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and destruction of government properties. Mammen, though felt unhappy on the turn of events, continued with the freedom struggle with more vigour. His sphere of activities was at Vellore in North Arcot District of Madras Presidency and was carrying out clandestine operations including distribution of banned literature on Freedom Movement regularly received from the higher ups. What happened after that and how Clement Attlee’s British Govt was forced to grant independence to India, a grand finale of world’s only one non-violent freedom struggle, is history.

 

The present State of Kerala is made up of two princely states, Travancore and Kochi and and Malabar, part of the then Madras Presidency under the British rule. When the British announced their withdrawal from India, Sir CP Ramaswamy Iyer, the Dewan announced that Travancore would establish itself as an independent State and would not join the Indian Union. The action of the Dewan aroused bitter turmoil inside and outside the State. Travancore was again in the vortex of a political struggle and the

 

One of the gory incidents of the struggle was a police firing at Pettah, Trivandrum, in which three persons including a student by name Rajendran were killed. CP’s Police resorted to a brutal lathicharge on people taking part in a meeting at Kottayam using the notorious ‘Five Rupee Police’ recruited by the Dewan exclusively for disturbing and spoiling meetings o supportingt Independent Travancore. KE Mammen was in the thick of this meetings and he proudly recollects that he along with others did not retaliate to the police action when subjected to brutal lathicharges, instead controlled the mobs shouting slogans ‘Gandhiji Ki Jai’ and ‘Vande Matharam”. Another incident he wanted to narrate again and again was about 15th Aug 1947. On the first night of freedom when Jawaharlal Nehru  recited his tryst with destiny KE Mammen was in a dingy prison  cell in Thiruvalla in Kerala. He heard the speech on a single-band radio  and cried with joy. The next day when he was released he ran through the streets of the city holding tricolor high in the air. It was a moment of agony or ecstacy, I don’t Know, to be a witness to Mammen trying to wipe his tearful eyes with his frail hands describing these stories.

 

On 25 Jul 1947 an unsuccessful attempt was made on Sir CP Ramaswamy Iyer's life when the in Trivandrum. The Dewan escaped with minor injuries and very soon left the State for good! Immediately after this incident the Maharaja intimated, to Lord Mountbatten, the Governor-General, his decision to accept the Instrument of Accession and accede Travancore into the Indian Union. Kochi had already agreed to the accession earlier. Sir CP Ramaswamy Iyer, resigned the office of Dewan on August 19. 

 

Post Independence

 

KE Mammen returned to Thiruvalla with the greatest satisfaction of his life, a free citizen of India. Thereafter for years together his sphere of activities remained Thiruvalla and Kottayam. Though a congress believer and supporter, he did not align actively with any party and continued to serve the people and the society following the Gandhian ideals so dear to him. He was elected President of Kuttoor Pancahyat twice, unopposed as an independent, which was indeed, a recognition of his service to the cause of the people.

 

Later on, dissatisfied with the way Congress was heading towards nepotism and vested interests marginalizing Gandhian principles he joined Indian Socialist Party (ISP) of Jaya Prakash Narayanan. It was at that time Pattom Thanu Pillai formed Praja Socialist Party in Travancore- Cochin as an offshoot of ISP. At Pattom’s insistence Mammen contested for the Assembly elections in 1954 from Thiruvalla as a PSP candidate against the Congress. Eventually he lost the election to MP Chandrasekhara Pillai of Congress by a meagre margin of nearly 500 votes. That was the first and last time Mammen contested for any election in his long public life. However he was in the forefront of all the agitations and movements against the systems and practices that affected the common man and the communal amity. It is no wonder that KC Mammen Mapillai, his uncle and doyen of Malayala Manorama Group described KE Mammen as an “Uncompromising Idealist” in his autobiography ‘Reminiscences’ published as early as in 1950.

 

Moves to the Capital

 

KE Mammen shifted to Trivandrum about fifteen years ago and is still omnipresent in all cultural, political and social platforms in the capital and he expresses his bold, unreserved and unbiased comments on any issue that concerns the common man.

 

KE Mammen imbibed certain qualities from his idol Mahatma Gandhi from the young age itself. His greatest strength is his open-mindedness and the ability to fight for what he thinks is right. He firmly believed, and still believes that the Gandhian thoughts are still relevant and uses all his energy and time in propagating those virtuous thoughts through any medium available to him. He leads a simple life, his wants are limited and shows a high degree of resilience when confronted with people with differing ideologies. He never allows personal relationships to come in between when matters relevant to social well-being are under threat. He wrote that the congress may be renamed ‘Abkari Congress’ when AK Antony’s Government failed to implement the prohibition of liquor as promised, though AK Antony is a good friend of his by his own admission. In an open letter published in the Malayala Manorama he severely criticised PC Alexander for releasing a laudatory book on Sir CP Ramaswammy Iyer in Chennai and recalled the atrocities that CP had committed against democratic processes during his tenure as the Dewan of Travancore. The tone of the letter clearly shows his anguish at seeing how a learned person like PC Alexander could be a party in glorifying CP Ramaswamy Iyer.

 

However, he did not forget to congratulate Sonia Gandhi when she was elected President of Indian national Congress and wished her all the very best. In 2003, he wrote a strongly worded letter to the Congress leadership in Kerala urging them to do away with group politics and work towards strengthening the Congress to uphold the democratic traditions in the State and suggested that the process should start from the top, the ‘Leader’ taking the lead. He was gracious enough to donate Rs 10,000/- out of his meagre earnings to the ailing son of Kochappippillai of Kallara who was hanged by CP’s regime for taking part in the freedom struggle. In 1994 K E Mammen published a book ‘Women Under Torture Seeking Shelter’ narrating factual stories of 12 women subjected to torture by this male dominated society.

 

KE Mammen believes that hartals and bandhs are a bane to society and social harmony. He wrote “Because of hartals and bandhs which have become a regular feature in Kerala politics can only create insurmountable sufferings for the poor and the common man. Rich and the professionals are not much concerned because these provide them with some paid holidays in between. The most affected sections of the people are the office goers and daily wage earners. They have to spend more money and time to reach their work place to earn their daily bread. The production losses that industrial concerns suffer because of high absenteeism forced by the hartals and bandhs are irreversible. ‘The God’s own country’ has now become ‘the Devil’s own country’. Foreign investors are apprehensive about risking their money in Kerala, many of them having turned their heels after alighting at Kochi”. Mammen urges that the losses that the State incurs because of these unethically sponsored hartals and bandhs be recovered and realised from the political parties or from their leaders who sponsor or call for the bandhs and hartals. He squarely blames the political leaders for cowardice and urges them to lead from the front, if they think that these harthals and bandhs cannot be avoided in their wisdom, and face the police and establishment and not to make the innocent students and common citizens their scapegoats. He asks why we cannot emulate the example of Maharashtra Govt in this regard. In China, even capital punishment is prescribed in law for those who destroy public property. In West Bengal where the Leftist Government is in power for years no demonstrations or jathas are allowed in the heart of the city and governmental areas. Here in our capital, every day something or the other happens which hampers the normal functioning of the govt.

 

The most significant fact is that Mammen does not stop at preaching. He paraded his single-man Army himself and dared to face the wrath of UDF activists who went on Dharna on 06 Jul 97, the first one of its kind the then LDF Govt had to face. With placards in those frail hands he showed tremendous courage to go into the midst of those who were on Dharna in front of the secretariat. The politically vibrant mob, normally volatile even at the slightest provocation, did not raise a finger at him. Doesn’t this amply prove how much KE Mammen is feared or respected by the public as also the seldom visible sensibility and sensitiveness of our politica

 

 

In the Twilightof of his Life

 

In his 94th year, the man who really lived his life all these years as a true Gandhian and a Congressman laments that the present India doesn’t have the faintest resemblance to the Ramarajya that Gandhiji yearned for. The man who has never smoked, never consumed liquor and forfeited a blissful married life to realise his dream of an India led and inspired by Gandhian thoughts is surely disappointed, but not shattered. He continues his struggle for his vision in his own inimitable style

 

The greatest strength of this man, you cannot count one example from the present day politicians and social activists, is his courage of conviction and the