I have not not read Marx, but, right from my younger days, I have identified myself as a Marxist, having imbibed his philosophy from the life and struggles of the Communist leaders of Kerala. This understanding did not come easily to me, for I grew up in a household and social milieu to which Marx and his ideas were taboo topics.
I have heard that my father used to tear away Communist flag whenever he saw one.
The Church also did not take kindly to Communists, ostracising them from the community. It was after the declaration of Emergency that many of our generation realised what was happening in the country and also the significance of the Communists of Kerala,” he says.
As a young man, I used to read out the day’s headline and the pledge to the students in the morning assembly. One morning in 1975, after the declaration of Emergency, the headmaster told me not to read the headlines from that day onwards. Though I did not understand the intricacies of Emergency, I felt a strong anger at being denied our right to know.
The emergency was a kind of political awakening for many of us. This later grew into a protest against the Church and education based on religion.
More than reading books written by Marx, I got these ideas from seeing and hearing about leaders like AKG, EMS and P. Krishna Pilai.
Their lives were a model for us to follow, and it was from them that we understood properly the ideas that formed the core of Marxism. The realisation of the role played by them in freeing Kerala to an extent from the stranglehold of casteism and inequality made many of us Marxist supporters. But, over the years, the views have evolved and now I feel that there should be a mix of Ambedkarism and Marxism in the Indian situation.
As Ambedkar said, we need to address the social inequalities and caste discrimination, rather than limiting ourselves to economic disparities. Our land relations are different from that in Western countries. Here, ownership of land and the kind of labour you do is intrinsically linked with caste. Without dismantling it, there cannot be any real change.
The author is an actor
(As told to S.R. Praveen)
