How BJP is moving to co-opt Congress icons ‘ripe for appropriation' in Kerala

The Print

19-05-2025

'Many leaders played an instrumental role in India's freedom struggle. It's a proud moment to see that family and locals are keeping V.R. Krishnan Ezhuthachan's memories alive,' Surendran said at the event. She also took a swipe at the Congress, accusing it of sidelining several freedom fighters who were once part of its own ranks.
Senior BJP leaders, including state vice-president Sobha Surendran, paid floral tributes at his grave on the 21st death anniversary and held a commemorative function at his residence. Hours later, Congress leader and former state party president V.M. Sudheeran organised similar events at the same venue.
Thiruvananthapuram: Avinissery town in Kerala's Thrissur district drew political attention last week after the BJP held an event there to honour freedom fighter and Gandhian leader V.R. Krishnan Ezhuthachan.
A freedom fighter from Thrissur, V.R. Krishnan Ezhuthachan was a staunch Gandhian and a member of the Cochin legislative assembly. He also served as a mentor to the late Kerala chief minister and senior Congress leader K. Karunakaran.
The BJP's gesture to honour Ezhuthachan comes on the heels of its recent tussle with the Congress in neighbouring Palakkad over the legacy of Chettur Sankaran Nair—a jurist remembered for challenging British rule and the first Malayali Congress president—after both parties held separate events in the district on his death anniversary on 24 April.
These are not isolated instances of the BJP attempting to 'co-opt' Congress icons. At the national level and in several states, the party has followed a pattern of honouring Congress stalwarts—often while accusing the Congress of failing to safeguard the legacies of its own leaders.
Meanwhile, the Congress in Kerala said that what the BJP is doing in the state is just a political tactic ahead of the next year's assembly polls. 'It's never going to work,' former Kerala Assembly speaker and party's Thiruvananthapuram district committee president Palod Ravi told ThePrint. 'Even if they co-opt our leaders, people are not going to believe them.'
Ravi also said that Congress defectors in the BJP are not getting enough respect and space there.
Among national icons, the BJP now celebrates leaders including Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel—for whom the party-led Centre built the world's tallest statue in 2018 in Gujarat—Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and B.R. Ambedkar. The BJP claims these figures were neglected by the Congress.
'The Congress can't just remember its leaders in the run-up to the local body polls (later this year).The BJP will commemorate all the leaders who have been pushed into oblivion by the Congress,' said Justin Jacob, BJP president of Thrissur, adding that the Congress never even bothered to name a village road after Ezhuthachan.
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The event
During the 14 May event, BJP's Surendran claimed that Patel, known as the ironman of India, deserved much more respect and recognition but was sidelined by Jawaharlal Nehru.
'Nehru built a legacy that benefited only his dynasty,' She claimed. 'Even in Kerala, respected leaders like V.M. Sudheeran have been pushed to the margins because the Congress has reduced itself to a family-run party.'
Referring to recent Congress defections in Kerala—including those of Anil Antony, son of senior Congress leader A.K. Antony, and Padmaja Venugopal, daughter of party stalwart K. Karunakaran—Surendran said more family members of Congress veterans would follow suit if the party continues to overlook them.
'Remember leaders like Chennithala and Sudheeran when you make your posters. Otherwise, you may soon see their families joining the BJP as well,' she warned. Ezhuthachan's family members, including his son, had joined the BJP last year.
Reacting to the event and the speech, Sudheeran said 'no one would believe' all these things.
According to Political analyst C.R. Neelakandan, the Sangh Parivar 'had no role' in India's freedom struggle and now they are 'attempting to deepen their roots in India by appropriating Congress icons'.
'To retain their political hold in the country, they need more than Hindutva ideology. But, it's also because of the failure of Congress to commemorate their icons,' Neelakandan said to ThePrint.
He added that while Sankaran Nair, who was active before the rise of Gandhi in the Congress, can be interpreted through an RSS lens, Ezhuthachan was a secular Gandhian leader and clearly aligned with Congress values.
Another analyst, K.P. Sethunath, said the Congress shrank to become just a 'Nehru-Gandhi family' party after the 1980s. 'Many other prominent leaders were forgotten, including those with ideological overlaps with Hindutva. This made them ripe for appropriation,' he told ThePrint.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked the legacy of Chettur Sankaran Nair while speaking at a rally in Haryana's Yamuna Nagar on 14 April this year, a day after the 106th anniversary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
'Every child in Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal should know about Sankaran Nair from Kerala,' Modi said, highlighting how Nair took the British government to court after the massacre and was subsequently removed from his post on the Viceroy's Council.
Modi's remarks came just ahead of the release of Kesari 2: The Untold Story of Jallianwala Bagh, a film starring Akshay Kumar, centered on Nair's life.
Born in Palakkad, Nair became a lawyer at the Madras High Court and then was elected the president of the Congress in 1897. He later joined the Viceroy's Council as Education Member in 1915 but resigned in protest after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919.
Sethunath said Nair, along with Annie Besant, had strongly criticised Gandhi and the Non-Cooperation movement following the Malabar rebellion. In 1922, Nair published Gandhi and Anarchy, a critical assessment of Gandhi's methods. The 1921 Malabar rebellion was an uprising by the Muslim community in northern Kerala following the Khilafat movement against the British government and the Hindu landlords.
Sethunath explained that today, the RSS selectively quotes leaders like Nair and Besant to talk against the rebellion. 'The BJP isn't resurrecting these leaders from nowhere. There are shades in these figures that can be appropriated by the BJP. The Congress's ambiguous relationship with religious communities is now being exploited by it,' he said.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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