V. Viswanatha Menon

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Vadakkoot Viswanatha Menon, known among friends as Ambadi Viswam, was a firebrand political activist in his youth, one of the accused in the Communist attack on the Edappally police station. He was a leader of Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala. Starting his career as a student activist and leader for the freedom fight in his alma mater Maharaja's College, he became popularly known as "Ambady Viswam" among his peers, colleagues, seniors & near ones as his father belongs to the famous Nair family of Cochin "Ambady", and was one of the popular youths in Kochi at that time, due to his frank & fearless opinion & actions against any injustice & oppression. A follower of Gandhi from childhood, he was inclined towards Communism & Socialism during his student days, due to the influence of many prominent personalities around him, one of them being his cousin A.K.Damodaran (ex-I.A.S).

V. Viswanatha Menon was one of the earliest members of CPI in Kochi and played an essential role in erecting its base amidst the Monarchic & Imperialistic Period of the 1940s and 1950s, along with other stalwarts like M.M. Lawrence and A.P. Kurien. He worked selflessly among the party ranks for growth and against the suppression of the oppressed & downtrodden, after sacrificing his royal and rather luxurious life in his highly influential patriarchal family. This angered many orthodox Nair and other upper-caste families of the time, who always stood for the monarch and the powerful in order to sustain their own survival, influence and power in society. These malafides and atrocities were those that really angered Ambady Viswam, who had a soft-spot for the downtrodden from his childhood days, and inspired him to take a giant step in the world of Socialism.

A two-Time Member of Parliament representing CPI & later the CPI (M) faction that came into being after the 1964 split in the Communist Bastion, he was also the Finance Minister in the 1987 E.K. Nayanar led Left Democratic Front Government.

A FACT union president for 12 years, and Indal union president for 14 years, Ambadi Viswam was also the leader of a Cochin Port union.

External links

The Hindu on-line, September 3, 2003

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