Death Anniversary of a Marxist

A year after TK Ramachandran had left us many have started idolizing him, it seems. One may find articles in highly conservative periodicals promoting a romanticized image of TK. The kind of interest shown on TK could be of several reasons. The icon-believers may have not come out of his shadow or TK is one of best weapon in the armory to snide Marxist party.

TK was great teacher, a remarkable Marxist scholar and a thinker who desired to be a Lenin like figure. I was a student of TK. He was affectionate towards me. He had never shown any hostility even though I constantly asked irritating doubts. Perhaps, TK did not take me seriously.

He just loathed new political movements and their political agenda. For him, Marxism-Leninism was the ultimate of philosophical inquiry and class was the over-determining agent of social change. TK had deep acquaintance with new critical theories but Adorno and Benjamin were the major theorists for him. While in the last phase of his life, TK was more closely associated with the conservative Marxists who had been purged from the party for questioning what they considered to be revisionism in theory and praxis. TK had been writing for both Samakaleena Malayalam and Janasakthi, periodicals which have been crusading against the reformist tendencies in Marxist party. TK once appeared in a TV news show as well. It was quite interesting. He was representing the classiquoist position in the ideological warfare with the leadership of Marxist party. Not being adapted to the sound bite culture of new TV language unlike his contemporaries and self-styled disciples, he failed to communicate his ideas effectively through this mass medium. TK who could mesmerize students with an abundantly poetic language interlaced with Marxist philosophy for hours was miserable. Perhaps, it was the fag burning between his fingers that propelled TK’s energy. In TV studios, smoking is banned.
Like most of the brilliant young minds of 70s, TK Ramachandran was fascinated by the radical movement. But while many of the radical youngsters of seventies later on aligned with the new political mobilizations of 80s, TK stood with the established Left. In 1997, the Kerala Legislative Assembly passed a Tribal Land Bill with a lone dissent vote by K.R.Gowriamma. Many intellectuals protested that the bill blatantly betrayed the tribal rights over the land. At the time I was a student of TK. The protest led to one of the most remarkable political movements in Kerala. I asked TK about the bill and whether a new subaltern politics was emerging. To both TK replied in negative. He was a bit aggressive as well. Then with considerable affection he explained to me why such movements carried with in it seeds of reactionary ideals. I had very little knowledge about the emergent identity politics. And in fact in that period I was more excited by the eclectic Marxist theorist Frederic Jameson’s reading of postmodernism. Still, one could hear from a distance a small but striking voice of a peoples’ movement marching from a hitherto unknown destination in political topography.

When P.E.Usha was waging a struggle for dignity at the Calicut University campus, TK stood by the rights-violators in the University campus. Solidarity with the organized “working class” was more important for TK than supporting a just struggle. TK not only opposed it but also wrote an article in Desabhimani branding the new struggles as “simulation struggles” (prathithi samaram). The man who vehemently opposed postmodern theorists did not mind to borrow from them to disgrace new struggles for justice.

It was in one of the days during the discussion of first BJP government’s confidence motion in Parliament that I met TK at his apartment. Need not say how agitated TK was. George Fernandez was speaking in defense of the BJP-led government attacking both Congress and the Left. TK rebuked the JP socialists like George Fernandez for their endorsement of right-wing politics and he made the point that a section of Indian socialists were always a compromising class. There was also a fear abounding in him which he shared with many. He spoke about the striking similarities between Nazi rise to power and BJP’s emergence in Indian politics. He worried deeply about the Auschwitzing of Indian society.

TK could’ve done a lot to academics. With Dr.M.V.Narayanan, his best colleague and comrade, he had some plans to start a centre for cultural studies in 1996-97 at Calicut University campus. They had jointly conducted some seminars in this direction. I think the plan did not work out because Dr.MV Narayanan went on leave and TK was unable to execute such things individually.