While CPM leaders are busy finding excuses for Pinarayi Vijayan, Mohammad Riyas and Reporter Broadcasting Corporation, newly inducted State Secretariat member P Jayarajan alone seems to have imbibed the spirit of the self-correction process that began in early June, right after the embarrassing defeat in the Assembly polls.

It is only P Jayarajan who looks eager to undo the mistakes of the past. The intense internal debates within the party had collectively thrown up two big reasons for the debacle.

One, the party let its secular image fade and gather dust. (CPM's devaswom minister V N Vasavan proudly reading out Sangh Parivar poster boy and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's message during the Global Ayyappa Sangamam gave the impression that the party was eager for Sangh Parivar validation.)

Two, the party failed to put up a spirited fight against communalism. (When SNDP Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan took a special liking to insulting the Muslim community, the party offered subtle encouragement.)

Lone ranger
After the defeat, Jayarajan mounted a stinging ideological offensive against the RSS and made Vellappally look like a non-entity. Just when the results were out, Jayarajan called Vellappally an "unreliable character who had hawked his soul to the Sangh Parivar".

Even now, no other CPM leader, neither Pinarayi nor state secretary M V Govindan or even general secretary M A Baby, has uttered a word against Vellappally. This is baffling because the CPM, in the review of Assembly elections adopted at the Central Committee meeting in July, had mourned the virtual silence of its leaders.
"Though the state secretariat issued a statement condemning the anti-Muslim utterances of Vellappally Natesan, the review self-critically notes that it was not a strong response," the CC report said.

Reclaiming the Guru
This collective admission of failure has empowered Jayarajan, not others. Reclaiming Sree Narayana Guru from the clutches of the Vellappally-Sangh Parivar looks like Jayarajan's solo mission.

"There were attempts to misrepresent Guru's teachings even when he was alive. But what we see now is not just distortion but a planned attempt by Hindu revivalist forces to falsify history for narrow political ends," he says in his latest book 'Sanathanikalude Hindutva Vazhikal' ('Hindutva Manouevres of Sanatanis'), which was released just after the 2026 defeat.

Then, in early June, it sounded like a minor rebellion as the party had not yet openly acknowledged its mistakes. Even Jayarajan's latest attack on the RSS and Vellappally, after he secured a surprise elevation to the State Secretariat, does not feel official, as his is the only voice of aggression.

A day after the CPM's Extended State Committee in Kozhikode, Jayarajan came before the media and said: "At a time when democracy, secularism and social justice are being challenged in the country, the CPM should transform itself into a sharp weapon."

Counter strategy
Jayarajan first positioned the Left as the only political force that stood in the way of the BJP's ambitions in Kerala. "If they want Kerala, the CPM should be destroyed and its leadership undermined. The ED has now arrived in Kerala holding this brief from the Sangh Parivar forces," the State Secretariat member said.

He said that the RSS had been operating in Kerala since 1940. "The RSS claims that its most effective 'shakha' work was being done in Kerala. If so, why has Kerala still not transformed into a Gujarat or Madhya Pradesh," Jayarajan asked, and added: "It is not because of the Congress or the Muslim League. It is only because of the bold ideological resistance the Left had mounted against the Sangh Parivar with the help of the people."

Then he took on RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat and, in the process, skilfully attempted to disentangle Sree Narayana Guru from the Sangh Parivar's political architecture in Kerala. It was Bhagwat's terming of secularism as a Western concept during the Yuva Dharma Sansad at Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh that Jayarajan employed to separate Guru from the BJP.

While speaking at Yuva Dharma Sansad, Mohan Bhagwat termed secularism a Western concept. "He called it western. Just think of it. Secularism is a word found in the preamble of our Constitution," Jayarajan said and added: "He (Bhagwat) also said that the concept of secularism evolved from the wars launched by religious leaders against kings. Look at the irony. Sree Narayana Guru has said that there is no religion called Hindu religion," Jayarajan said.

There appears to be a misunderstanding here. The RSS chief was actually referring to the Western idea of secularism, the result of a bloody struggle for political dominance between the Church and the monarchy in European history. Jayarajan wrongly suggested that Bhagwat had implied such a struggle in Indian history.

Nonetheless, the mention of the Guru, even if in a faulty context, allowed Jayarajan to argue why the Guru's beliefs were incompatible with those of the RSS. He said the Guru stood for the disenfranchised, and this included not just Ezhavas but also Christians and Muslims. In other words, the RSS was a Brahmanical order.

C Kesavan vs Vellappally
It was the Nivarthana Prakshobham (Abstention Movement) that Jayarajan used to drive home the point. At the peak of the movement, during a speech at Kozhencherry in 1930, the then SNDP Yogam general secretary C Kesavan said Ezhavas, Muslims and Christians had no future in a Hindu state led by Dewan Sir C P Ramaswamy. They were barred from government jobs and had no vote. What earned Kesavan Sir C P's wrath was his deliberate misspelling of 'Hindu' as 'Janthu' (beast).

Jayarajan unleashed Kesavan to cut Vellappally to size, and also to regain for CPM its renaissance aura.

His point is: When a legendary SNDP Yogam general secretary like C Kesavan had refused to call himself a Hindu, the incumbent (Vellappally) was hanging out with elite Brahmanical forces that, by nature, want to keep the Muslim and Christian out of the mainstream. Through this freshly minted political lyric, Jayarajan wants the CPM to gather a broad coalition of non-upper caste Hindus and minorities for a winning symphony.

No other CPM leader has, however, bothered to hum along with Jayarajan. Forget Vellappally, no CPM leader of repute in Kerala had till now spoken out against Bhagwat's seeming distaste for secularism.

"Comrade Jayarajan is an excellent communicator, and he has been given a seat in the Secretariat to forcefully reassert the party's secular position, unmindful of what other leaders say or do not say. I am sure others will soon shake off the reluctance to take on communal elements like Vellappally," a senior State Committee member said.