50 years on, Kerala debates CIA hand in toppling Govt

Bunker has explained how the CIA funded the Congress in the Opposition to hold demonstrations and create law and order issues, which ultimately led to the Communist Government’s sacking. “It is there in the archives of the Columbia University. I passed it on to Karat,” said Isaac.

This was, incidentally the first time Isaac had ventured abroad in the last five years, since he got into trouble with the hardline faction in his party after he led the think tank fashioning the decentralised people’s planning initiative of the then Left Government. Isaac, who was with the Centre for Development Studies, had roped in US scholar Richard W Franke and authored joint papers on Kerala with him.

Franke was painted as a CIA agent, and Isaac was hounded and ridiculed, more so after a dozen international scholars in Europe stood up vouching for his credentials. The party set up a probe committee to look into the allegation and that cleared him, but not before Isaac had hauled senior comrade and the since-fallen CPI(M) idealogue M N Vijayan to court for calling him a CIA spook. Isaac was forced to stay away from all international fora for the last years, until he was allowed to go to the US last month.