This year celebrates the birth centenary of one of the best known theoreticians of Marxism in India, E M Sankaran Namboodiripad, or simply EMS as he was popularly known. 

EMS is projected by the Marxists in Kerala as a person with the aura of a super-hero.  No doubt, he was an intellectual par excellence. He contributed significantly to the development of Marxism in Kerala as well as outside the state.  His government did much for the welfare of the downtrodden in Kerala.  All his greatness notwithstanding, did he have feet of clay?

While I was in Kerala a week back I happened to read an article by M Rasheed in a Malayalam weekly, Madhyamam, about the other side of EMS.  I thought it important for all of us to know the ignored side of projected histories.  Hence I would like to present here some of the arguments put forward by Rasheed to show that EMS wasn't a super-hero after all.  My intention is not to belittle EMS but to draw the readers' attention to the possible distortions in similar legends.  It may prevent undue glorification of people, unnecessary violence in the names of assumed heroes. 

As a young man EMS read History of the Russian Revolution by Trotsky and was enamoured of it.  He summarised the book in a Malayalam version and acclaimed Trotsky as the world's revolutionary hero.  However, soon EMS realised the folly of his deed.  How can anyone survive in the world of Marxist politics acclaiming Trotsky as the Hero while Stalin reigned supreme in Russia?  EMS made a hasty confession that he had made the mistake of acclaiming as a hero the person who was in fact a stooge of American imperialism and fascist rulers.  EMS started singing paeans to Stalin.  He used his brilliant brain to render theoretical nuances to Stalin's diktats.  There was hardly anyone in the Party at that time who had the intellectual calibre of EMS.  Even if there were, they wouldn't have been allowed to survive.  A K Pillai's case is an example.  When he began to prove his intellectual superiority he was persecuted and eventually packed off to Madras.

The same EMS who had written against Fascism started defending Stalin's friendship with Hitler.  His view of the World War II underwent changes according to Stalin's somersaults.  The Communist Party of India had opposed the Quit India Movement and EMS was in the forefront of those opponents.  EMS also defended Jinna's advocacy of the Partition of India, though towards the end of his life he denied it.  However, his writings of the period from 1941 to 1947 bear witness to his dishonesty in this regard.  EMS lent his support to Jinna because he had vainly dreamt of a Marxist government in Pakistan!

When the Communist Party of India split EMS stayed away from both the factions until he could definitively ascertain which faction would be stronger and of advantage to himself.  The advantage was not just the greater number of members in the CPI (Marxist) faction but also the absence of great leaders in it.  All the renowned leaders like K Damodaran, Unni Raja and M S Devdas had decided to stay put with CPI.  So EMS was sure to be acclaimed as the leader in CPM. Soon legends were created about this great leader.

One of the legends is that EMS had sold all his property in order to start the Marxist newspaper, Deshabhimani (which still survives despite many controversies that plagued it recently).  The truth, however, is that EMS had only sold a fraction of his property for the sake of the Party. 

Some of these may be understood as the usual human frailties.  After all, EMS too was a man like all of us and hence was entitled to have some frailties.  But that precisely is what I have been trying to say: many of our super-heroes are mere projections born of our quest for heroes.  It may not be worth killing or indulging in any violent activities in the names of such people or the organisations or parties or institutions established by them. 

PS. This is a highly condensed version of M Rasheed's article.