“Pinarayi Vijayan has an inflated ego unlike any other politician in Kerala’s history. He simply can not stand anyone who could cast a shadow of threat in his path. When he is hurt, he will go to whatever length to ensure that the person standing opposite to him perish. Tragically, that occurred to me as well.” Says Pandyala Shaji a former communist party leader.
Sri Shaji (57), the son of the late Pandyala Gopalan, one of Kannur’s top prominent politicians, had been a victim of political violence in 1993 when he had been assaulted by CPI-M workers. Shaji was a leader of the Communist Marxist Party, closely working with Melathu Veettil Raghavan at the period – The CMP was established in 1986 when M. V. Raghavan, the leader of the CPI-M, was expelled from the party owing to a major disagreement over the establishment of coalitions with the Indian Union Muslim League.
“My father used to say that one has no right to be in politics if one’s opponent can’t be respected, but obviously his disciple Pinarayi Vijayan didn’t get the message right”. Says Shaji. His father Pandyala Gopalan was Vijayan’s political mentor.
According to Shaji, Vijayan despised him for a variety of reasons, some of which he would be unable to discuss in public. In 1983, he recounts an event with a group of CPM officials attempting to take over a parallel college in Thalassery without compensating the tutors or maintaining employment for them in that college. Pinarayi Vijayan was merely a member of the district committee at the time, but he was involved in the operation to attach the parallel college to a CPI-M ruled co-operative college. I was too young and with the SFI at the time. We had organised protests with the help of certain tutors. I raised some anti-Pinarayi slogans during a march in Thalassery town because Pinarayi Vijayan wasn’t considering the struggles of the tutors in the parallel college.
The matter was taken up by the party since it had become a spat between Pinarayi and the Dharmadam local committees, and leaders such as Vijayan and Shaji attended a conciliatory meeting. Shaji was urged to apologise to Vijayan. Shaji stated that all party members possess equal rights. He’s willing to apologise. Vijayan, on the other side, should apologise for intervening in the matter unnecessarily.
He recounts another instance involving a class for SFI students held at the Kannur district committee headquarters. The class was to be led by P Govinda Pillai. Pillai was unable to attend for whatever reason, and Pinarayi Vijayan took his place. Rather than giving a class, he just went over the contents of the day’s main headline in Desabhimani newspaper. Later, when I made a joke about it, he took it as an insult and swung his finger at me in fury. I, too, pointed my finger at him, stating that no one in the party had more entitlements than the other.
According to Shaji, a third incident occurred as a result of the SFI’s agitation against the ‘Pinarayi Industrial Cooperative Society’. At the time, the president of the society was Pinarayi Vijayan, and the students had staged a dharna in front of the society office over an ITI course issue. “When Pinarayi noticed students in front of his office, he kicked a few of them to make way for him. The students were enraged and shouted slogans against Pinarayi. Pinarayi’s rage grew as he assumed I was the reason for the commotion”.
During this time, he quit the CPM and worked closely with MV Raghavan’s new party, the CMP. According to Shaji MVR wanted him to speak at public functions organised by CMP since he was a talented orator. Pinarayi may have been irritated by his speeches as well. When MVR was designated Minister of Cooperation, Shaji was tasked with organising institutions in Pinarayi, a CPM stronghold.
“In 1993, I was able to raise Rs 4 lakh from Pinarayi (a place) alone for the society we were intending to establish. We had built a structure in Pinarayi that was demolished by CPM workers during the AKG Hospital election and the ensuing unrest in the district. The foundation was destroyed as well”. Shaji was attacked by CPM workers as a result of the violence.
“Around ten CPM workers assaulted me from behind as I got off a bus at the hospital bus stop in Pinarayi, while I was having tea from a neighbouring shop. Iron rods and knives were used to assault me. The assailants barricaded both sides of the road, ensuring that no one would carry me to the hospital. Congress leader Mambaram Divakaran, who have heard about the assault, rushed in two Jeeps with his men and rushed me to a Thalassery hospital. I was therefore taken to Manipal Medical College in Mangalore. People thought I wouldn’t survive since I was comatose for three weeks”. He was hospitalised in AKG hospital Kannur for 7 months, “My days passed staring at the ceiling fan, laying down on the bed with no clothes as my injuries wouldn’t let me wear any clothes. Doctors suggested amputating my right leg which was shattered by taking the beatings of rebar steel rods”. He was dreaming of paying back the agony he’s going through. “Every day I dreamed of Killing Pinarayi Vijayan, which is a basic instinct of human beings. Otherwise, there’s only water is running through my veins”. Shaji adds.
He says the attack was so serious that he is now unable to walk normally. “Look at me, a lifeless corpse is what you see. They scream about democratic principles, yet look at what they’ve done to me. So, what was my mistake? I stood up to Pinarayi Vijayan and spoke my mind. The attack was solely motivated by this”.
When Pinarayi Vijayan was the district secretary of the CPI-M in Kannur, there was never any peace. While he was secretary, the majority of political killings took place. Shaji continues, he also recalls another murder committed by CPI-M goons.
“There was one guy called Madayan Babu in the neighbouring village called Venduttayi. He has brutally murdered his goons, Pinarayi Vijayan was the mastermind in that murder. Madayan Babu was an ex-CPIM member, a very well-built guy with a terrible temper. He had left CPI-M for some reason and the party leadership wanted to eradicate him. Later when we started CPM in 1986, Babu joined our party. I personally didn’t want to keep Babu in our party because he was a short-tempered man. I knew he would eventually become a burden for us. But MV Ragahavan insisted on giving him membership in our party”.
“CPI-M workers kept on having confrontations with Babu, Babu ignored and moved on with his well-digging business as we told him that we cannot afford enmities with CPI-M workers. After a while, CPI-M workers killed him while he was returning home early morning in a place called Thiruvangadi. He was hacked by his neck using Koduval (billhook machete) and stabbed in the chest with a Trishul-like knife. CPI-M workers didn’t even let us do proper last rites to his body. They stopped his neighbours from giving us electricity for that night. Such uncultured barbarians, they didn’t even let us rent a gas lantern for his cremation. We had to bury him at night in the light of flambeau troches”.
Years passed, despite the fact that a police report was filed in connection with the murder attempt on Shaji, he was unable to prove anything against the assailants since no one was willing to testify in court afraid of CPI-M goons. They mocked me as they roamed freely in front of my eyes. That is the political style of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Kerala’s top CPI-M leader,” Shaji, who is no longer involved in politics, adds.