The party seems to have left its proletarian policies outside the main gate—the entry fee is a not-so-reasonable Rs 300 and the Rs 30-crore park spread over 30 acres is among the most advanced theme parks in India.
For a party-sponsored set-up, this is free of CPI-M symbols—no party flag and no pictures of party stalwarts E.M.S. Namboodiripad, A.K. Gopalan and E.K. Nayanar—but that’s only till you go up to the rides and talk to the holidaying crowd and staff. Most of them are either comrades or CPI-M sympathisers. Like the 60-year-old—he didn’t want to be named—who had travelled all the way from Kozhikode, a district to the south of Kannur. A cheerful man in a starched white mundu (dhoti) and shirt, he said, “I am an old comrade. I am not here for the rides—just to look around.”

Vismaya has two dozen rides—sky train, giant wheel, flume ride, crazy cruise, typhoon tunnel and tornado—and the park management hopes to add a few more in the next couple of weeks. The equipment, sourced from Mumbai, looks snazzy. But till noon on Thursday—day five of the park’s launch—less than 100 visitors had turned up. A few splashed around in the waters, others stuck to the children’s parks and eateries.

The CPI-M’s choice of Kannur for the theme park is interesting. This is the hotbed of violence between the CPI-M and the Sangh Parivar outfits, where divisions along party lines are carved in blood. Over the last three decades, more than 200 lives have been lost to the political violence. Kannur is where entire villages are split along party lines and Parassinikkadavu, where the water park has come up, is a “CPI-M village” 16 km from the district centre. Any action that strays from the party line isn’t tolerated—not even a visit to a theme park owned by the rival party. It’s all about party loyalties. So it wasn’t surprising that the 60-year-old in the white mundu had paid Rs 300 simply to take a walk in the “party park”.

Krishnadas, a CPI-M worker from Marad in Kozhikode district, where eight people were hacked to death in 2003, is here because he felt obliged to “do something for the party”.
“This is a party venture. I found it my duty to make the park successful. The party has to shell out a huge amount to run the park. I have brought with me a group of people from Marad to the park. I am doing my bit to keep the park alive,” he said, keeping an eye on his 17-member team.
But Krishnadas looked worried at the poor turnout. “Let us hope it will get better in the coming days,” he said. Several rides, like the sky train and the Ferris wheel, stood still because there weren’t enough joyriders. A waterfall came to life only when a group rushed to the tumbling bay.

At the park, young comrades, both men and women, had been appointed as life guards, customer care executives and guides. Though park managing director P.P. Chandran claimed that they were chosen strictly on merit, employees secretly admitted that the 300-odd jobs at the park have mostly gone to party workers. Most of the workers are from party villages in Kannur.
Sumesh, a plumber at the park, is from Pinarayi, the home town of CPI-M state Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. Sumesh joined the park after quitting his job with another of the party’s co-operative ventures.

The CPI-M, which claims to be the voice of the working class, doesn’t seem to have got it right here. Several workers complained that they were yet to get their appointment letters. “I have been promised a monthly salary of Rs 5,000. But, I have not got any papers to that effect,” said a woman worker, who is also a DYFI activist in the locality.

But the park management says these are teething troubles andhopes to have a smooth ride once the number of tourists picks up. The park is strategically located between two famous tourist spots—a temple and a snake park. The Sree Muthappan Temple at Parassinikkadavu is the only temple in Kerala where theyyam, a folk art form of Kerala, is performed as a daily ritual. Toddy and dried fish are special offerings at the temple and a good number of devotees turns up every day. The snake park at Parassinikkadavu houses more than 100 varieties of snakes and is a major tourist draw. The park management expects that a chunk of Sree Muthappan’s devotees and the snake park visitors will be drawn to the park.

Chandran said that as part of the park’s expansion, a five-star riverside resort would come up on the land adjacent to the park and an ayurvedic rejuvenation centre would be set up too. The park has a rain harvesting system that can store 500 lakh litres of water. But that wouldn’t be enough to operate the planned 13 rides a day through the year.
And that won’t be enough for the CPI-M to fight back allegations of water exploitation. The party had led an agitation against Coca-Cola’s plant in Palakkad over alleged exploitation of water. It’s no easy ride.

OTHER VENTURES
Kerala State Rubber Co-operative Limited (Rubco): Headquartered in Kannur, Rubco, which began with an investment of Rs 280 crore in 1997, has CPI-M-controlled district co-operative banks as major stakeholders. It manufactures rubber-based products for domestic as well as foreign markets. The cooperative is planning a Rs 50-crore expansion. Its chairman E. Narayanan said a sports shoe factory and a unit for processing rubber for tyres would soon be added to the Rubco family.
Thalassery Medical Foundation Limited (TMFL): Another co-operative venture floated by the CPI-M in Kannur. The 250-bedded super-specialty hospital has E. Narayanan as the chairman. Though the party is opposed to self-financing colleges, TMFL runs a self-financing nursing college. Narayanan and his fellow comrades have also constructed a shopping mall worth Rs 10 crore under the aegis of TMFL. The EMS Memorial Co-operative Hospital in Perinthalmanna, North Kerala, and the AP Varkey Mission Hospital in Cochin are the party’s healthcare ventures in the co-operative sector.
Tourism: Taking cue from comrades in Kannur, party leaders in Kozhikode have floated the Kozhikode District Co-operative Travel and Tourism Development Society, which will initially function as a tour operator and later diversify. Party leaders associated with the society are said to be close to state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.
Television channels: The party manages three satellite TV channels under the banner of Malayalam Communications Ltd. Liquor barons and Muslim League leaders associated with the Opposition alliance, the UDF, have also invested in the channels. A multi-storied headquarters for its premier channel, Kairali TV, is coming up in Thiruvananthapuram.

PARK PLAN
The idea for the theme park, the first of its kind to be promoted by the CPI-M in the country, was conceived in 2001. Party leader E.P. Jayarajan was the first chairman of the Malabar Tourism Development Co-operative Limited (MTDCL), which floated the park. To bypass the hurdles a co-operative society might have to face in mobilising funds, MTDCL formed Malabar Pleasures (India) Limited as the money-generating channel for the park.