(Com.Abdul Khader passed away this morning. He will be missed. I extend my heartfelt condolences to his wife, family and fellow comrades. I had written this about him earlier when I had met him)
" അടിയന്തിരാവസ്ഥ അറബിക്കടലിൽ "
INDIA IS NOT INDIRA !
literally meaning
Dump Emergency in the Arabian Sea
INDIA IS NOT INDIRA!
was a slogan that was hand painted in between hammer and sickle symbols on the walls of an old building adjoining NH 66 at Karivellur that people of the region and thousands who travelled to and fro through the busy highway have seen many times before the building itself was dismantled for widening the road. I had seen the writing whenever I passed through the highway innumerable times as a child and seen it painted anew every year as I grew up till one day it vanished with the building. But these words surely must have been written with a rare indelible ink that none who saw it could erase it from their minds, though it is much later many of us came to know what emergency meant and how important these words were.
My village, like most villages in Kerala very vociferously keeps memories of its struggles alive and what proved to be the writing on the wall for Mrs.Gandhi is just one of these memories.
A facebook post by dear friend Sajith about the writing on the wall and the person who originally painted it refreshed my memory of the wall shouting out why such walls and wall writings are ever more relevant in the present times. These lines were supposedly inspired by Com.EMS Namboodirippad’s famous riposte to the sycophantic proclamation of Dev Kant Barooah, the President of Indian National Congress during the Emergency “India is Indira. Indira is Indira”. The story of Com. Abdul Khader who took great risk to write these lines and the love of his life Kalyani told to us by Sajith is a story to be told for a wider world to hear. Today I visited Khaderkka and Kalyaniechi at their home with Sajith and my brother. He recollected the experiences with great enthusiasm.
Abdul Khader (left) and Vijoo Krishnan with Khader and his wife Kalyani
To the right of the National Highway that cuts through the length of Kerala even as it unites the southernmost tip of Indian peninsula to its northernmost tip was situated the old dilapidated two storey tiled building on which the two lines were written in Malayalam and English. Even as he claimed his memories were fading with age when he was reminded of the two lines 77 year old Khaderkka recollected the incident with the enthusiasm of the young communist who had written it in the heydays of the Emergency. He recollects the dark days when Indira Gandhi’s proclamation of the Emergency throttled democracy and shackled civil liberties.
“Repression reigned and none had the freedom of speech or expression, Communist Party leaders were all either under arrest or underground. News spread like wildfire that Mrs.Gandhi was to travel by car from Mangalore towards south along the Highway. The protest of this land had to be registered before the autocrat at any cost." It is that feeling that drove the Beedi workers for whom the red flag of the hammer and sickle hadfought many a battle to embark on such an adventure.
To the east of the National Highway was the longish two storeyed building of Shivarayappa which was home to the Beedi factory. It took courage to hang on the
lintel of coconut palm that supported the tiles overhead the old dilapidated two-storeyed building and paint the two lines on a wall of about 6ft height. Khaderkka with a bucket of lime in his hand and a coirbrush with his comrade-in-arms Mantri Haji in tow to assist him wrote the political slogan raised by Com.EMS that the people of Kerala raised in unison with closed fists.Their fellow comrades, the beedi workers stood vigil below raising the slogans that were being written in bold. It is said in those parts that if only Indira Gandhi would have passed through the way history of India would have been different. Folklore has it that intelligence reports forced her to abandon travel by road and fly to her destination instead.
Today, apart from the countless memories the wall writing has been immortalized by Karivellur’s own photochronicler Bharathan Karivellur of Bindu Studios. His pictures
probably are the only concrete proof that links that old dilapidated building and the bold words with the present times apart from the many who continue the fight imbibing the spirit of those words.
Known to all fondly as Beedikkaran Khadercha, Khader’s name came to be associated with his job in the beedi company as a beedi-roller. He stays in a humble house not too far away from the Highway with his wife Com.Kalyani. Their daughters Shiny and Reshma are married and stay separately. In early 1973 defying the opposition of many conservatives and her own family Kalyani had left home to marry Khadercha in a model register marriage at the Payyannur Registrar’s office. She could not go home even when her parents passed away. Their lives also point to the need for present day Kerala to fight retrograde practices like caste discrimination and oppression as well as conservative values. Couple who struggled through life and remained steadfast with the red flag have pledged their bodies to the Medical College for research by students. It is such flag-bearers that should be remembered always even as the flame of struggles are handed over from one generation to another.
As we took leave Com.Khader said that when attacks on the left and toiling masses have been increasing he regrets that people like him were not able to actively contribute. That concern shows their love and commitment; it is their struggles and sacrifices which have kept the red flag flying. You shall continue to inspire comrades. We shall overcome.
(Vijoo Krishnan is central Committe Member of the CPIM and Joint Secretary of All India Kisan Sabha.)
