After the Wagon tragedy victims, a report to the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) has suggested dropping the Communist martyrs of Punnapra-Vayalar, Karivelloor and Kavumbayi agitations from the list of martyrs of India’s Independence struggle.
C.I. Issac, a member of the ICHR, gave a report to this effect four years ago after scrutinising the manuscript of the now controversial publication, “The Dictionary of Martyrs: Freedom Struggle 1857-1947.”
The names of the 46 martyrs of Punnapra-Vayalar agitation and Kumaran Pulluvan and Kunhiraman Pulukkal of Kavumbayi stir and Keeneri Kunhambu, a sixteen-year-old minor, who was killed in police firing, during the Karivellur uprising, are on the list.
Incidentally, the Communist parties in Kerala hold the victims of these agitations as martyrs of the freedom movement and the anniversaries of the agitations are passionately commemorated.
The Hindu had reported on the suggestion to remove the victims of Wagon Tragedy and Malabar Rebellion from the list, which was uploaded into the website of the Ministry of Culture the other day.
The reason
“These Communist agitations cannot be counted as the part of the Independence movement as they took place after the interim government led by Jawaharlal Nehru assumed office. These riots were basically against the interim government,” Dr. Issac, also the vice president of Bharathiya Vichara Kendram, said.
The report, accessed by The Hindu, pointed out that it was “indeed strange to conclude that the party which boycotted and sabotaged the national movement, organised freedom struggle in the remote corner of Kerala.”
The history
The “Punnapra-Vayalar uprising occurred only after September 2, 1946, the day when Nehru’s interim national government took over the Indian administration.” The “Indian Communists believed that India is not a cultural and political unit. It is the conglomeration 17 nationalities. Thus their agitation is against the government of Nehru. So the following names, which appear in the project associated with Communist movement in Kerala should be deleted from the yet to be published project,” it was reported.
According to the report, the Karivelloor uprising took place on December 20, 1946. “It is also not the part Indian freedom struggle. It was to regain the lost image of Communist party,” Dr. Issac reported.
Another Communist movement in Kerala took place at Kavumbayi on December 30, 1946. The names of these two Communist martyrs creating riots should not be incorporated in the Martyr’s Dictionary, he suggested.