CJP solidarity protest in Chennai’s Balan Illam keeps alive the legacy of Communist leader Baladhandayutham
No venue could have been more appropriate than Balan Illam, the headquarters of the Communist Party of India (CPI) located in Chennai, for the recent
No venue could have been more appropriate than Balan Illam, the headquarters of the Communist Party of India (CPI) located in Chennai, for the recent protest in solidarity with the Cockroach Janta (CJP) Party and against NEET in Tamil Nadu. Balan was the popular name of K. Baladhandayutham, a towering CPI leader who began his political career as a student activist. He was expelled from Annamalai University in 1938 for his political activities. His life was, in many ways, quixotic, marked by an unwavering commitment to communist ideals. He was only 20 when his university education came to an abrupt end, after which he plunged into full-time politics. The Vice-Chancellor of the university at the time was the Right Honourable V.S. Srinivasa Sastri. Baladhandayutham famously quipped: “He is neither right nor honourable.” A year after his expulsion, he married his classmate, Claudius Wills, an Anglo-Indian. However, barely six months into their marriage, he was arrested. After serving a one-year prison sentence, he was re-arrested at the gates of Coimbatore Prison and spent another 18 months in Vellore Central Prison. Claudius Wills, whom Balan renamed Nirmala, hoped he would abandon political activism and pursue another career. He refused. Recalling the episode in a letter to his fellow communist Balraj, Balan wrote: “She waited for me for 12 years. But it was of no use. She obtained a divorce in 1951 and remarried. Her remarriage gave me immense joy.” A gifted orator and writer, Balan spent several years underground after the Communist Party was banned.
He was later sentenced to life imprisonment in the Nellai Conspiracy Case, in which veteran communist leaders R. Nallakannu and P. Manickam also received long prison terms. Registered in 1949, the case named Balan as the first accused. His experiences as a life convict were serialised in Samaran magazine and later published as the book Yen Aayul Thandanai Anubhavangal. Balan was only 55 when he was killed in an air crash alongside Mohan Kumaramangalam, the communist-turned-Congress leader and Union Minister. In his lifetime, he spent more than 16 years in prison and several more living underground. When the Communist Party split in 1964, he remained with the CPI. At the time of his death in 1973, he was the Lok Sabha member representing the Coimbatore constituency. Reflecting on the purpose of his life’s struggles, Baladhandayutham wrote to Balraj: “If a young person reads or hears my story and dedicates his life to the service of the nation, I will have the satisfaction that I have not wasted my life.” One of those inspired by Balan was the renowned Tamil writer Jayakanthan, who rejoined the Communist Party after listening to Baladhandayutham speak at Chintadripet in Madras following his release from prison. “He spoke for two hours. It was not merely a speech; it was as though Bharathi and Tilak had come together in the form of a lion and roared. Standing amidst the crowd, I lost all awareness of myself and listened with the conviction that he was my leader.
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