The Marxism-inspired Naxalite movement of late 1960s Bengal found its

echoes in communist-ruled Kerala soon after. Ajitha, then 18 years old,

became the face of this movement in Kerala. Her memoirs, now available
in one volume in English, is a delightful mix: autobiography, the
biography of a collective, and the history of an ideology.

Ajitha, the daughter of committed Marxist parents, was part of a team

that attacked Pulpally police station in Waynad, Kerala, in November
1968. The attack was scheduled to be followed by a similar one at
Thalasserry. It was also directed at the landlords and feudal families of
the area. The onslaught resulted in deaths and injuries to policemen but
failed to be more effective as a major uprising because the Thalasserry
attack petered out. The Naxalites became fugitives, spending days in
miserable conditions in the forests. Eventually they were caught, and
discovered that many of their fellow-revolutionaries had been caught,
tortured and shot. Ajitha was paraded by the police, who did not realise
then that they had created a new martyr, a new icon of rebellion.

Ajitha’s memoirs recount the heady days of ‘revolution’ — the collective

reading of Marx and Mao, the plans for revolution and emancipation of the
poor — the attack, her inspirational parents and the camaraderie. The
description of her life in prison — she was 27 when released — are
graphic, but deliberately muted so as to not elicit sympathy. Ajitha does
not at any point see herself as victim — interesting at a time when the
victim is writ large everywhere, and the most dominant discourse is of
victimhood (real or imagined). Indeed she spends more time describing
the cruelties perpetrated on other inmates so that we understand the
terrible nature of India’s prison system.
The personal merges with the political here when Ajitha describes the
tensions within the Naxalite-Marxist groups in Kerala. Her withering
contempt for ‘establishment’ Marxism — symbolised by EMS
Namboodiripad and others —is tinged with regrets at the dilution of the
revolutionary zeal when former Marxists acquire government posts and
wealth. What emerges from Ajitha’s memoirs is the schism within Indian
Marxism and the hypocrisy of the communist parties — the party
communists in Kerala were the first to criticise the rebellion. The
government does its best to ensure that the poster girl of Kerala naxalism
stayed in prison. But, as Ajitha puts it: “I didn’t need freedom at the cost
of forsaking my ideology”. Ajitha settles into marriage, but is unhappy at
what she calls the ‘placid’ life of a housewife and mother. She founded
Bodhana, a woman’s organisation, in 1987. Later she joins Anweshi, the
outfit that was instrumental in exposing the sex scandals of a Kerala
minister.

Ajitha’s Memoirs are idiosyncratic but powerful, fragmented but visionary.

The dreams of the revolutionaries and the oppressive state apparatus are
delivered with the right amount of anger. In an age when the most
committed Marxists in academics are the ones who own palatial houses
even as they plead for Dalits or fisherwomen, Ajitha represents an older,
perhaps more genuine face of the Left in India. What’s left of the Left now
is of course a matter for speculation.