Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

A Gandhian and Marxist

C. Gouridasan Nair

Surendranath devoted a major part of his life to organise workers

K.V. Surendranath

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: There are only a few who could claim to be a Gandhian in word, deed and life, but at the same time be a Marxist. K. V. Surendranath was one of them. Surendranath represented an interesting tradition in Indian communist movement, that of a generation steeped in the Indian ethos and philosophy, but for whom this understanding and exposure proved to be the bedrock on which they founded their enquiries into the million mutinies that have always marked the Indian reality.

Surendranath's life as a political activist began when, as a 10-year-old, he touched Gandhiji when he reached Thiruvananthapuram in 1937 to address a massive gathering after the Temple Entry Proclamation. Young Surendranath learnt politics listening to speeches at the railway station maidan at Thampanoor in the city, but had his baptism when he, along with a few others, formed the Thiruvananthapuram Students Organisation (TSO) during the lull after the Quit India movement. The Gandhian slowly turned to Fabian Socialism of George Bernard Shaw and later to the `Communist Manifesto' to emerge as a full-time Communist under the legendary leadership of K.C. George, the single most important influence on his life.

Affection and regard for Gandhiji was something that he shared with George and, may be, also P. Krishna Pillai, the founder-leader of the Communist movement in Kerala. This is how Surendranath recalled his affinity towards Gandhiji in an interview: "Although, after having started out as a Congressman and travelling through the path of armed revolution, I became a mature Communist, Gandhiji was always a shining presence in my mind. What shocked me most in my life was Gandhiji's assassination. I heard about it on the radio when I was sitting with P. Krishna Pillai. I told Comrade about it. He sat shell-shocked. It was not just Gandhiji's death, but also the threat that Hindu communalism posed that we pondered about." Surendranath devoted a major part of his life to organise workers in different industries. Between 1954 and 1971, he was president of 17 major trade unions, but withdrew from the trade union front the next year. He was no mere trade unionist. He was at once a man of action and an academic and set up a trade union school and an ideological journal `Marxist Veekshanam' to promote study of working class politics. He ran the school for 12 years from 1968, but gave up deeply hurt by the general apathy towards serious study and the conditions in which the working class finds itself in a changing world. He could move with ease from Marxism-Leninism to Bhagavad Gita and see valuable lessons in bothThe end of the 70s saw him in the forefront of the nascent environment movement.

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