Death of a comrade

It was around this time that he came close to Tamilarasu Kazhagam,a movement founded and headed by MP Sivagnanam,a freedom fighter,popular writer and activist who was once associated with the Congress Party. After participating in agitations to retain Madras with Tamil Nadu when the States were reorganised on linguistic basis,Ma Po Si,as Sivagnanam was known all over the Tamil-speaking world,was one of the first to demand that Madras State be renamed Tamil Nadu. This brought the leader and his movement closer to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) towards the end of the 60s.

In 1967,the watershed year in Tamil politics,Tamilarasu Kazhagam aligned with the DMK to face the incumbent Congress. Though the movement was with the winning side,a group of activists left it to form Tamilarasu Katchi,a political party. Varada Rajan belonged to yet another group,the disillusioned ones who drifted away from both.

The same year,Varada Rajan,a trained accountant,joined the Chennai branch of the Reserve Bank of India. According to a trade union veteran,if 67 was a year of major political upheaval in the state,the following year was one of intensified working-class struggle in which the young bank employee cut his teeth as a trade union activist. There were strikes at the RBI and at other industrial units like the Standard Motors factory at Vandalur near Chennai,to which the banking sector employees expressed solidarity.

Varada Rajan joined the CPM in 1969 and Communist stalwart VP Chinthan took him under his wings. During this period,the CPM was strengthening itself in the state and the city,an effort in which Varada Rajan played an active part. When the partys trade union wing,the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU),was formed a year later,WR became its representative from the powerful banking sector.

For 17 years,he continued working as a bank employee,even while entrenching himself in public affairs. He had become a member of the CPM district committee by then. According to partymen,in 1984,Chinthan asked him to start working full-time for the party. For a party that has a great deal of curriculum and classes,WRs skills with words were needed to advance its arguments.

Sources said Chinthan played a role in his protégés personal life as well. It was as per his instruction that Varada Rajan married D Saraswathi. A Reserve Bank employee from a Dalit community,Saraswathi had divorced her first husband by then. Varada Rajan had to face considerable criticism from the conservatives among the Brahmins for his decision. Her son Prashanth,now a professor in Salem,became his foster son. The couple had another son,Amudan,who now lives in the US.

After Chinthans death,WR was chosen as the candidate from his constituency,Villivakkam,in the Assembly election of 1989. The party,in alliance with the DMK,faced an MGR-less AIADMK for the first time and won it. WR won with the highest margin in Tamil Nadu.

Purushothaman was a DMK member when he canvassed for alliance candidate Varada Rajan in that election. Soon enough,the party got a new member. I was inspired by WR,his way of functioning and honesty that showed me what a Communist way of life was. It prompted me to switch allegiance to the CPM. But after that,I hardly got any chance to interact with him as he became busier by the day, says Purushothaman,who now works with the Chennai Corporation.

Varada Rajans Assembly stint,however,was short livedthe Karunanidhi government was dismissed and the House dissolved in 1991. But in those two years,as the state Assembly records show,WR was one of the most active speakers in the House,participating in all debates that dealt with public affairs.

In the next election held after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi,WR lost to a Congress candidate. That was the end of his parliamentary career. He then dedicated most of his time to the party and the trade union.

WRs elevation to the national level came in 1997,when the CITU decided to nominate him as its representative to the Central Board of Trustees (CBT) of the Employees Provident Fund,replacing V.B. Cherian. Two years later,he moved to Delhi and in the years that followed,his profile rose both within the party and outside.

In 2000,he became a national secretary of the CITU and two years later,he was inducted into the Central Committee of the CPM. He was a good orator. In view of his writing skills,we thought it apt to give him charge of our monthly journal,Working Class, remembers CITU president MK Pandhe. In his capacity as working editor of the journal,he wrote extensively on the issues faced by workers.

The staff at the CITU office remembers WR as an amiable and well-mannered comrade who was always accessible. He used to stay at the Vithal Bhai Patel House in central Delhi and was a regular at the UNI canteen.

In the CBT meetings,he was a powerful voice of the working class. Whether it was on opposing induction of private fund managers or demanding a higher rate of interest for EPF subscribers or rooting for computerisation of the EPF system,he was always at the forefront,recalls AD Nagpal,Secretary of the Hind Mazdoor Sabha and a member of the CBT.

Despite hailing from Tamil Nadu,he spoke Hindi well. It was surprising to hear him speaking fluent Hindi. I dont know where he picked it up, says Noorul Huda,a senior CPM Central Committee member.

If he was good at working among the people,he was better at working with words,helping draft the partys response to the economic changes of the 90s. Globalisation and privatisation,disinvestment or pension reforms,WR was among the prominent critics that the market forces had to face. They said TINA (There Is No Alternative). He argued Socialism Is The Alternative.

On issues close to his heart and sphere of work,he wrote opinion pieces in vernacular and English papers. He defended the right to strike and attacked what he saw as judicial activism.

At the World Social Forum and international meets like the Partido Comunista Portugues (PCP) held in Lisbon in 2006,his was one of the leading voices against the unjust new world order.

WRs stay in Delhi soured when the CITU General Council elected Mohd Amin as its general secretary after the death of Chittabrata Majumdar in 2007. WR,also a claimant for the post,was disheartened and decided to return to Tamil Nadu after unsuccessfully raising a banner of revolt. The official explanation,however,is that he wanted to be with his ailing mother. Back in Tamil Nadu as a Central Committee member of the party and one of the national secretaries of CITU,he was put in charge of some of the district units and also became the chief editor of the partys mouthpiece in Tamil,Theekathir.

As the chief editor of the paper,he had great ideaseditorially,in terms of layout,and even matters like marketing and advertising. In the last few years,the daily changed from a drab party paper to a more lively newspaper,without losing focus of the overall agenda, says a colleague. On his last day at work,he attended a meeting at the office to discuss the details of a book on the late West Bengal chief minister,Jyoti Basu.

For a while,Varada Rajan,along with a few comrades,had also been trying to organise workers in the IT and ITeS sector. WR had revealed in an interview months ago that they were unable to do so despite trying hard. Perhaps the one barrier he could not surmount.

His colleagues say that at one point Varada Rajan was poised to become the next state secretary of the Tamil Nadu unit,succeeding N Varadarajan,who recently stepped down. But then it went all downhill.

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THE SERIES of incidents that finally led to his death a week ago was not known to most people outside the innermost party circle,till the Nakheeran weekly in Tamil Nadu carried a report on February 18 with a headline that shocked its readers: Has WR committed suicide?

He had left home on February 11 and hadnt returned. The report was small,it was accompanied by two notes,unsigned but apparently written by WR,that showed everything was not alright.

The first one was written on February 6 while he was in Kolkata,on the day the Central Committee concluded its two-day meeting during which it took the decision to remove him from all elected posts.

It began with a quote from Thirukkural,the ancient Tamil moral scripture: Like Kavarimaan (a mythical musk deer) will die even if it loses a single strand of hair,those with self-respect will not live a moment if their honour is lost. The one who commits suicide can never be a Communist. I could overcome many struggles within the party. But faced with a personal struggle,I have been defeated…

In his second note,he instructed that the two bank accounts in his name be closed and that the amount be given to the party. His books were to be donated to the party and to Theekathir,while his laptop,a present from his son,was to be used for the dailys work. His body,wrote WR,should be donated for research. There should be no ceremony to honour him,neither should his picture be unveiled,he said in the note written on February 11.

Meanwhile,in a statement,CPM state secretary G Ramakrishnan confirmed that WR hadnt been seen for a week and that a formal complaint had been filed with the police commissioner. Party sources said senior leader TK Rangarajan met Chennai city police commissioner T Rajendran on Sunday,February 14,to inform him of Varada Rajans disappearance. The next day,Varada Rajans wife Saraswathi filed a formal complaint that her husband had been missing for a few days.

When rumour spread that Varada Rajan was expelled from the party,the leaders were forced to clarify that he was removed from all elected posts and demoted from the Central Committee to the Chennai South District Committee for conduct not befitting his stature. Apparently,Varada Rajans wife had filed a complaint,alleging illicit relations.

On Sunday,the police said an unidentified body had been lying at the Government Royapettah Hospital Mortuary since February 13. Forensic experts confirmed it was the senior leaders body. He had committed suicide by jumping into a lake on the outskirts of the city. One of his last wishesthat his body should be donated for researchremained unfulfilled. The body had decomposed after lying unidentified for several days.

But the element of mystery that surrounds his death,and the events before and after it,persists. It even overshadows the tragedy of his death. When a Communist commits suicide,there is a dichotomy. Perhaps that defines him.

With inputs from Manoj CG