He stood quietly, eyes locked with those of a girl no older than ten—curled into herself, bones bent, fingers fused, eyes blinking slowly. Behind her, dozens more: children, women, and men—ravaged by a bitter poison. Endosulfan.

Comrade VS Achuthanandan, then Leader of the Opposition, had not come to offer empty sympathy. He came with questions, difficult ones: “How did Kumaran Master, who never smoked or drank, fall to liver cancer? How were children not directly exposed to the pesticide born deformed? What makes this land turn against its people?”

No one in power had asked these questions until then. But VS did. He listened, realised, promised action, not theatrics, and fulfilled it when he got the chance.

That moment was more than a turning point for Kerala’s environmental movement. It revealed who VS truly was: a leader rooted in the soil and the struggles of the people. As Kerala tearfully bids him farewell at the age of 101, we remember not just the man, but what he stood for—when few dared.

Comrade VS was not simply crafted by image managers or media blitzkrieg. His leadership came from the fire of agrarian struggles, anti-feudal campaigns, and a stubborn refusal to compromise when it mattered.

Central to his life’s work was land—not in its commercial sense, but as the foundation of people, rights, and ecology.

His leadership was instrumental in passing the transformative Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008. VS saw it as a continuation of his controversial “Vettinirathal Samaram,” which opposed the conversion of paddy lands into cash crops. Real estate lobbies hated this law. In the Legislative Assembly, the opposition front walked out in protest. Even many in his party resisted. But he pushed ahead. He knew that in a land like Kerala, wetlands are lifelines—not cheap wastelands to be paved for speculative growth.

And later, when he was in the opposition, he rallied along with Sugathakumari and other environmentalists against any attempts to dilute the law and destroy paddy lands. The iconic protest to protect the Aranmula paddy lands from a private airport project saw success with the government scrapping the project.

The Endosulfan struggle, perhaps the most visible environmental-justice movement in Kerala, bears his imprint.

As Opposition Leader, he stood with the people poisoned by the chemical. He fought for the ban alongside community leaders and environmental activists, and when he became Chief Minister, he moved swiftly to pay compensation, the first of such remediation in India. He even constituted the Endosulfan Victims Relief & Remediation Cell under the Local Administration & District Panchayat at Kasargod. And in 2011, when India stood alone resisting a global ban, VS, then out of power, launched a hunger strike in Thiruvananthapuram.

His frail figure, lying in Martyrs’ Square in the capital city, broadcast live to UN observers, became a moral reckoning. India was pressured to lift its opposition. The global ban was sealed.

Very few leaders anywhere have fought so consistently for environmental justice, even after office. However, for VS, there was no escape from conviction.

Munnar offers another testament.

VS took on the powerful land mafia in this ecologically fragile hill station. His cleanup drive turned into a significant media spectacle, attracting massive public support; however, for him, it represented governance and ethics in action. Bulldozers rolled not against the poor, but against the powerful, even within his own left-wing government constituents.

Had the effort gone further, “Naveena Munnar” (New Munnar) might have become a model of land restoration and effective governance.

VS wasn’t only about policy. He knew that lasting change required ethical administration.

A classical case was his appointment of Dr VS Vijayan, a senior scientist and environmentalist who had legally challenged the state over the Athirappilly hydroelectric dam project, to head the Kerala State Biodiversity Board. “He’s the right man,” he said, brushing aside political discomfort. In that single choice, he showed that governance meant courage & conviction, not conformity and convenience. Many of his picks for key responsibilities had this stamp mark.

He opposed nuclear expansion, too. When the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant raised fears among coastal communities in Tamil Nadu, VS was the only voice within government ranks to challenge its safety, secrecy, and the absence of consent. Even his party, the CPIM, preferred silence.

He also recognised early the dangers of corporate control over agriculture. When the Centre and scientific institutions pushed for the hazardous genetically modified (GM) crops, VS raised deeper questions—not about yields, but about control. He saw through the false narrative of inevitability and moved swiftly to ban GM Rubber in Kerala, warning of the monopolies hidden in gene patents, the threat to biodiversity, and the erosion of farmers’ rights.

Critics often dismissed VS as “anti-development.” But that was a convenient lie.

Under his leadership, Kerala’s IT sector soared. But he ensured IT parks were built only on government or barren land, never paddy fields, and never through eviction.

He wasn’t against growth. He was against greed and corruption disguised as growth.

Kerala’s first Environment Policy and the Biodiversity Policy took shape during his tenure. The much-applauded Organic Farming Policy, Strategy, and Action Plan also came from his ministry. His colleagues in the cabinet, especially Mullakara Ratnakaran, Binoy Viswam, and KP Rajendran, the agriculture, forest & revenue ministers, respectively, did their best for the environment and natural resources under his leadership.

This government, from 2006 to 2011, was perhaps the last one to understand that protecting the environment was fundamental to the development goals of this ecologically fragile state.

What made VS different was not just about what he did, but about why he did it.

Like all politicians, he loved the applause, but he never chased it. He didn’t care for legacy. He simply did what he believed was right—even when it cost him politically. Once, when he was asked about a threat to his life, he smiled and replied, “Why should I fear when I am in the hands of the people?” And this expression wasn’t just figurative. When the women plantation workers of Munnar held their massive strike under the banner of “Pombalai Urimai (meaning Rights of Women), nobody, not even the women leaders of any party in the state, was allowed inside the protest. They were booed and chased away. Only VS was allowed, and it was an explosion of emotions, with VS sitting in the middle of the protest in a chair, and the women talking to him with respect and hope. He could command that respect because the women protesters saw hope only in him.

And now, we must confront what his absence means.

Kerala’s wetlands are under siege. Hills are flattened, water flow is curtailed, and coastlines are destabilised. Grand projects divide and exclude marginalised citizens while disregarding laws that were once established to protect the commons.

What we observe today is not merely a shift in policy—it represents the normalisation of the very forces that VS dedicated his life to resisting. A state walking arm-in-arm with a capital, speaking the language of “the people,” while marginalising them in practice.

Almost pointing to the tendencies of his party, he had warned that when those claiming to represent the working class began talking like developers, the betrayal would not be from an enemy outside, but from inside, and it would be irreversible.

He believed that Communism without conscience or ecological understanding would turn into what it once opposed. That fear, today, is no longer just a thought.

As much as possible, VS stayed true to his principles. In an era where every party bows to ecological compromise, he held the line—red in flag, green in spirit.

And yet, VS leaves us with more than just a memory; he leaves us a blueprint of moral governance.

He showed us how to govern with humility, how to legislate for the landless, how to protect our resources, how to listen to bureaucrats, scientists and people alike, and how to stand against exploiting corporations with clarity and courage.

And therefore, let us not reduce him to a statue or a slogan.

Let us revisit the laws he passed and defend them.

Let us protect the wetlands he stood for and restore them.

Let us speak of his politics, not in eulogies, but in action.

Inquilab Zindabad, Comrade VS!

The last red leaf has fallen. And from the remains, a green one will sprout. After all, the last red leaf was actually green!

Sridhar Radhakrishnan is an environmental and social justice activist. He writes about democracy, ecology, agriculture, and climate concerns.

Views expressed are the author’s own.