CPM leader gets the boot for standing up to Pinarayi

Pushing 80, Berlin turned Communist at 16, and a card-holding member at 21. He earned his Red spurs doing underground errands for the party while it remained banned in the 1940s, and was a hardliner all along. ‘‘I could not keep quiet when Vijayan and others were going for unthinkable ideological compromises and trying to pass these off as part of the party’s tactical line. They had been trying to rope in the Muslim League and they are now trying to bring in a portion of Congress,’’ he says.

‘‘There are also other issues, including the Fourth World debate. E.M.S. Namboothiripad had denounced the Fourth World idea trotted out by M.P. Parameswaran as an aberration, but the debate re-emerged after EMS’s death in 1998. I and M.N. Vijayan came out strongly against this, but that was not appreciated,’’ he claims.

Three years ago, Berlin was among the few Communist veterans that Kerala CPM honoured at its 2002 state conference in Kannur. Ironically, the party mouthpiece, Desabhimani, today sought to tell the comrades that the man was nobody special, indicating that his sacking was no big deal to the party.

‘‘That’s nothing. What they are doing to the party now is worse. Old Communists like us grew up believing that institutionalising individuals in the party’s power structure and putting the party and state apparatus under their personal whims is unthinkable,’’ he says.

Berlin thinks the party in Kerala needs to urgently realise it cannot afford to use the pretext of copying West Bengal in its approaches to issues such as foreign funding. ‘‘Bengal has the political stability and maturity to flex, Kerala does not. We invariably have a change of government here every five years, and any compromise we make will be exploited by bourgeoise governments that follow.’’

Berlin says he will appeal the decision to sack him, for whatever it is worth. What next? ‘‘I lived on my beliefs for 64 years. They can’t take it away from me.”