People from various walks of life visited the Hill View residence of K. Madhavan at Nellikkattu here to offer their felicitations to the ‘Gandhian Communist’ and lone surviving member of the Guruvayur Satyagraha as he turned 101 on Wednesday.
The function was presided over by MLA E. Chandrashekharan. Political party leaders, including District Congress Committee president C.K. Sreedharan, CPI(M) district secretary K.P. Satheeshchandran, senior BJP leader Madikkai Kammaran and State Library Council secretary P. Appukkuttan joined the function to honour Mr. Madhavan who managed to create ripples in his society by upholding the communist ideals braving hostile circumstances.
Born on August 26, 1915, in an aristocratic Nair family here, K. Madhavan was initiated into the freedom movement in north Kerala at the age of 13 as a volunteer of 1928 Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee conference held in Payyannur, which was addressed by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
Mr. Madhavan was the youngest among the 32 members who took part in the march taken out from Calicut (Kozhikode) to Payyannur as part of the Salt Satyagraha movement, launched in Kerala under the leadership of K. Kelappan.
When K. Kelappan launched the Guruvayur Satyagraha seeking entry for all, he was chosen as a volunteer of the march taken out from Kannur to Guruvayur under the leadership of T.S. Thirumump and A.K. Gopalan.
In 1934, Mr. Madhavan came under the influence of Socialist ideologists and became active in the Socialist wing of the Indian National Congress.
When the peasant organisation was formed in 1937, he was chosen as secretary of the Kasaragod taluk committee.
Apparently influenced by the ideologies of P. Krishna Pillai and A.K. Gopalan, Mr. Madhavan eventually became active in the Communist movement after the party was formed in Malabar in 1939.
In 1995, he quit politics and proclaimed himself a Gandhian Communist, choosing to respond to all social issues at the individual level.
