TAMIL
Socialist politician
SE. GANESALINGAN
VARALATRUDAN PAYANITHTHA MAAMANITHAR: A.V. Anilkumar; Vikatan Pirasuram, 757, Anna Salai, Chennai-600002. Rs. 55.
THE BOOK, as the title states, is the “historic travels of a great man”, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, well known as EMS, who was the first elected Communist Chief Minister in the world in 1957. The book was originally published in Malayalam and received the Sahitya Academy award in Kerala. The translation in Tamil is by D.K. Ravindran.
EMS’s life history is elaborately narrated in three sections. The first compares him, E.M. Sankaran, with Adi Sankara, the ninth century spiritual leader. The author states that Kerala gave birth to two Sankaras, Adi Sankara and E.M. Sankaran.
The second section is on EMS, the individual, and on his role in the political movement of that time, and the third is on his personality and contribution to Indian politics and the Communist Party.
EMS’s life-sketch, including the more than six years he spent underground, is presented with about 30 photographs that show him with leading political figures of India and abroad.
Born in an orthodox, feudal Brahmin family of Kerala, he dropped out of school to join the civil disobedience movement in 1932. He was imprisoned for six years. It was in prison that he studied politics, influenced by imprisoned political leaders, and Marxist ideology. EMS went on to become a socialist and then a Marxist theoretician of the Communist Party.
In 1957, he became the Chief Minister and was in the post for 28 months when his government was dismissed under Article 356 of the Constitution. Besides being a leading politician, EMS was interested in literature, history and the social sciences.
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