Seven years ago,to be precise, on May 10, 2016, Sitaram Yechuri remarked famously at a press meet held at AKG Centre in Thiruvananthapuram : ''V S Achuthanandan is the Fidel Castro of Kerala. He will continue to guide and inspire the party.'' Sitting close to Yechury was Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, the then CPM state secretary. While comparing VS to Fidel, there was an impish smile on Yechury's face. Fidel is younger to VS by three years. VS was born in 1923. Fidel came to this earth in 1926. Apart from this factor of contemporariness, there are no other similarities between VS and Fidel. Yechuri knew this and this very realisation might have made him frolicsome during the press meet. Fidel was the unquestionable leader of Cuba. His leadership within the party too was unchallenged. But VS had no such leeways. He was virtually in the opposition within his party during the period 2006-2011 when he was the Chief Minister. And the moment CPM decided to anoint Pinarayi Vijayan as the CM in 2016, VS became an obsolete algorithm for the party.

VS will turn 100 years old tomorrow (  October 20). He must be feeling right now like the protagonist of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' novel 'The Autumn of the Patriarch.' Just like trees, human beings too experience a fall season. But, trees do have a continuation. No tree gets extinct just like that. The question that must be raised inevitably at this point of time is whether VS has any successors within CPM.

Prof M Kunhaman, a prominent social scientist in Kerala makes a pertinent observation about VS in his autobiography titled 'Ethiru' (Defiance). Kunhaman had decided to join Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Tuljapur after resigning from Kerala University. He went to the secretariat to meet comrade VS who was then the CM of Kerala before leaving for Tuljapur. Now let me quote Kunhaman: '' VS was sitting there, just like one of us.'' This sentence sums up VS in totality. Kunhaman tells us vividly without any twists and turns how VS had evolved into the most popular CM and leader Kerala has ever seen. Kunhaman elaborated on this point later in a conversation. '' I won't use the word 'power' when I speak of VS. We don't feel power around VS. It's a kind of organic, moral force.'' VS never found power as a tool to subjugate others.

Prof M N Vijayan, the renowned intellectual of Kerala, once remarked that VS was a man who was fed on defeats. VS lost his mother when he was 4 years old. His mother died of smallpox which had no treatment then. Those who got infected by the virus were left to solitary confinement in thatched huts on the other side of the rivulet. VS has written about the sight of his mother who was looking at him intently through the holes of a window from the hut. This is one memory that has been haunting VS throughout his life. When his father died, VS had to drop out of school at the age of 11. From then onwards life itself was VS' school and university. VS is defined and determined by defeats more than victories. As Prof Kunhaman has pointed out, we celebrate victories but we learn from defeats. One can't complete the political life sketch of VS without taking into account  his defeat at the Mararikulam Assembly seat in 1996 and the  setback he had to face in the much hyped mission against the real estate mafia in Munnar.

His expulsion from the politburo too can be placed along this chain of setbacks. But when we look at it through the prism of Kunhaman's perspective, these defeats metamorphose into victories. These drubbings are in fact standing testimonies to the triumphs of whatever values VS has been fighting for throughout his life. It is in these premises that Yechuri's comparison of VS with Fidel turns out to be an absurd joke. These are the days Kerala is going through natural calamities as a result of global warming and climate change. The floods of 2018, 2019 and 2021 must remind us not only of Madhav Gadgil's report on the Western Ghats but also the green politics that VS has been upholding.

This is the politics that stands by the weak and the marginalised. It is the voice that is raised for the oppressed. P K Vasudevan Nair, the  Chief Minister of Kerala during the days of the Silent Valley protests famously said that ecology was a luxury for Keralites. Silent Valley exposed the ecological illiteracy of Kerala's political leadership. Even EMS, the foremost leader of CPM, fell into this trap. Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India alone was an exception in this barren terrain of political myopia. It goes without saying that Silent Valley was saved ultimately thanks to the timely intervention of Indira. And if there is one leader in Kerala who followed in the footsteps of Indira in this direction, it is none other than VS.

No mafia has been able to tempt or subdue VS. Prof Kunhaman recalls the image of VS sitting on the CM's chair sweating profusely. That is VS. He has never fallen into the trap of comforts that power offers. The question of how far CPM has taken up the legal battles of VS including the ones against R Balakrishna Pillai and P K Kunhalikutty ,  is fundamentally a moral one. The observation of Berlin Kunhanathan Nair, writer and CPM activist, that EMS and VS are the only leaders from Kerala who have refused to be entertained by Captain Krishnan Nair, the owner of the Leela hotel group must be recorded here. The fact that VS has no successors within CPM has to be read along with this. That Pinarayi Vijayan has emerged  as the sole face and voice of CPM should also be analysed in this context. Look at the present Pinarayi cabinet. All the ministers from CPM are new faces. But none among them is neither a disciple nor a follower of VS. Those who make compromises and strike a Faustian bargain can never claim to be the torchbearers of VS' legacy.

VS will never preside over a Left Democratic government that permits quarries within the distance of 50 metres from residential buildings.  One of the glaring acts by the Pinarayi government after it took charge in 2016 was sanctioning quarries with no holds barred. It's shocking that there are 5,924 quarries in a small state like Kerala. It is reported that most of these quarries are functioning without proper permits. The Kerala government gave sanctions to 223 quarries in one year even after the 2018 floods. The BusinessLine (October 23, 2021)  published a report on the violation of KCZMA rules. The news story is based on the CAG report which reveals that many leading hotels in Kerala are functioning without the clearance certificate from KCZMA.  These quarries and the CAG report make it abundantly clear why VS is anathema to the ruling establishment.

Prabhat Patnaik, a leading economist and fellow traveller had penned a profound note on VS in February 2013. Patnaik had pointed out that it was difficult to find a communist leader who enjoys such mass popularity as VS Achuthanandan after the end of the classical period of communism. Patnaik ends the note this way: '' The basis for VS' popularity lies essentially in the fact that, with his simple lifestyle, his integrity, and his abiding commitment to the egalitarian values, he embodies the great tradition of Kerala.''

No man is perfect. Therefore it will be an unforgivable crime to equate VS with Gods. What makes VS the tallest leader in Kerala and India is that VS is not free of flaws but he is deeply entrenched in a value system that could overcome these deficiencies. VS has never been under the shadow of any scandal. VS has had  close association with power-12 years as CPM state secretary, 10 years as Opposition leader, and 5 years as CM- but all this intimacy with power has not soiled or wrinkled VS, the man and the leader.

When T P Chandrashekaran was brutally killed on May 4th 2012, VS raised a pertinent question: ''How can a man cut another human being into pieces? What is the meaning of being called a human being?' VS upholds the flag of humanity, not that of a party. Che Guevara was shot dead by the Bolivian soldiers on October 8, 1967. Che's last words to Sgt. Jaime Terán were these: 'I know you've come to kill me,' he said: '' Shoot, you are only going to kill a man.'' Yechury should have compared VS to Che, not to Fidel. Che is no longer confined to the frames of a party. He belongs to the whole world now. We know that VS doesn't belong to any single party. He belongs to the whole of Kerala and the whole world. That may mark VS as the last communist in Kerala. A communist who raises the flag of internationalism. He can't surrender to the corporations. He can't remain subdued to the party. He walks alone through the path he chooses. One can't but remember the lines by Robert Frost:

''Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.''

All the rebels are fundamentally solitary travellers. They can never be the byproducts of the establishments. They aim at reconstructing and reformulating the world. The fact that VS has no successors within his party shows the depth and width of the ideological poverty that Kerala is encountering these days.The fact that VS doesn't have any successors in his party  in no way diminishes his stature. He is not the asset of a single party. Even if no party comes forward to claim his legacy, VS still will be the evergreen presence in the hearts of millions of people in Kerala.