In the early days of capitalism, employers in their struggle for maximum profits were able to act with almost complete ruthlessness in their treatment of workers. They would take advantage of the rise in unemployment or inflow of immigrant workers to reduce wages to a bare minimum, using the lock-out if necessary to starve workers into submission. They imposed excessive hours of labour and ordered temporary extensions of normal hours without giving overtime pay. They employed workers in overcrowded and unsanitary factories and workshops. The conditions were often unsafe and exposed workers to frequent accidents from dangerous machinery. They introduced new working processes and machinery at will, often replacing men by lower-paid women and children. Child labour was rampant. Factory discipline was like that of a military force, and workers who mutinied could be sacked and blacklisted; by arrangement with other employers, so that they could not get work elsewhere. Employers accepted no responsibility for payment of wages during sickness, and workers were sacked or disabled had to rely on their own resources.
We live in a money economy in which we have to buy food, clothes and other amenities in order to survive. For most people, the main source of income to buy these things is their wage packet or salary cheque; the price they are paid for the sale of their mental and physical energies to an employer. Unlike workers who have to find an employer in order to live, the owners of the means of production and distribution live on incomes derived from the ownership of land and invested capital. Society, therefore, is divided into two classes: those who own and control, and the wage and salary earners who work for them.
There is a conflict of interest between these two classes: one trying to pay as little as possible for the labour-power it purchases to operate its means of production, the other trying to get as high a price as possible for the commodity it has to sell, i.e. its labour-power. But the struggle between the property-owning capitalist class and the wage-earning working class is more than a simple struggle between buyers and sellers. It is also a struggle on the part of the working class to mitigate its exploitation by the capitalist class. Labourers ultimately found, after painful experience, that by forming combinations and working together they could make their demands much more impressive.
Trade Unions were formed to resist these pressures. Trade Unions tried to achieve common goals such as protecting the integrity of its trade, improving safety standards, achieving higher pay and benefits such as health care and retirement, increasing the number of employees an employer assigns to complete the work, unfair dismissal, and maintaining and improving working conditions without the threat of termination. The trade union, through its leadership, collectively bargains with the employer, on behalf of union members, and negotiates labour contracts with employers. This may include the negotiation of wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing hiring, firing and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety and policies.
I am of he opinion that the privileged class, the civil servants, defense, revenue and police shall not be allowed to involve in trade union activities at all or have political allegiance to political parties because that will affect their impartial nature. They execute the orders of the government in power in letter and spirit, and without any bias. The government is bound to look after their welfare and make them contended.
As the immediate consequence of successful union action was to reduce the employer's profits, their reaction was predictable and they did everything they could to crush the unions. They got the government and parliament to declare the unions as illegal organizations under laws carrying savage penalties.
In Kochi, the commercial city of Kerala, South India, the Communist Party of India started to spread its movement in the grass roots level along with the establishment of People’s Circle or Assembly locally called ‘Praja Mandalam’. Subsequent to the attack of Police Station at Edappally there was a concerted effort to develop and strengthen the party. In Kumbalam Village, it was Comrade N.K. Parameswaran who led the Communist movement. He along with a few other comrades (N.K., OK, BK, M.S. Ayyappan, Raman Mattakkal, and Megaphone-Vava,) were the active members. In 1954, the movement became powerful with the strike of the coconut climbers. I vividly recall NK, other party members and their followers conducted a march with a red flag, and they paraded through the main avenue with forceful and attractive slogans like “Communist Party Zindabad; and Inquilab, Inquilab, Inquilab Zindabad.” It started with the termination of an employee of Makkar Haji Mundempally and the strike lasted for 140 days. The police harassed and beaten up the prominent party leaders as well as some of the labourers. The ill-will and spite later ended up in the cold murder of Abu Haji the mastermind behind the harassment, by the Naxalites, a splinter group broke away from the Communist Party (Marxist.)
Like every other region in the country where socialist-communist ideas had a foothold, in Kerala its propagation and dissemination were first taken up by popular art forms. There was a celebration of a new awareness about class and human liberation that was materialist and devoid of any spiritual trappings of the past. Apart from roadside meetings and study classes for the cadre, there was an urgent need to reach out to the masses—the peasants, workers and the common people—in order for the movement to spread its ideas and add momentum to the forces of social change. The KPAC (Kerala Peoples’ Arts Club) was one of the most popular among several peoples’ theatre movements all over Kerala, and one that explicitly propagated progressive and communist ideals. KPAC entered the scene in 1952 with the play “Ningalenne Kammunistakki” (You Made Me a Communist.)
Two important films of the 1950s, “Neelakkuyil” (The Blue Cuckoo) directed by P. Bhaskaran & Ramu Kariat in 1954 and “Rarichan Enna Pouran” (Citizen Rarichan) again by P. Bhaskaran in 1956, both scripted by the famous writer Uroob, represent the mood of the decade. Both the films, though they do not explicitly speak about communism, deeply engage issues that the progressive movements of the period were addressing—casteism, feudalism, exploitation of agricultural labour, inequality and poverty. Moreover, both the filmmakers and several other artists who worked behind it were either members or sympathizers of the communist movement.
“Neelakkuyil” has as its protagonist Sreedharan Nair, a schoolteacher, the typical representative of modernity and of nation building. But this representative of modernity, rationalism and progress turns out to be an ambivalent figure. He seduces and impregnates the dalit woman Neeli, and afterwards abandons her, unequal to challenging the barriers of caste. Excommunicated by her community and rejected by the schoolteacher, Neeli is thrown onto the streets to die a miserable death on the railway track. Upon her death, Sankaran Nair, the village postman, takes her son into his custody, and raises him. Meanwhile Sreedharan Nair marries a respectable Nair woman. In the end, haunted by guilt, he is forced to reveal the truth. His son is restored to him by the postman, who urges him to bring him up as a human being.
“Rarichan Enna Pouran” (Citizen Rarichan) is about an adolescent boy. He is the son of a villager who runs an oil press. Their family is ousted from the village by the landlord and their hut is destroyed. Driven to the brink, his father murders the landlord and is sentenced to capital punishment. The prevailing circumstances push Rarichan’s mother into insanity and the children onto the streets. After her death, he also loses his brother, and seeks livelihood in a small town where he stays with a Muslim widow who runs a tea shop. Eventually, Rarichan is forced to commit a theft to conduct the marriage of the only daughter of his surrogate family. He is found guilty by the court and sent to a juvenile home.
The milieu that surrounds the adolescent Rarichan is one that is on the verge of radical transformations—from a rural into an industrial economy, from a caste-based society into a secular-modern one. But in this ferment, where does a citizen-to-be like Rarichan fit in? This is the question that the film raises. Both vehemently reject the casteist and feudal past and traditions and look forward to a better future.
The aforementioned popular play of KPAC, “Ningalenne Kammunistakki” (You Made Me a Communist) was filmed in 1970 after over one and a half decades of successful stage performances all over Kerala and was directed by Thoppil Bhasi himself. That film was an instant hit with the audience all over southern Kerala. In the preface to the book, the Communist leader C. Unniraja observes that Malayalam theatre was in the midst of a renaissance of sorts and the play Ningalenne Kommunistakki marked the turning point: As far as its content is concerned, it is the first play that brought on stage common labourers, poor farmers, and agricultural labourers and made their lives, problems and struggles into its theme and such people into its heroes and heroines. It is an honest reflection of the times when agricultural labourers began to organize themselves and revolt against feudal oppression. The film was made on an occasion when central and state governments were contemplating “Land Reforms.”
The story is about Paramu Pillai, an aging and conservative Nair who has seen better times in his life. We see him gloating over the glorious past of his ancestors who had vast stretches of paddy land and lived a luxurious life. He is blind to the present, where the old order is falling apart: the untouchables are flouting caste laws, peasants are organizing themselves and asserting their rights, and communists are fomenting trouble everywhere. In Paramu Pillai’s words, “Men from all castes now grow moustaches, and women are no longer demure.” To top it all, his own son, a college student, is a communist. Paramu Pillai is furious with him but he is no longer in control of things; even his friends, who belong to the same class, ultimately cheat him and grab his property. Finally Paramu Pillai realizes his class being and joins a communist procession shouting ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ (Victory to Revolution.)
The film portrays the opposing classes in black-and-white terms, with the feudal lords as the personification of all evil and those who rebel against them as harbingers of a new life and freedom from all kinds of oppression. Interestingly, a love triangle within the narrative resonates with ambivalence about the new movement’s view of caste oppression and subaltern subjectivity. The young communist hero, who is also a college student, falls in love with his college-mate and daughter of the local feudal lord, and they decide to marry. But there is also a girl from the Harijan (lower caste) family he frequents who is silently in love with him. But after some time she realizes that her upper-caste hero is in love with his college mate. Though there is a transgression of class boundaries here, caste boundaries seem to stay.
Some of the other significant films of the period that explicitly dealt with communist themes were ‘Punnapra Vayalar” in 1968, by Kunchacko, “Mooladhanam” (Capital) in 1969 by P. Bhaskaran) and “Anubhavangal Paalichakal” (Shattered Experience) in 1971, by K.S. Sethumadhavan). Both Punnapra Vayalar, which was based on a historical event, and Ningalenne Kommunistakki look at the movement with great hope, and dwell upon the oppression faced by the peasantry under the feudal system and the newly emerging capitalist initiatives in the industrial sector.
Punnapra Vayalar is about the historic resistance of the people in the villages of the same name, and the eventual police firing that took the lives of many people. It was an event that was to leave its mark in the history of Keralam, and the film sings paeans to the memory and courage of the martyrs who laid down their lives for communist ideals. In line with the popular theatre/film trends of the time, the film weaves the story of a family and also the inevitable love story into its fabric. Likewise, it also has several songs as an added attraction.
Mooladhanam by P. Bhaskaran also begins with a public procession against the Dewan of Travancore, demanding democratic self-governance. The film’s educative mission is very explicit, being directly stated time and again whenever occasion arises. For instance, it starts with a card: ‘1944-46. A time when popular struggles against the rule of the Dewan of Travancore were spreading all over the land demanding democratic polity.’ It is followed by an introductory voice-over which says, ‘India is now independent. Democracy is the foundation of our social structure now. To achieve this, we have paid a huge price—and that price was sacrifice. The sacrifice of people from all walks of life. This edifice of democracy is founded upon the blood of thousands of martyrs and people who renounced everything, and they include women, children and the aged among them. Here is a glimpse of that history. During this voice-over, we see thronging crowds, processions of people shouting slogans and carrying placards demanding democratic rule. This scene cuts to a meeting where the protagonist is making a speech where he says, ‘We need capital for anything. We want freedom, we want democracy, we want agricultural land, we want jobs, and we want to live happy lives. And the capital we have to invest in order to achieve these is sacrifice, the sacrifice of everyone, including children and the aged.” This is followed by a short discussion about the land question.
After this, we are introduced to the family of the revolutionary-protagonists, Ravi and Mammootty. While Ravi is happily married and has a daughter, Mammooty is in love with Nabeesa. This ‘inner’ tranquility of the family is upset by the arrival of the disturbing news from ‘outside’: there is a curfew and the party wants Ravi to go underground. This constant tension between the inside and outside, individual and society, the family and the collective/party is a continuing theme in all these films.
To escape the police hunt, Ravi goes underground, and moves to a town where he takes up the job of a private tutor in a rich home. Mammootty, in a moment of weakness, breaks the rule and comes out of hiding to meet his lover, where he is caught by the police. While in hiding, Ravi writes a novel about his life which he entrusts one of his friends to get published. Ravi’s wife gets arrested, and her children are thrown onto the streets. One day, they happen to come begging to the house where their father works as a teacher. They do not recognize their father, though he does, but is not in a position to own up. For Ravi, it is an endless story of betrayal. His novel is published and wins an award, but his friend does it in his own name; his wife has to succumb to the desires of the same plagiarizer in order to get her son released from the police. Eventually when Ravi returns home he finds his family scattered; but he is more shattered by the news of his wife’s infidelity. Infuriated, he wants to break with her. Mammooty and Nabisa convince him of his wife’s courage and worth, and he finally realizes his fault. But when he returns to her, it is too late. Unable to bear the guilt, she commits suicide.
Infidelity within the family forms the central theme of another film, “Anubhavangal Palichakal” (1971), based on a novel by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai and directed by K.S. Sethumadhavan. The film portrays the tragic story of Chellappan, a dedicated communist always ready to stand up for the rights of workers. Like other films of this genre, this film also begins with some panoramic shots of workers doing varied jobs and a song in the background appealing to the proletariat of the world to unite. The protagonist Chellappan is married to Bhavani and they have two children. From the beginning Chellappan is suspicious of Bhavani. In fact the film begins with him getting up in the middle of the night, trying to recollect how he reached home the day before after a bout of drinking with his friend Gopalan, with whom he suspects his wife has an affair.
Chellappan is a bold fighter for justice, and after a tiff with the local capitalist, he is forced to go underground. He moves to another village. There, while trying to get into a routine life, his mind goes ‘astray’—he begins to fall in love with the girl of the house where he is hiding. Stung by guilt, he runs away to the city. In the city he encounters a workers’ strike in which he gets involved and is arrested. In the jail, he meets Gopalan, and comes to know about his family. In his absence Bhavani moves in with Gopalan to start a new life. Chellappan is shattered by the news and to add to the injury, the party committee in town is critical of his adventurism and even suspects him of being an agent provocateur. Released, he returns home, and comes to know that his last link with the family, his daughter, has died. Leaving everything behind, he returns to the city where the situation of the strike has worsened. He decides to take things into his own hands, kills the capitalist and surrenders to the police. He is found guilty and is given capital punishment. On the day of execution, Bhavani, Gopalan and his son come to the jail to receive his body. The film ends with the shot of his burial site which is next to that of his daughter.
This emotionally-charged film is a very disturbing look at the question of belief and faith—in the party and its ideals on the one side, and the family on the other. Both institutions seem to demand huge sacrifices to sustain them. The conflation of the institution and morals of the party with that of the family continues here too, and most of the action occurs within the space of the family. Another interesting feature is the prevalence of night shots; significantly, almost half of the film’s sequences occur at night. They seem to live in a world enveloped in darkness, and are caught up in its web and groping to find a way out. (“Some notes on Communist idea/ls in Malayalam Cinema: Hope, Disenchantment and Nostalgia” C.S. Venkiteswaran.)
Yet another film namely “Adimakal Udamakal” ( Slaves are the Masters) is a 1987 Malayalam feature film directed by I.V. Sasi, and produced by Century Films written by T Damodaran and starring Mammootty, Mohanlal, Nalini and Seema in the lead roles. It is a political film on trade union and its functioning in factories. The story revolves a trade union and company owner who is a lady. She brings a new manager Mohan Cheriyan (Mohanlal) to solve the company issues with trade union leaders. When the company was about to lay off due to union problems, Raghavan (Mammootty) suggest a new formula for solving the company issues and this leads to save the company. Finally Raghavan was killed by his own men. The film also shows the nexus between politicians and factory owners dumping workers for their selfish deeds.
I recall some of the English films too. The 2000 film, “Bread and Roses” deals with the struggle of poorly paid janitorial workers in Los Angeles and their fight for better working conditions and their right to unionize. The 2010 British film “Made in Dagenham”, starring Sally Hawkins, dramatizes the Ford sewing machinist’s strike of 1968 that aimed for equal pay for women. Gender equality is the view that men and women should receive equal treatment and should not be discriminated against based on gender. This is the objective of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which seeks to create equality in law and in social situations, such as democratic activities and securing equal pay for equal work.
Both labour unions, the C.I.T.U (Communist) and the I.N.T.U.C. (Congress), BMS and others started collective bargaining, followed by demonstrations, slogans, led successful boycotts and strikes, and later by gherao, bandh and hartal to achieve their goals.
