People's Democracy

Com N Varadharajan:

A Comrade of Great Dedication

G Ramakrishnan

THOUGH several days have passed since the passing away of Comrade N Varadharajan - or Com NV as he was fondly called by all comrades – it is proving extremely difficult to come to terms with this fact. This is a feeling shared by all the comrades who have worked closely with him for many years. A calm and serene person, a man of few words who could at the same time voice his views with great clarity and conviction, endearingly simple and, above all, a most untiring worker and leader of the Left and of the CPI(M) – this was Comrade NV!

FROM PEASANT TO

COMMUNIST LEADER

Com NV was born into a middle peasant family in Kambiliyampatti, an interior village in Vedasandur taluk,  located in Dindigul district of the state of Tamilnadu. His formal education stopped with the eighth class. NV became a worker in a textile mill at a very young age. He was dismissed by the employer for taking part in trade union activities. He became a whole time worker of the undivided Communist Party in Dindigul town. Through phenomenal dedication and tireless work, Comrade NV rose to several positions of successively greater responsibility in the Party.

Com NV succeeded the legendary Comrade A Balasubramanian (known widely and affectionately as Com AB) as the secretary of the large, undivided Madurai district (since trifurcated into Madurai, Dindigul and Theni districts). While Com AB took over the reins of the Party as the secretary of the Tamilnadu state committee and went on to become a member of the Polit Bureau before his untimely demise in 1981, Com NV continued the work of building the Party in Madurai district and later moved to the Party state centre, eventually succeeding N Sankaraiah as the secretary of the Tamilnadu state committee. He also became a member of the Central Committee. It was only at the 20th Party Congress in Kozhikode that Com NV was relieved from the CC on grounds of poor health. Throughout his Party life – and this formed practically his entire life since he joined the Party at a very young age, in his teens – Com NV served the Party and the people with distinction by discharging with utmost sincerity every responsibility that the Party entrusted to him.

The Party entrusted Com NV with several positions of increasing responsibility precisely because he constantly developed himself as a communist leader capable of taking on new challenges, learning all the time, and being unswerving in his political commitment and convictions. While the Party has an important role to play in the development of a comrade in political, ideological and organisational terms, the efforts of the individual comrade are also equally important. The growth of a comrade is the product of both the efforts of the collective leadership of the Party at various levels and the initiative and efforts of the concerned comrade. Com NV stands testimony to this proposition in its most positive sense.

Com NV had the opportunity of beginning his political life by working closely with Comrade AB, an outstanding leader of the Party. During the 1940s, when AB and NV worked among the dalit workers in the leather tanning units in Dindigul, the dalit workers faced severe social oppression. The tea shops in Begumpur and Dindigul would not serve the dalits as they did other clients. The dalits would have to pick up tea glasses painted green and resting on  bamboo sticks, get their tea, drink it, clean the glass and replace the glass to its original position. These glasses would only be used by dalits, and no caste Hindu would use them. Com NV fought alongside Com AB against these and other forms of social oppression more than sixty years ago! Decades later, as the secretary of the CPI(M) in Tamilnadu, Com NV led the struggle against all forms of untouchability and for reservation in education and employment for the most oppressed segment of dalits, the arunthathiyars, who  traditionally worked with leather.

STEELED IN

STRUGGLES

When the undivided Communist Party was banned in 1948, Com NV was among those arrested and jailed. Comrade A Nallasivan (known to comrades as AN), a veteran leader of the Party who served as the secretary of the Tamilnadu state committee and a member of the Polit Bureau of the CPI(M), was in jail along with NV. While AN and NV were in jail in Madurai, a police constable and a member of the Party, Comrade Balu was sentenced to death. The night before Com Balu’s execution, all the comrades kept on shouting slogans in protest through out the night. The police brutally attacked the comrades who wanted to catch a glimpse of Com Balu before his execution. NV was among the leaders who participated in this struggle. During his political life, Com NV spent more than two years in jail. He was underground on several occasions, including the Emergency period between 1975 and 1977.

Com NV worked from the Party state centre from 1985. During the nearly three decades from 1985 until his passing away, Com NV not only led several political struggles, but also guided the work of comrades in various mass organisations. These included, among others, the All India Kisan Sabha, the All India Agricultural Workers Union, school and college teachers’ organisations and organisations of state government employees. He also helped several district committees of the Party in resolving organisational issues and expanding the Party and mass organisations led by it. He would even sit through committee meetings below the district level when the situation warranted that. He would listen keenly and with great patience to the views of all comrades and then sum up the discussion with precision, drawing the appropriate inferences for taking the issue at hand forward. All this entailed extensive travel across the length and breadth of the state by any available mode of transport, including in unreserved second class train compartments overnight. Com NV never hesitated to undertake these difficult journeys in the service of the Party, even when he was well into his 70s.

LEGISLATOR AND

LEADER

Com NV served as the member of the District Board of the undivided Madurai district. He also served three terms as a member of the Legislative Assembly. When holding such legislative positions, he was very good at combining such work with the work of the democratic movement, serving the people and the Party in the process. While NV did not get much of a formal education, he had learned a great deal from his political and organisational work, and could communicate complex political ideas very effectively to a wide variety of audiences, ranging from rural labour to university professors! He was a powerful speaker, capable of rousing cadres into militant political action. He has written several articles from time to time, relating both to contemporary politics and to the history of the Party.  It would be no exaggeration to say that he became one of the tallest leaders of the Party in Tamilnadu by dint of his hard work and the proactive initiative that he displayed throughout his political life.

Com NV played a particularly important role in stabilising and expanding the Party daily Theekkathir . If Theekkathir now comes out in four editions across the state, NV’s role in this growth has indeed been crucial.

NV was always firm in understanding and implementing without hesitation the political and organisational line of the Party. In all-Party meetings, he would present the Party’s stand effectively and uncompromisingly. At times, when the Party had to swim against the tide, NV played a key role in taking the line of the Party to the people.

A DEDICATED

COMMUNIST

NV has worked together with a long line of illustrious leaders who built the Communist movement in Tamilnadu, including Comrades P Ramamurthy, M R Venkataraman, Jeevanandham, A Balasubramanian, V P Chinthan, A Nallasivan, N Sankaraiah, P Ramachandran, R Umanath and R Nallakannu. For Com NV, his personal life and Party life were never separate. He lived the life of a dedicated communist till his last breath. Though his health had been indifferent for over two years now, with his sugar levels fluctuating a great deal and with increasing frequency in recent months, Com NV was keen to take part in the historic event of the 20th Party Congress. The Party deputed a comrade to be with him and to attend to his needs during the Congress at Kozhikode. Com NV followed the Congress proceedings keenly, despite his failing health. However, his health worsened during the days the Congress was going on, and he had to be admitted into a hospital in Kozhikode. After a couple of days, he had recovered sufficiently to travel to Chennai at the conclusion of the Congress. He returned to Chennai the morning of April 10 and asked to be driven straight to the Party office. He was to be admitted to a hospital in Chennai a couple of hours later for observation, but Com NV breathed his last before he could receive treatment.

Com NV was a truly dedicated comrade who served the Party and the people of Tamilnadu with great commitment and distinction. His life will be a great inspiration and a guide to all of us and to generations of communists to come.