Requiem to a fugitive; the life & times of Comrade Thankappan

Nirappel Thankappan was an ordinary farmer, a local CPI (M) activist in the hilly village of Nedumkandam in Idukki district. On Friday, February 25, the 88-year-old Thankappan succumbed to old age ailments and passed away. In the normal course of events, it was just another ordinary death of a man who had led an ordinary life and would not have attracted media attention at all.

Though dead men tell no tales, Thankappan however had left behind an unbelievable story that when told seemed stranger than fiction. The villagers were shocked to learn after his death that he was not who he had claimed to be and that he had taken his “true identity” to the grave.

It was only after his death as per his wishes, Thankappan’s deep secret was disclosed to the world. The truth was told by his close friend Jiji Verghese, the local CPI (M) committee secretary when he read out an obituary note from K Ajitha, the former Naxalbari leader, who has since quit the Naxal movement and become a feminist and human rights activist.

At the funeral, Jiji dropped a bombshell when he revealed that “Comrade Thankappan was a man who had lived the life of a fugitive for more than fifty years”.

It was at that time, everyone in the village learnt the shocking truth about the communist party worker’s true identity at that time. ‘Nirappel Thankappan’ was actually Allunkal Sreedharan, a firebrand Naxalite, a former fellow comrade of K Ajitha and other leaders of the Naxalite movement in Kerala in the late 1960s. He had also been a close associate of Arikkad Verghese, a former Naxalite leader, who is widely remembered in public memory as a martyr, after being killed by the police in an encounter-operation.

Allunkal Sreedharan aka Nirappel Thankappan had participated in the attack on the Pulpally police station in Wayanadu in 1968, one of the bloodiest incidents in the history of the Naxal movement in Kerala. Sreedharan and his fellow comrades were booked under several charges and were convicted in one. The appeal filed against the trial court conviction was dismissed and Sreedharan who was on bail at that time went into hiding. And after 1969, he was untraceable and nobody heard anything further about him.

Allunkal Sreedharan, who had turned into a fugitive running from the law, was slowly erased from public memory.

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The emergence of Nirappel Thankappan

Sometime, in the late 60s and early 70s, Nirappel Thankappan, a man in his early 30’s, migrated to the High Range like many other farmers from other places in Kerala. Thankappan started his life as a daily wage labourer and later became a farmer. He started working as an ordinary member with the CPI(M). Though the people in the locality knew very little about him, he was popular for his social activities and was loved by everyone.

Only two people in the village knew the real truth – Jiji and Shahji Verghese – his closest friends in the party. Jiji Verghese was the secretary of the local committee in which both Shaji and Thankappan were members. A few years ago, they came to know about Thankappan’s true identity.

“He was a close friend of my father. What we knew about him was that he came from Pala in Kottayam. He was well read, intelligent and had extraordinary clarity in matters related to politics,” recalled Shaji, who was very close to Thankappan since childhood, as he was his father’s beloved friend.

Jiji Verghese, meanwhile, has fond memories of Thankappan. In an interview with The Federal, he narrated the intriguing story of his comrade. “First of all, he was not just like any other ordinary comrades. He had deep knowledge of Marxism and Communism. We have always been impressed by his scholarship, political clarity and sharp thinking. This is something that we cannot expect from an ordinary farmer in a village like ours,” said Jiji, who had felt from the start that there was something unusual about Thankappan.

When Thankappan started working for the Communist party, they had no roots in the area. “This was a place where Congress had a strong presence. Most people in the locality are Christians and aligned to the Congress. Communism or Marxism was never an idea loved by the God-fearing Christians here. In such a scenario, Comrade Thankappan worked hard to build the foundations of the party,” said Jiji Verghese, who introduced himself as a hard-core communist trying to follow the ideals taught by seniors like Thankappan.

“There were many other factors quite unusual about him. He used to tell us that politics was not a career. He urged all of us to pursue a livelihood and not to make politics as a means of livelihood. Hence, we all do farming or other occupations and regard politics as a service,” said Jiji.

There was something else that had made Jiji and Shaji suspicious about Thankappan. “He never went to a police station. In a village, political activists always have to visit a police station to solve a case through mediation or to file a complaint. Thankappan Chettan (brother) never visited the station for any such occasion. He was very popular and had been loved by everyone. When people went to him with problems which needed to be settled in the station, he would entrust either Shaji or any other comrade or me to deal with it”, explained Jiji.

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“I raised this question with him a couple of times, but he always evaded my queries,” said Jiji.

A few years back, however, Thankappan disclosed the truth buried deep in his past to his beloved comrades Shaji and Jiji. “Around fifteen years back, Thankappan Chettan opened up and disclosed his closely-guarded secret to us. We never revealed it to anyone,” said Jiji solemnly.

What made Jiji and Shaji keep the truth hidden for so long?  Jiji said emphatically, “A secret is a secret. A Communist is supposed to keep a secret. We loved him and we never wanted him to go to jail. If we had revealed his true identity to someone, the police would have heard about it and they would have opened the old file. We don’t trust the police and the media.”

Dead men have no secrets

After his death, Jiji  realised that this was the time to let the world know Thankappan’s true identity. “The first person who we wanted to inform was K Ajitha,” pointed out Jiji.

Ajitha who also participated in the police station attack at Pulppally had referred to Allunkal Sreedharan in her autobiography (The Memoirs).  “He was there with us when the MSP Camp at Pulppally in Wayanadu was attacked early morning on November 24, 1968. Comrade Verghese (later killed in the encounter) and a few more comrades were there in the team,” recollected K Ajitha. When she came out of jail after completing her sentence, Ajitha never ever heard from Sreedharan.

The Naxal movement too had faded by that time and most of them including Ajitha had left the movement as well.

Jiji had never met or talked to Ajitha though she was a well-known figure in Kerala. “We did not have her contact number, I searched for her in Facebook and sent her a message informing her of the demise of Comrade Thankappan and told her about him,” said Jiji.

Ajitha told The Federal, “I was quite surprised and shocked to know that Comrade Sreedharan had been alive and was living the life of a fugitive. I was disappointed and sad that I did not know this before. I wish I had met him before he died.” However, she sent an obituary note to Jiji which was read out in the funeral ceremony.

Jiji was not aware if his family members had known the truth. “I have never disclosed this secret even to his family members. Several times, we thought of informing Ajitha and inviting her to meet him. But Comrade Thankappan never wanted this secret to come out in the open during his lifetime. He insisted that the truth can be divulged only after his death,” said Jiji.

Abhilash, a farmer and the son of Thankappan aka Sreedharan is yet to accept the shocking truth about his father. While talking to The Federal, he seemed extremely emotional and embarrassed and only said that he is very proud about his father.

“I am proud to say that I am the son of a communist like him. My father lived and died fabulously. Isn’t it a big thing that he could defeat the state and the media for 54 years and successfully completed the life of a fugitive?” asked Abhilash. However, he refused to reply to the question if he felt a sense of being lied to by his own father. Instead, Abhilash said his next mission in life is to dig out his father’s past and uncover more details about his ‘other’ life.

After death, his friends and family wonder how Thankappan had lived for more than half a century always looking over his shoulder, wondering if his past would ever catch up with him. But as fate or luck would have it, Sreedharan aka Thankappan managed to successfully evade the long arm of the law during his lifetime.