P. Sainath

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&quot;There were times during the freedom struggle,
too, when things looked bleak. We were told you cannot win. You are up against
the greatest empire in the world . . . But we rose above all those warnings and
threats. And fought anyway. That’s why we are here today.&quot;R. Nallakannu

“Vote for the Yellow Box!” went the cries. “Choose the auspicious manjal petti!” This was Madras Presidency during the 1937 provincial elections held under British rule.The slogans came from groups of youngsters beating drums. Most of them not of voting age. And ineligible to cast ballots even if they had been. not all adults could vote.Franchise restrictions favoured land and property owners and, in rural areas, rich farmers.The sight of young people without a vote campaigning vigorously was not entirely new.As early as July 1935, Justice—the newspaper and organ of the Justice Party—noted with disdain, and not a little contempt:You might visit any village even in outlying areas and you were sure to come across groups of urchins wearing Congress khaddar uniforms and Gandhi caps and holding aloft the tricoloured banner. nearly eighty per cent of these men, workers and volunteers had been drawn from the voteless, propertyless, unemployed hundreds of the urban and village areas . . .One of those youngsters in 1937 was R. Nallakannu, barely 12 at the time, now 97 [in 2022]. He’s telling us of the drama, laughing about his having been one of those ‘urchins’.  “Those who owned land and paid a land tax of 10 rupees or more could vote,” he recalls. The 1937 polls did see some broadening of the franchise. But “it was never meant to allow more than 15–20 per cent of adults to have a vote,” he says. “And not more than 1,000 to 2,000 people voted in any one constituency.”

M. Palani Kumar

Nallakannu was born in Srivaikuntam, then in
Tirunelveli district. Today, the taluk of Srivaikuntam falls in Tamil Nadu’s
Thoothukudi district (which used to be called Tuticorin till 1997).

Nallakannu’s activism, though, began early.

“When I was a child, in fact. Mill workers in
Thoothukudi, close to my town, struck work. That was one of the Harvey Mills
group. This came to be known as the Panchalai [Cotton Mills] workers’ strike.

“To support them, rice would be collected from
every home in our town and sent in boxes to the strikers’ families in
Thoothukudi. It was young boys like us who would go around to collect the rice.”
People were poor, “but every household contributed something. I was just 5 or 6
at the time, and this solidarity with the workers’ struggle had a huge impact
on me. It meant I would get used to involvement in politics quite early.”

We pull him back to the 1937 polls: What did he
mean by voting for a manjal petti or yellow box?

“There were only two main parties in Madras
then,” he says. “Congress and the Justice Party. Instead of symbols, parties
were identified by a ballot box of some colour. The Congress, for whom we then
campaigned, was assigned a yellow box. For the Justice Party, there was a pachchai
petti—green box. That was the best way at the time for the voter to
identify which party he was supporting.”

And yes, there was much colour and theatre
around the polls even then. The Hindu writes that “Devadasi campaigner
Thanjavur Kamukannamal . . . would ask everyone to vote in the “snuff box!”
Gold or yellow being a common colour for snuff boxes of the time. The Hindu
itself carried a headline calling on readers to ‘Fill the Yellow Boxes’.

“And of course, I could
not vote at age 12,” says Nallakannu. “But I went out and canvassed as strongly
as I could.” Three years later, he would be involved in political campaigns
beyond the electoral. And “beating a parai [a type of drum] and yelling
slogans.”

PARI: Speical arrangement

But he was no longer a Congress supporter. “I
was with the Communist Party of India [CPI] from age 15,” says Nallakannu,
‘Comrade RNK’ to his friends. Formal membership of the party would have to wait
till he was older. But RNK would emerge one of the most important figures of
the Communist movement in Tamil Nadu over the next few decades. He would be seeking—often successfully— support for the sengodi (red flag) and not the manjal petti (yellow box).

“There was only one school in our part of Tirunelveli and so it was simply called ‘School’. That was its only name.” Nallakannu is speaking to us in his small home office in Chennai. Beside him, on a sideboard of his table, are a bunch of little busts and small statuettes. Lenin, Marx and Periyar right next to him. Behind them, a bigger, golden statuette of Ambedkar that stands in front of a larger sketch of revolutionary Tamil poet Subramania Bharati. Behind the small Periyar bust is another sketch, drawn from a photo of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. And next to all these, a calendar that asks all of us to ‘Use Less Water’.The whole tableau captures, at a glance, the intellectual development and history of the man we are in conversation with for the third time. It is June 25, 2022. The first of our interviews with him was in 2019.“Bharathiyar was the most inspirational poet for me,” says Nallakannu. “Often his poems or songs were banned.” He cites some lines from ‘Suthinthara Pallu’ (Independence Song), an extraordinary song by the poet. “He wrote it, I think, in 1909. So he celebrates independence 38 years before India attained it in 1947!”We will dance, we will sing For we have achieved the joy of independenceThe time when we used to call Brahmins as ‘Sir’ has gone, The time when we used to call the white men as ‘lord’ has gone,The time when we saluted those who took alms from us has gone, The time when we serve people who made fun of us has gone. In all places the only talk is about freedom . . .

Bharathi died in 1921, four years before Nallakannu
was born. The song was written even earlier. But it, and others, inspired him
through his fighting years. RNK knew many songs and poems of Bharati before he
was 12. He is able to recall quite a few of the verses and lyrics verbatim even
today. “I learnt some of those from the Hindi pundit Pallavesam Chettiar at
school,” he says. And of course, none of those were on the official curriculum.

“I also got a book of Bharathiyar’s writings
from S. Satyamurti when he came to the school. It was a collection of his poems
Thesiya Geetham.” Satyamurti was a freedom fighter, politician and a
patron of the arts. Bharati was one of the first to acclaim the 1917 october
Revolution in Russia and even wrote a song in its praise.

It’s good to try and understand Nallakannu through
his love for Bharati and the prism of the agrarian and working- class struggles
he was part of for eight decades.

For it is really difficult to tell the story of
‘Comrade RNK’ otherwise. This is one of the most self-effacing souls I have
ever met. He gently but firmly declines to place himself at the centre of any
of the great events, strikes and struggles he tells us about. His role in some
of those was vital and central all right. But you can never get him to portray
or narrate it that way.

“Comrade RNK was one of the founding leaders of
the farmers’ movement in our state,” says G. Ramakrishnan. ‘GR’ is a state
committee member of the CPI(M), but unreservedly salutes the role and
contribution of the 97-year-old CPI leader. “Through the decades—starting from
when he was still a teenager—it was he who, along with Srinivas Rao, created
the bases of the Kisan Sabha across the state. Those remain a source of the
strength for the Left even today. And Nallakannu helped create that by tireless
campaigns and struggles all across Tamil Nadu.”

Nallakannu’s struggles
seamlessly integrate farmers’ battles with the anticolonial movement. And also,
very importantly, with the anti-feudal battles that were so crucial to Tamil Nadu
of that time. Those too flow over strongly post-1947. His fight was and remains
one for many forgotten freedoms. not just Independence from British rule.

“We’d fight them at night, throw stones—those
were the weapons we had—and chase them away. Sometimes, there would be pitched
battles. This happened several times during the protests that came in the
1940s. We were still boys, but we fought. Day and night, with our kind of
weapons!” 

Fight whom? And chase them away from what and
where? 

“The uppalam [salt pans] near my town.
All the salt pans were under British control. The condition of the workers was
miserable. Like around the mills, where the struggles began decades earlier.
There were protests and there was a lot of public sympathy and support for
them.

“The police simply functioned as the agents of
the salt pan owners. In one clash, a sub-inspector died. There had even been an
attack on the police station there. Then they set up a mobile patrolling unit.
They would go to the pans during the day and come to camp near our villages at
night. That’s when we clashed with them.” These protests and clashes went on
and off for a couple of years, maybe more. “But it was around 1942 and the Quit
India movement that they really grew.”

Nallakannu’s taking part in all of this while
barely a teenager did not go down well with his father Ramasamy Thevar. A
farmer, Thevar owned some 4–5 acres of land and had six children. The young RNK
was often punished at home. And sometimes his father would withhold paying his school
fees.

“People would tell him—&#39;Your son does not
study? He’s always out and shouting. Looks like he’s gone and joined the
Congress’.” The deadline for paying the fees at ‘School’ fell between the 14th
and 24th of each month. “If I asked him for the fees, he’d shout at me: ‘You
leave your studies and help your uncles on the farm’.”

“As time ran out, someone close to my father
would placate him. They would promise him that I would not speak and act the
way I was doing. only then would he pay the fees.”

However, “the more he
opposed my life, my ways, the deeper my dissent grew. I made it up to
intermediate level in Tamil, at The Hindu College, Madurai. It was actually at
the Tirunelveli junction. But it was called Hindu College, Madurai. I only
studied there two years. I couldn’t go further.” Because he was busy taking part in protests.
And significantly—though he is far too modest to say it—he had even begun to
organize them. RNK was swiftly emerging a young leader. But one who never
sought, and mostly avoided, a high profile.

It’s hard to keep a chronological track of the
events and actions he was involved in. More so as they were many in number and
occurred on quite different fronts.

He sums up the most important moments for him
during the freedom struggle simply, though: “The battles around the Quit India
movement.” He was not yet 17 at that point, but already an important figure in
the protests. The years between age 12 and 15 were also the time of his
transition from Congressman to Communist.

What sort of protest meetings did he help
organize or take part in?

Early on, “we had megaphones made of tin. We’d
gather any tables and chairs we could in a village or town and sing. Mainly the
table was for the speaker to stand on and address the crowd. Mind you, crowds
would unfailingly show up.” Once again, he says little about his own role in
mobilizing people. Though it was foot soldiers like him who made that possible.

“Later, speakers like Jeevanandam would stand
on those tables and talk to fairly large audiences. With no mikes. He did not
need them.

“Over time, we began to get decent mikes and
loudspeakers. The most favoured one,” he recalls, “was what were called the ‘Chicago
mikes’ or Chicago Radio systems. Of course, we could not afford them too often.”

What about when there was a British crackdown?
How did they communicate then?

“There were many such situations. Like after
the Royal Indian navy [RIN] mutiny [1946]. There was a total crackdown on the
Communists. But there were raids earlier too. And the British would sometimes
search every party office in the villages. That happened even after
Independence, by the way, when the party was banned. We did have bulletins and
magazines. Like Janashakti, for instance. But we had other modes of
communication. Some of those were simple signals going back centuries.

“Right from the time of Kattabomman [legendary 18
century anti-British fighter], people used to place neem twigs at the entrance
of a home. It was a sign to indicate that someone inside was sick with smallpox
or other ailments. But it was also used as a secret symbol to signal that a
meeting was going on there.

‘If there were sounds of a baby crying inside
the house, that meant the meeting was still on. If the cow dung near the
entrance was wet, the meeting was still on. If the dung there was dry, it was a
signal to turn away and leave, as danger lurked. or meant that the meeting was
over.’

What was RNK’s greatest source of inspiration
through the freedom struggle?

‘The Communist Party was
our greatest source of inspiration.’

‘Why did I remove my moustache when I was arrested?’ RNK laughs. ‘I never did. And I never grew it to disguise my face in
the first place. If that was the case, why should I have grown one at all? 

‘No, the police burnt it off with a cigarette.
That was part of the torture inflicted on me by an Inspector Krishnamurthy from
Madras city. He tied my hands at 2 a.m. He only untied them the next morning at
10. Then he beat me with his baton for a long time.’

Again, like many fellow freedom fighters, he
recalls the incident with no personal rancour. no animosity towards his
torturer. RNK never looked for the police inspector in later days to settle
scores. It never once occurred to him to do so.

‘This actually happened in 1948,’ he says,
after India attained Independence. ‘The party had been banned in many
provinces, including Madras, and remained that way till 1951.

‘But you should understand there were also
anti-feudal battles that had to be fought. That we had to pay a price for. And
these began long before 1947—and continued well after Independence.

‘Freedom movement, social reform, anti-feudal
struggles—we combined these issues. That’s how we worked.

We fought for better and equal wages. We fought
for the abolition of untouchability. We played a serious role in the temple
entry movements.

‘The campaign for abolition of the zamindari
system was a major movement in Tamil Nadu. The state had many important
zamindaris. We fought the mirasdari [land held under hereditary title]
and inamdari [lands assigned free to individuals or institutions by the
ruler] systems. It was the Communists who were at the forefront of these
battles. There were very major landlords to contend with, and their private
armed goondas and thugs.

‘There were people like Punniyoor Saambasiva
Iyer, Nedumanam Saamiyappa Muthaliyaar, Poondi Vandiyar. They held thousands of
acres of fertile land.’

We are now sitting in on a fascinating history
lesson. From a man who helped make that history.

11-2014-MAY-08-4-Crop-PS-R._Nallakannus_fight_for_many_forgotten_freedoms.jpg

‘There were also the centuries-old practices of
brahmatheyam and thevathaanam.




















‘Under the first, lands were given for free to
Brahmins by the rulers. They ruled and profited from the land. They would not
directly cultivate it, but the profits would go to them. Under thevathaanam,
such gifts of land would be made to temples. Sometimes a temple could be gifted
an entire village. The small tenants and workers lived at their mercy. Anyone
who stood up to them could and would be evicted.‘Know this, these institutions, the madams
[mutts or monasteries] owned six lakh acres of land. Maybe even now. But their
power has been strongly curtailed by people’s unflinching struggles.

“The Tamil Nadu Zamindari Abolition Act came
into force in 1948. But it was the zamindars and giant landowners who were
compensated. not the people who had worked the land for them. The affluent
tenants got some compensation. The poor who worked in the fields got nothing.
Between 1947–49, there were a large number of evictions from these temple
lands. And we launched huge protests along the lines of: ‘only when farmers own
the land can they live well’.

“These were our battles—and from 1948 to 1960,
the fight went on for getting their rights. C. Rajagopalachari [Rajaji] as
Chief Minister took the side of the landlords and mutts. We said, ‘Land to the
Tiller’. Rajaji said land belongs to those who have the documents. But our
struggles saw us break that total power these temples and mutts had. We defied
their harvest rules and protocols. We refused to be slaves.

“And, of course, all this could not be
separated from the social battles as well.

“I remember witnessing
one of the protests at a temple one night. The temples would all have chariot
festivals. And it was the farmers who would pull the chariots forward with
ropes. We said they will not come to pull the chariots anywhere if the
evictions continued. We also asserted our right to take some of the grain back
for sowing.”

Now he’s moving back and forth between pre and
post Independence periods. At one level, that’s confusing. At another, it
brings home the complexity of those times. That there were many freedoms
involved. That some of these did not have clear start and end dates. That
people like RNK remained steadfast in the pursuit of those freedoms.

“We also, right through those decades, fought
against the beatings and torture of the workers.

“In 1943, Dalit workers were still being
whipped. And having cow dung water poured on the wounds created by the whips.
They had to go to work at 4 or 5 a.m. in the morning—whenever the rooster
crowed. They had to be at the mirasdars’ lands to bathe the cattle,
gather the cow dung, then go to water the fields. There was a village near
Thiruthuraipoondi then in Thanjavur district. That’s where we held their
protest.

“There was a huge demonstration headed by
Srinivas Rao of the Kisan Sabha. The sentiment was ‘if they hit you for
carrying the red flag, hit them back’. Finally the mirasdars and
Mudhaliars at Thiruthuraipoondi signed an agreement that this whipping, use of
cow dung water and other barbaric practices would be stopped.”

RNK plays down his own huge role in these great
battles all the way from the 1940s to the 1960s and well beyond. He would
succeed Srinivas Rao as the head of the All-India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), Tamil Nadu.
In the decades after 1947, the silent foot soldier would emerge a strong
general in the battles of farmers and labourers.

Both of them are excited and emotional. We are doing one of our interviews at CPI(M) leader and freedom fighter N. Sankariah’s house. That is, we’re talking to both him and Nallakannu together. The way the comrades of eight decades greet each other touches the emotions of the rest of us in the room, too.

Is there no bitterness, no sadness? They went
their different ways when the Communist Party of India split into two some 60 years
ago. It was not an amiable parting.

“But we have worked together on many issues and
struggles even after that,” says Nallakannu. “With the same attitude towards
each other as from before.”

“When the two of us
meet,” says Sankariah, “we are still one party.”                 

How do they respond to the present-day rise in
communal violence and hatred? Do they fear for the nation’s survival? A nation
whose independence they helped achieve.

“There were times during the freedom struggle,
too, when things looked bleak,” says Nallakannu. “We were told you cannot win.
You are up against the greatest empire in the world. Some of our families were
warned to keep us away from the struggle. But we rose above all those warnings
and threats. And fought anyway. That’s why we are here today.”

There is also the need, both of them say, to
build broad unity. To reach out and learn from others as in the past. “I think
even an EMS [Namboodiripad] had a Gandhi photo in his room,” says RNK.

How do the two of them remain so calm and
sanguine about the state of politics that so scares millions among the rest of
us? Nallakannu shrugs: “We’ve seen worse.”

Postscript

On
Independence Day, 2022,  The Last Heroes: Footsoldiers of Indian Freedom had
already gone to press when the government of Tamil Nadu conferred
the Thagaisal Thamizhar Award on RNK. This is Tamil Nadu’s top prize instituted in 2021 and given to an eminent personality who has contributed a great deal
to the state and the Tamil community. It carries a cash prize of Rs. 10 lakhs, and it was handed over to RNK by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on the ramparts of Fort
St. George.

R. Nallakannu’s fight for many forgotten freedoms

مظلوموں کی آزادی کے لیے نلّ کنّو کی جدوجہد

ఎన్నెన్నో పోరాటాల వీరుడు ఆర్. నల్లకణ్ణు

ਭੁੱਲੀਆਂ ਵਿਸਰੀਆਂ ਕਈ ਆਜ਼ਾਦੀਆਂ ਵਾਸਤੇ ਆਰ. ਨੱਲਾਕੰਨੂੰ ਦੀ ਜੰਗ

ଅନେକ ବିସ୍ମୃତ ସ୍ୱାଧୀନତା ପାଇଁ ଆର.ନଲ୍ଲାକନ୍ନୁଙ୍କ ସଂଗ୍ରାମ

विस्मृतीत गेलेल्या स्वातंत्र्यांसाठी संघर्षरत आर. नल्लकन्न

മറക്കപ്പെട്ടുപോയ പല സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യങ്ങൾക്കുംവേണ്ടിയുള്ള ആർ. നല്ലകണ്ണിന്റെ പോരാട്ടം

ಮರೆತುಹೋದ ಹಲವು ಸ್ವಾತಂತ್ರ್ಯಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ಆರ್. ನಲ್ಲಕಣ್ಣುನಡೆಸಿದ ಹೋರಾಟ

शोषितों की आज़ादी के लिए नल्लकन्नु का संघर्ष

આર. નલ્લકન્નુની લડત વિસરાઈ ગયેલી આઝાદી માટે

हर किसम के आजादी सेती नल्लकन्नू के लड़ई

हर गुलामी के खिलाफ नल्लाकन्नु के लड़ाई

বহু বিস্মৃত মুক্তির জন্য আর. নাল্লাকান্নুর সংগ্রাম

শোষিত-নিষ্পেষিতৰ বহু সংগ্ৰামৰ আমি পাহৰা নায়ক আৰ. নল্লকন্নু

பல சுதந்திரங்களுக்கான ஆர். நல்லகண்ணுவின் போராட்டம்

Chennai

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R. Nallakannu’s fight for many forgotten freedoms

The story of R. Nallakannu. An excerpt from P. Sainath's book, 'The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom' published by Penguin, and re-published on PARI for Independence Day, 2024

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