Switching guns for umbrellas

The monsoon rains are lashing Kozhikode in north Kerala, but they don’t seem to bother the elderly man, sleeping outside the District Collector's office at night. The cloth tent above offers little shelter. In the day he can be found sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with protesting Adivasi families: For nearly 70 days, 60 tribal families from Nilambur have been on an indefinite strike in nearby Mallapuram demanding the land long promised to them by the state.

Very much at the centre of this fight – its convener, its most constant presence, its moral backbone – is 96-year-old Ayinoor Vasu or ‘Grow’ Vasu as he is fondly called. The frail frame and gentle voice hold unbending conviction. At an age when most men retreat into silence and leisure, Vasu continues to throw his weight behind the dispossessed. “The government is cheating these [tribal] families in the name of technicalities,” he says, his eyes fierce beneath the wrinkles. “Land is their right, not charity.”

The agitation follows a 314-day hunger strike that the same Nilambur families had staged before the ITDP (Integrated Tribal Development Project) office in 2023–24.

That protest was called off after the District Collector assured them in writing that each of the 60 families would be given 50 cents of land within six months. But when 15 months later the state’s promises turned into excuses, the families returned to the streets to continue their protest. And Grow Vasu, once branded a dangerous Naxalite, spends most of his nights on the hard ground of the satyagraha pandal.

This is not his first clash with the state in recent years. In 2023 he spent two months in prison for his role in a protest against police action in Kozhikode district. The case dated back to November 2016, when he stood outside Kozhikode Medical College mortuary demanding a judicial probe into the alleged fake encounter killings of Maoists Koppam Devarajan and Ajitha in Nilambur forests.

He had refused to apply for bail when arrested. As in the past, prison did not break him; acquittal only sharpened his critique of state violence.

Aside from his multiple protests and arrests, Vasu remains best known in Kerala as the frail and elderly umbrella-maker of Kozhikode. While taking breaks from his role in democratic strikes, he and his three associates continue to craft umbrellas, an essential in the monsoons. And these umbrellas have sheltered him for nearly half a century.

Every May and June, in anticipation of Kerala’s vigorous monsoon, his rented two-room flat at Pottammal transforms into a workshop. Bolts of colourful fabric, steel frames, and spools of thread clutter the small space; the rhythmic clink of needle against cloth fills the air.

Assisted by part-time workers who are distantly related, Vasu stitches umbrellas by hand – around 2,000 each year – under his brand Marivillu, which means rainbow. The money earned from Marivillu Umbrellas pays for his food, rent, medicines, and the small but unceasing contributions he makes to the causes he still fights for.

These umbrellas are Rs. 50 to 70 cheaper than other market brands, yet match them in quality. “Umbrellas are enough for me,” he says with quiet pride, closing any discussions on expanding. “Six months of work sustains me for a year. I don’t need charity. What I need is dignity,” he adds, surrounded by portraits of Mao, Marx, Lenin, and Engels that hang on the walls.

For many in Kozhikode, buying a Marivillu umbrella is not just a transaction. “Every umbrella I buy from Vasu vettan is a tribute to his independence and integrity,” says Deepa Thomas, a lecturer with St Joseph’s College, Devagiri.

Schoolchildren like his colourful editions; activists see them as tokens of solidarity.

Long before the monsoon became his marketplace, Vasu was a young Naxalite organiser moving through the forests and plantations of Malabar.

When finally released from prison in 1977, he found no one willing to employ a “former Naxalite.” It was then he returned to the skill he had first learned in 1955, when as a young Communist he made umbrellas to raise funds for a band set for the party in Kozhikode.

What began as a way to support the movement has gone on to become his sustenance. Vasu is a bachelor and lives alone. His sister and her family live close by. Her husband helps out with the umbrellas, bought by friends and supporters.

In the late 1960s, the tremors of Naxalbari reached Kerala and Vasu – a young and restless trade union organiser from Kozhikode – embraced the call for armed revolution.

Alongside leaders like Kunnikkal Narayanan and Mandakini Narayanan, he mobilised plantation workers, beedi labourers, and tenant farmers under the CPI(ML) banner. He was not a squad leader with a rifle; his role was organising, spreading literature, ferrying messages, building cells.

In 1970, he was part of the preparations for the Thirunelli action, where Naxalite commander A. Varghese, Kerala’s own “Che Guevara,” was later killed in a staged police encounter. Days after Varghese’s death, police arrested Vasu, branding him a dangerous insurgent. Though never proven guilty of violence, he spent over seven years in Kannur central jail, subjected to solitary confinement and custodial torture.

Jail became his university. He read Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Ambedkar, taught fellow inmates to read and write, and emerged with a reputation for uncompromising dignity. “The state could cage his body, but not his politics,” recalls a friend who visited him then.

When released in 1977, nobody would hire him.

Crafting umbrellas – a skill he had picked up earlier – came to his rescue. Those who knew him said prison left an indelible mark: he remained uncompromising, distrustful of power, and deeply suspicious of political parties – even the Left.

Once freed, Vasu did not return to armed revolution, but instead shifted to open trade union struggles. By the 1980s, he led militant workers at Mavoor’s Gwalior Rayons factory. The Birla-owned plant, notorious for pollution and exploitation, became the stage for one of Kerala’s fiercest labour struggles.

It was here he earned the name “GROW Vasu” – GROW standing for Gwalior Rayons Organisation of Workers. Under his leadership, workers fought against layoffs and closure, forcing the company to reopen after a legendary agitation.

But when he realised the factory was poisoning the Chaliyar river and spreading cancer through villages, he switched sides, leading agitations for its permanent closure. It was a remarkable transformation: the trade unionist who once fought to reopen a factory became one of Kerala’s pioneering environmental activists.

“His umbrellas are an extension of his politics – symbols of dignity, independence and conviction,” says K. Ajitha, another former Naxalite who later became a feminist leader.

The walls of his modest home tell their own story. Above a battered television sit portrait of Marx, Mao, Lenin, Engels, Che Guevara—and B.R. Ambedkar. “I believe Marx is history’s greatest intellectual,” Vasu says. “But in India’s circumstances, Ambedkar is more relevant.”

Financially independent and still marching beside workers, tribals, and students, Grow Vasu’s life showcases both resilience and principle. His umbrellas are not just objects of utility but emblems of a life lived in defiance. From the forests of Nilambur, to the satyagraha pandals of Malappuram, from the factory gates of Mavoor to the monsoon streets of Kozhikode, it’s a journey stitched with conviction.

When asked why people still buy his umbrellas, he answers: “Because they believe in my convictions. And because the umbrellas are good.”