Newsmaker: V S Achuthananthan

The agitator of Kerala faces a transition test

"Marxist hardliner", "anti-development", "regressive", "conservative" "" these are some of the terms used to describe Velikkakathil Sankaran Achuthananthan, 83, the man who will head the new government of Kerala.

Born in 1923 in Punnapra, Alappuzha district, known for the violent struggle against the then diwan's rule, the new chief minister finally has a chance to show whether those labels ought to stick.

He is a man who came up the hard way, losing his parents at a young age and dropping out of school at age 10 on account of poverty. He worked as a coir worker before working his way up the party ladder to become the oldest member of the CPM politburo today.

But he has spent his life questioning, probing and investigating things with such raw nerve that he is referred to on blogsites as the Sherlock Holmes of Kerala politics.

This, even as his alleged stance on development has made him a favourite whipping boy. Look closely, though, and most of his stands relate to ecological concerns.

When the use of Endosulphan, a pesticide, on state-owned plantations led to some village deaths, it was he who raised the howl of protest. In Plachimedu, he took on a cola major for drawing 400 kilolitres of water per day from the village land.

Achuthananthan is seen as heroic for other reasons too. For going after corrupt land deals, for example, as in the handover of Kovalam hotel to an Oman investor for Rs 44 crore, a fraction of its Rs 400-crore alleged worth.

The conversion of paddy fields to other uses has drawn his ire too, embarrassing party colleagues who had set up offices on paddy land. He has also been quick to the rescue of tribals in Idukki and Wayanad whose land rights were endangered by encroachment.

It was in such a context that the just-voted-out UDF government's "development" proposal became such a plump target for Achuthanthan.

He fired with precision, despite the initial qualms of party colleagues like Pinarayi Vijayan. His message was simple: Kerala was being shortchanged.

In a state that sorely lacks investment, evident in its chronic unemployment if not its inability to use its high literacy rate to become a knowledge economy powerhouse, such a stance was bound to be termed regressive.

But the Kerala electorate thinks otherwise, buying into his argument that opposing injustice perpetuated by big business interests is not the same as being anti-development.

Achuthananthan also finds favour with gender activists, who expect him to set up fast track courts to deal with sex racket cases like the ice-cream parlour case involving a former minister.

Expectations run high. The new 19-member government led by him would be the veteran agitator's big chance to prove that there does exist an alternate way forward "" for Kerala to gain the internally-generated economic buoyancy that has eluded it so unfortunately.

That his own party, which once denied him an election ticket, has finally shown faith in him may not make things easy for Achuthananthan, though.

His party rivals have key positions of power in the cabinet. Will he be able to make the transition from the voice of protest to the voice of effective leadership?