Mathai Manjooran ( 13 October 1912 – 14 January 1970) was an Indian independence activist from Kerala, socialist revolutionary, Member of Parliament, Minister of Labour (economics) in the second E.M.S. Namboodiripad communist ministry, and above all the staunchest proponent for the formation of the Kerala State.
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Mathai was born as the second son of Mathew Manjooran and Elishua on October 13, 1912 at Chakkarakadavu, in the erstwhile princely state of Kochi. Those were troubled times when the mighty waves of the global economic depression were lashing hard across the coast of Kerala. Mathai was led by hand into active politics by his elder brother Cherian Manjooran.
When the state was harrowing under the effects of the Great Depression of the 1930s, yet another great convulsion engulfed the land from end to end. But this time it was a positive one in the form of the Quit India Movement of 1942. Instead of being a passive spectator, Mathai plunged headlong into the vortex of the movement.
As a fearless freedom fighter, he had led many daring exploits against the British, both in Kerala and in the north of India. His involvement in the Quit India Movement of 1942 saw him and his cronies actively involved in an attempt to sabotage several strategic railway bridges in the Malabar region to cripple the military movements across the area. The tumultuous Kizhaariyoor bomb case is the result of one of such attempts.
In the post-independence era, Mathai directed his energy mostly to the political movements in Kerala such as the Vimochana Samaram, the liberation struggle to free the state from the excesses of the first communist government. The Kerala Socialist Party (KSP) that came into being under his leadership in 1947 was the rallying point of the greatest Malayali minds of those times including the renowned litterateurs like M.K. Menon (Vilasini), Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, P.K. Balakrishnan, and C.N. Sreekandan Nair.
Mathai’s stint as the Minister of Labor attest to his qualities as an able administrator. Equally remarkable was his term of office as a Member of the (Rajya Sabha]] from 1952–54, a time when heated deliberations were on as to what mode of government is to be adopted for governing post-independent India. While an overwhelming majority of the members were in favor of the British model of governance, Mathai spoke vehemently for Federalism. The speeches that he made in the Council of States on the occasion were praised time and again by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan who was the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha at that time.
More than any other leader in Kerala, Mathai Manjooran endeavored for the formation of the Kerala state. The seminal contribution made by Mathai towards the effort was his convening of the United Kerala conference held in Bombay on November 19, 1944. It was de facto the first platform for the Malayali Diaspora to make a conscious expression of their aspiration for cultural and political unification.
The second time Mathai came forward for the formation of Kerala was when he convened yet another United Kerala conference, this time under the aegis of the Kerala Socialist Party. The conference took place on February 6, 1949 at Alwaye Manalpuram. But this time the demand of the KSP was nothing less than the formation of a Socialist Republic of Kerala.
However, this demand was part of a broader concept of India, held by Mathai, as a federation of linguistically based sovereign socialist republics with their inalienable right of self-determination. It was certainly an out-of-the-box concept and hence naturally poohed down at the time as an utopian idea. It was a time when even the concept of India as a newly tinkered out union of more than 650 or so princely states was not fully digested in its novel historical context and perspective.
The final effort of Mathai towards the formation of Kerala State was when he was a sitting member of the Council of States (the forerunner of the present Rajya Sabha) from 1952–54. The widely reported speech that he made in 1953 in the Council of States towards the formation of states on a linguistic basis won the attention of the nation and was a catalyst towards and a milestone in the formation of linguistic states of the Indian Union.
The realigning of the different regions of India on a linguistic basis got constant setback due to the discouragement from the part of Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru who in principle was against the proposal. But as the years progressed the demand for the 'language states' became stronger with the voice of Shri. Mathai Manjooran the strongest from south of India along with Potti Sreeramulu who died in December 1952 following a hunger strike demanding the formation of Andhra Pradesh.
Amidst his hectic life in politics Mathai found time to nurture his protean interests ranging from journalism, literature, philosophy to name only a few. He started two newspapers Light of Kerala and Keralaprakasham from Cochin. The book Prakashathilakku (Towards Light) that he authored is a collection of philosophical works on Western Philosophy. Keeping abreast of the literary currents of his time he made many discerning criticisms on several important contemporary literary works, especially those of S. K. Pottakkat. The book Moses, Jesus and Marx which he began to write in English was unfortunately cut short by his death.