K. Damodaran

Who was K. Damodaran?

K. Damodaran was a Marxist theoretician and writer and one of the founder leaders of the Communist Party in Kerala, India.

Damodaran was born in Ponnani in Malappuram district, the son of Kizhakkinedath Thuppan Nampoothiri and Keezhedathu Narayani Amma. He had his schooling in Government School, Tirur, and college education in Samoothiri College, Calicut. His first socialist activities were associated with being secretary of the student movement 'Kerala Students Movement' and he joined the freedom struggle. He was arrested in 1931 for participating in the civil disobedience movement and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 23 months. While in Coimbatore jail he learned Tamil and Hindi. Went to Kasi in 1935 to study Sanskrit from the Viswa Vidyalaya there and passed the Shastri examination. While at Kasi he learned Urdu and Bengali and was attracted to Communist ideology. Lal Bahadur Shastri was his classmate. He was attracted to Communist ideology through his senior Onkar Nadashasthri. Thus he became a Communist - the first 'Malayalee Communist'.

He returned to Kerala in 1937 and joined the Kerala Socialist Party and in May the same year formed the Kerala unit of the Communist Party. He organized Coir and Beedi workers. He became the KPCC General Secretary in 1940. He was imprisoned twice and released in 1945. In 1951, he was elected as the Taluk secretary of the Malabar unit committee of the Communist Party. He contested the assembly election in 1951 and the Loksabha election in 1957. Damodaran was elected to the central executive committee of the party in 1960. He took charge of editing the Navayugam weekly. All through these years he was intellectually active by way of writing articles and books, learning new languages and debating on various forums.