CHENNAI: Seventy-seven years ago, when the Communist Party was banned in independent India for its involvement in armed struggle, a 23-year-old R Nallakannu was arrested in Puliyoorkurichi village in Nanguneri of Tirunelveli district and subjected to custodial torture, during which a police officer burned off his moustache, an episode that left a lasting imprint on his life though he rarely spoke of his own suffering, choosing instead to foreground the ordeals of his comrades.
A freedom fighter and one of the tallest mass leaders of the Communist Party of India (CPI) in Tamil Nadu, Nallakannu passed away on Wednesday. He was 101.
Born on December 26, 1925, at Srivaikuntam near Thoothukudi to Ramasamy and Karuppayi Ammal, Nallakannu grew up in a middle class peasant family. His political consciousness was shaped during his school days at the Carnation School in Srivaikuntam, when the freedom movement was at its peak. He actively participated in protests in and around Srivaikuntam, drawing inspiration from the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi in his early years before being introduced to Marxist literature by his teacher Pallavesam. He joined the Quit India movement and was imprisoned as a student activist.
Even in his youth, Nallakannu took firm positions against caste discrimination. During the Second World War, when a food committee was formed in Srivaikuntam, dominant caste landholders excluded a Dalit member from the meetings. Nallakannu intervened, brought the member to the meeting in person and ensured that he was seated as an equal, leading the landlords to boycott the proceedings.
He joined the CPI in 1943 while pursuing his intermediate course at Tirunelveli Hindu College. His growing involvement in agitations meant that his education was disrupted. During the war years, when food scarcity was acute, he exposed the hoarding of paddy in a fortified granary in Srivaikuntam. Acting on his complaint, officials seized around 2,000 sacks of rice, an episode that brought him recognition across the region.
Nallakannu emerged as a key organiser of landless agricultural labourers across the then undivided Tirunelveli district, including Srivaikuntam and Nanguneri. Through the Agricultural Labourers Union, he led sustained struggles against the exploitative practices of large landholders and religious institutions that controlled vast tracts of land. One of his most significant campaigns was against the inhuman conditions imposed on tenant labourers who could be evicted at will and were denied basic rights over their homes. His leadership helped secure permanent habitation rights for these families, ending a system that had reduced them to a life of forced mobility.
“Comrade RNK was one of the founding leaders of the farmers’ movement in our state,” says CPM Politburo member G. Ramakrishnan, in the book, The Last Heroes: Footsoldiers of Indian Freedom by P Sainath. “Through the decades—starting from when he was still a teenager—it was he who, along with Srinivas Rao, created the bases of the Kisan Sabha across the state. Those remain a source of the strength for the Left even today. And Nallakannu helped create that by tireless campaigns and struggles all across Tamil Nadu.”
Following the ban on the CPI in 1948, Nallakannu went underground. He was arrested on December 20, 1949, at Puliyoorkurichi in Tirunelveli district. In custody, he was subjected to severe torture for refusing to divulge information about his comrades.
“No, the police burnt my moustache off with a cigarette. That was part of the torture inflicted on me by an Inspector Krishnamurthy from Madras city. He tied my hands at 2 a.m. He only untied them the next morning at 10. Then he beat me with his baton for a long time,” he recalled the incident in an interview.
He was later detained in the Nanguneri sub-jail and named as an accused in the Tirunelveli conspiracy case in 1950. In Madurai Central Prison, where he was assigned prisoner number 9658, he led protests against custodial excesses and campaigned for prisoners’ rights. As in charge of the prison library, he organised education programmes for inmates, enabling several to appear for the SSLC examination. He was released in December 1956 after seven years in prison.
In 1958, he married Ranjitham, daughter of anti-caste activist Annachamy. His public life continued to be rooted in mass struggles. He held key positions in the All India Agricultural Labourers Union at the State and national levels and led movements on issues ranging from land rights and wages to opposition to mineral exploitation.
Nallakannu served as CPI State secretary from 1992 to 2005, leading several State-wide agitations on issues affecting workers, farmers and the marginalised. He also moved the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in 2010 against illegal sand mining in the Thamirabarani river and argued the case in person, which resulted in a judicial ban on sand quarrying in the river.
RNK is known for his uncompromising secular politics. Recalling an incident in the 1999 Lok Sabha election in Coimbatore held in the aftermath of communal violence and serial blast, Indian Union Muslim League general secretary Mohamed Abubacker, while addressing at the CPI’s centenary year celebration recently, said Nallakannu refused to campaign without the League’s flag on the alliance vehicle, even after being told it might hurt his prospects in a Hindu-majority area. He insisted that all coalition partners be visibly represented and asked League workers to join him on the campaign vehicle, saying a victory achieved by erasing an ally’s identity was not worth having. Nallakannu went on to lose the election, but, Abubacker said, he never expressed regret, seeing the decision as a matter of principle and commitment to secular values.
Nallakannu was widely respected for his personal integrity and simplicity. He lived in TNHB’s rented quarters in CIT Nagar for several years until the government demolished it, and he moved to a rented house. On the occasion of his 80th birthday, when the CPI collected Rs 1 crore from supporters and handed it over to him, he returned the entire amount to the party. When the Tamil Nadu government conferred the Ambedkar Award on him along with Rs 1 lakh, he donated Rs 50,000 each to the CPI and the Agricultural Labourers Union. In 2022, when he received the Thagaisal Thamizhar award with a purse of Rs 10 lakh, he added Rs 5,000 from his own pocket and handed over the entire amount to the Chief Minister’s public relief fund. He lived in a rented house all his life.
With his death, the CPI and the Left movement in Tamil Nadu have lost a leader whose life was defined by sacrifice, simplicity and an unwavering commitment to social justice.
“He was someone who practised what he preached, an outstanding Communist who dedicated his entire life to the freedom of the nation, the emancipation of the people and public welfare, without any personal expectations or self-interest. I had the opportunity to work closely with him. We slept on the floor of the party office, ate together and worked for the party. He was a great leader who never differentiated between juniors and seniors, and he remained steadfast in the face of every form of attack,” said CPI general secretary D Raja.