P. Krishna Pillai
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P. Krishna Pillai (b. 1906 – d. August 19, 1948)
A Communist revolutionary from Kerala, India, who is one of the founders of the Communist movement in Kerala.
P. Krishna Pillai was born in a lower middle class family as the son of Narayanan Nair and Parvathiamma in 1906. He lost both his parents at an early age and had to drop out of school at the 5th grade. Leaving his home in 1920, he traveled a lot in the north of Indian subcontinent.
When he returned home 2 years later, he found Kerala seething with social unrest. Subsequently, he took part in a string of popular movements one after another. He was an active volunteer of Vaikom Satyagraha (1924) and Salt Satyagraha march from Kozhikode to Payyanur (1930). In 1931 he became the first non-brahmin to ring the temple bell of the Guruvayoor temple.
Krishna Pillai who began his political life as a Gandhian and a member of the Indian National Congress in his early youth had gradually transformed into a socialist with communist leanings. And when in 1934 Congress Socialist workers formed the Congress Socialist Party in Bombay, Krishna Pillai was appointed its unit secretary in Kerala while E.M.S. Namboodiripad was one of the general secretaries, all the while functioning under the banner of the Indian National Congress.
By 1936, Krishna Pillai who until then concentrated his political activities to the Malabar region now spread it to Kochi and Travancore. In 1938, he organized the famous worker’s strike in Alappuzha (Alleppy), which turned out to be a great success and one of the inspiring factors behind the Punnapra-Vayalar Strike of 1946 and the eventual downfall of the Diwan’s rule in Travancore.
The successful transformation of the Malabar unit of the Congress Socialist Party into the Kerala unit of the Communist Party of India (CPI) was mainly due to the untiring work of Krishna Pillai. The formal formation of the CPI unit in Kerala on January 26, 1940. But years later in 1948 when the CPI accepted the Calcutta Thesis which included in it the express need for an armed struggle against the Indian state, CPI faced a nationwide ban and most of its leaders including Krishna Pillai was forced into hiding.
While hiding in a worker’s hut in Muhamma, Alappuzha (Alleppy), Krishna Pillai sustained a snakebite and succumbed to it in August 19, 1948.
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P. Krishna Pillai’s role in building the Communist party is Kerala is second to none. He was a great organizer who succeeded in reaching out to the oppressed masses of Kerala and making them aware of their rights and the need for uplifting their social and economic conditions of life. His dedication to the Communist party could be understood from a short sentence by which he proposed marriage to his prospective wife Thankamma. Krishna Pillai said: "Life with me will be difficult, different. My wife should stand by me, the party and its cause. Then alone will she be happy".
