Sulking 'leader' remains a riddle

By K.M. Thampi

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, APRIL 8.All eyes in Kerala and many in other parts of the country are on the veteran Congress leader, Mr. K.

Karunakaran. They are watching without batting an eyelid to find out what his next move is. The question on many a lip as the drama in the Congress is fast moving towards the climax is -- how will it end?

Mr. Karunakaran's rebellion against, what he described as, the raw deal given to his group by the party in the seat allocation for the coming Assembly elections has once again brought into sharp focus the long period which he had dominated in Kerala politics. His ardent admirers think that it was the golden age and his detractors believe that it was the dark age of Kerala. Such is the fierce loyalty and intense hatred which the man who is considered as a riddle, nay even a conundrum in Kerala politics, has generated. His character and action do not permit others to take the middle path.

Whatever his detractors say, nobody can deny the fact that he had strode over the State's politics for over half a century taking key positions at the giving and receiving ends by turns. His admirers credit him with having risen phoenix-like from the very jaws of death after a serious road accident once and from political oblivion twice. Even though many of their claims are likely to be dismissed as exaggerated, it is a fact that some of the records set by him in State politics are unbreakable and are enough to place him in a class of his own. Because of them, he will always have a special place in the history of the State.

Mr. Karunakaran entered politics through the freedom movement when he was only a student and had to undergo imprisonment many times for his involvement in it. After Independence, he concentrated on organising the trade union movement and became a founder member and later president of the INTUC(I) in Kerala. His role in breaking a strike during his trade union days earned him the nickname "karinkali" (black leg), which his opponents use against him in private even now. Once he entered active politics, there was no looking back. He opened his innings as member of the Thrissur municipality in 1945-47. The following year he was elected to the Cochin Legislative Assembly and after that to the Travancore Cochin Legislative Assembly in 1952 and 1954. He was first elected to the Kerala Assembly in 1965 and after that in 1967, 1970, 1977, 1980, 1982, 1987 and 1991. He has held the position of chairman of the Public Accounts Committee of the Assembly and the Chief Whip and the Leader of the Congress Legislature Party.

Mr. Karunakaran's big break came when C. Achutha Menon decided to retire after heading a ministry for seven long years, thanks to the internal Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi and he was chosen to head the ministry after the 1977 elections. But he had to bow out of office within a month because of the adverse remarks against him by the Kerala High Court in an Emergency- related case. Mr. Karunakaran was the Home Minister during the Emergency and was believed to have been behind the police excesses committed during the period. A protracted legal battle and much negative publicity followed. Even his most ardent admirers thought that his political life was over. Any other person would have called it a day but not Mr. Karunakaran. After lying low for some time, he bounced back with a bang to head the UDF ministry of 1981. Even though that ministry lasted for only three months, he was chosen to head the next ministry too which was formed by the UDF after the 1982 elections. That ministry is credited with being the first in Kerala to complete its full term in normal times.

The UDF came to power again only in 1991 and when it did, it was Mr. Karunakaran whom it chose again as leader and Chief Minister. His second fall came, this time a physical one in the form of a near-fatal car accident, during the initial days of the ministry. This time too, nobody thought that he would make a come-back. But he did, thanks to the best medical treatment he got in the country and abroad and his fighting instinct. The man who was taken abroad in a stretcher was seen running up flights of steps within days of return after treatment, to the surprise of everyone. It was probably the long period which he took to recover that upset the rhythm of that Government. Reports that a group consisting of his relatives and cronies known as the Cliff House (the Chief Minister's official residence) caucus was ruling the State during his illness gained credence. The capture of the KPCC(I) leadership by his group around that time allegedly with the help of the police and official machinery worsened the situation. To cut a long story short, Mr. Karunakaran who was considered invincible then by friends and foes alike because of the role he had played in making Mr. P.V.Narasimha Rao Prime Minister tumbled like a Goliath before Mr. A.K. Antony's David.

His rivals in the party and the UDF ganged up to kick him upstairs so to say by getting him elected to the Rajya Sabha, and declared solemnly that it was the end of his political life and followed it up with an `Amen'. But he ended up by becoming the Union Industries Minister and crossing swords with none other than the international automobile giant Mr. O. Suzuki. One of his biggest blows came when he and his son were defeated in the 1996 Lok Sabha elections but he could continue as Rajya Sabha member. It was his first major electoral setback after he entered active politics and it really brought him down, but he was still far from out.

Mr. Karunakaran who had been feeling uneasy about his role as Rajya Sabha member virtually twisted his party' arm to field him in the Thiruvananthapuram seat in the Lok Sabha elections held in 1998. He went on to win it by a handsome margin belying doomsday predictions. But his son was defeated again even though he had shifted to what they believed was the comparatively safer Thrissur Lok Sabha seat. The duo took sweet revenge more on the detractors of their own party than on the LDF when both of them won the last Lok Sabha election, the father from Mukundapuram and the son from Kozhikode.

His followers have no doubt that he will survive the present crisis too and even emerge stronger from it. Such is the faith they repose in him. Time alone can prove or disprove them -- at least this time.

Mr. Karunakaran is no giant physically, intellectually or administratively. Physically he is a small, diminutive man who developed a hunch after the road accident. Intellectually, he is not even a shadow of his mentor Panampilly Govinda Menon and is known to be a hater of letters who confuses between even Tolstoy and Trotsky. He is never credited with the administrative skills of an Achutha Menon. But he has the stuff in him, the political acumen in him which make others address him as ``leader''.

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