ceiling of 15 acres for a family of five, '' said Dr Varghese George, Kerala secretary general of Rashtriya Janata Dal, who has researched Kerala’s Socialist movement for his PhD thesis.

The years that followed saw a mushrooming of Socialist parties in Kerala. Even with the habitual splits and mergers, the early Socialist parties performed well in several elections. Samyukta Socialist Party had won 13 and 19 seats in 1965 and 1967 respectively. In 1970, various Socialist parties won 13 seats, but cadres were unhappy and, submitting to their wishes all these parties merged to become a 'Socialist Party' in 1971 at the national level. In 1974, party chairman George Fernandes attended a national conference held in Kozhikode.

But the splits didn’t end there: Socialist parties under different names continued to contest in Kerala elections. Now, the combined strength of the rival socialist parties in the LDF is three MLAs -- JD(S)’s two and RJD’s one.

Several political observers Onmanorama spoke to say that the party lost its relevance in Kerala. ''Too many evolutions have complicated Kerala’s Socialist politics,'' said political commentator NP Chekkutty. ''The late Socialist leader Arangil Sreedharan once told me: leaders in our party are bigger than the party itself.''

‘No Social justice on agenda’
None of the Socialist parties in Kerala didn’t take foundational principles seriously, said Vijayaraghavan Cheliya, who associates with Lohia Vichara Vedi, which promotes the ideals of the iconic socialist Ram Manohar Lohia.

''The issues of social justice, caste and reservation were fundamental to Socialist parties elsewhere, but Kerala parties have never cared to raise such issues within the respective front they are part of. For example, they kept mum when this government introduced a 10 per cent reservation for the upper caste in the name of economically weaker sections which diluted the principle behind the reservation which is to change the social backwardness, not the economic hardship. Likewise, the traditional Socialists fought the centralised big projects, but here these parties didn’t say a word against K-Rail-like projects,'' Chelia told Onmanorama.

Chelia says that over time these parties focused only on the parliamentary posts and watered down policies for the poor. Vinod Payyada, who worked with the Janata Party during 1987-94, compares the 1960s and 70s when CPM proposed two Socialist leaders, KA Sivarama Bharathy and KB Menon, as chief minister candidates with the LDF’s current treatment of two ‘Janata Dals'.

''You must have a strong base if you want bargaining power. Only when you have bargaining power, you can influence the alliance policies,'' he said.

Weakening tactics
When parties in Kerala grouped in the pre-poll alliances for the first time in 1980, one major Socialist party was out of the LDF. Formed in 1977 as an amalgam of Congress (O), Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Bharatiya Lok Dal and Congress defectors against Indira Gandhi, Janata Party had made strides in national politics by forming the first non-Congress government. But CPM leaders found it untouchable because of its Sangh component BJS, the then political wing of the RSS.

So Janata Party contested 29 seats in an external arrangement with the UDF in 1980. The LDF won the election, but the government was short-lived when Congress (Antony), the Kerala Congress (Mani) and the Janata (Gopalan) withdrew support for the government to join the UDF. Chief Minister EK Nayanar resigned and the Assembly was dissolved.

In the subsequent mid-term election in 1982, the LDF was compelled to take in the Janata Party and offered it 13 seats. In 1987 the figure fell to 12. In the age of Janata Dal (Secular), LDF allocated fewer seats to its Socialist party.

Over the years, an assertive CPM began to take more seats from other parties.

In 1984 and 1989 LDF gave one seat to Lok Dal and Janata Dal, respectively. In the 1991, 1996, and 1998 elections, LDF gave Janata Dal two seats. In 1999 and 2004 Janata Dal (Secular) was given one seat. In 2009, JDS was ignored and in 2014 Veerendrakumar’s Socialist Janata (Democratic) joined the UDF.

Political observers say it was CPM’s traditional strategy to weaken its allies. One Socialist politician said CPM can accommodate Kerala Congress but it can’t tolerate another party with a Left outlook. ''No other party with Leftist nature within the Left front is what I call as their strategy,'' he told Onmanorama.

North Malabar Socialist
Panoor strongman PR Kurup was one of the tallest leaders in North Malabar’s Socialist history. ''He was one of the few early Socialist leaders who never went to Communist parties,'' said Dr Vasisht Manikkoth, the former associate professor of history at Malabar Christian College, who studied the JP and the Socialist movement.

Kurup joined the CSP in 1948 influenced by the JP movement. Dr Varghese George recalls seeing the framed photos of Kurup along with other deities in the houses of the poor in the Panoor area during his research trips.

Kurup, along with his PSP, was active in 1958–59’s Vimochanasamaram against the EMS government, though years later he expressed his disapproval of several aspects of the movement in his memoir “Ente Naadinte Katha, Enteyum”.

A Kalari martial arts expert, Kurup had the dexterity to switch sides when it suited him. In the elections soon followed after the withdrawal of Emergency in 1977, Kurup contested as a Congress candidate and defeated his Socialist colleague VK Achuthan in erstwhile Peringalam.

In his heyday, Kurup and his henchmen induced terror among the CPM, IUML and Congress workers in and around Peringalam which now falls more or less in Kuthuparamba after the 2011 delimitation of constituencies. But Kurup’s son KP Mohanan, who has won from the old and new constituencies, doesn’t enjoy the same following as his father.

BJP has eaten into the Socialist cadre base, said Musthafa Chendayad, an IUML-leaning political observer. ''Poyiloor, Elangode, Pookkom, Makkoolpeedika, Mutharipeedika, Thangalpeedika and Pookode; all these places were Socialist strongholds during PR Kurup’s time,'' he told Onmanorama.