Padma Vibhushan for V S Achuthanandan but CPM stalwarts have despised national honours

Former Kerala Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, one of the most trenchant critics of the BJP, will be posthumously honoured with Padma Vibhushan, the country’s second-highest civilian award. The Union Ministry of Home Affairs announced the honour on Sunday as part of the Padma awards for 2026.

Achuthanandan, who passed away on July 21, 2025, was a towering figure in Kerala politics and one of India’s most senior communist leaders. He served as Chief Minister from 2006 to 2011 and remained a fierce critic of the Sangh Parivar right through his life.

Had the honour been bestowed on him while alive, the former Chief Minister would, in all probability, have declined the award. The CPM leaders have a history of declining Padma awards and even international recognitions.

Former CPM leader and Chief Minister E M S Namboodirippad was the first CPM leader to be offered the Padma honour. In 1992, the P V Narasimha Rao government chose him, along with BJP leader A B Vajpayee, for the Padma Vibhushan honour.

Vajpayee, who was then in the opposition, accepted, while EMS flatly refused. The CPM leader said it was against his principles. Then, it was widely believed that the Padma honour was part of Rao's consensus-building for the radical economic reforms he had set in motion with his finance minister Manmohan Singh.

EMS had called Rao's 'liberalisation' a deviation from Nehru's socialist principles, and accused the Rao government of slavishly seeking America's approval for its policy of privatisation. Besides the question of principle, EMS had felt that accepting the honour would also mean a recognition of a government that was getting closer to "Imperial America" and was also definitely turning its back on socialism. Later that year, on December 6, Sangh Parivar hordes brought down Babri Masjid. EMS had said that Rao was equally culpable.

Then, after the BJP came to power, CPM leader and former Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was conferred Padma Bhushan in 2022. He, too, declined. Again, he was holding on to principle, but in public raised a question of propriety. He said he was not informed about his nomination. "I am not aware of any such thing. If the government has decided to give me the award, I refuse it," he said.

A government secretary had then said that Bhattacharjee's wife was informed about the award on the morning of the announcement, and that she had gladly accepted.

Achuthanandan's family also sounded elated. "I feel great pride in the honour that has been bestowed on him by the country for his decades of years in public service," Achuthanandan's son V A Arun Kumar said in a Facebook post. "As a national honour, Padma Vibhushan is indeed great. Our family is extremely happy. Still, the bigger honour is the one he had received from countless millions in Kerala," he added.

His party, however, is silent. Seemingly in line with the party's distaste for awards, the CPM's social media handles have not taken note of the Padma honour.

In 2022, the year Bhattacharjee declined Padma Bhushan, former health minister K K Shylaja was selected for the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award for her leadership during the Nipah and Covid outbreaks. After consulting her party, Shylaja declined the award.

The then CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury said that Ramon Magsaysay was notorious for the brutalities he had inflicted on communists. CPI leader and former union minister Satyapal Dang was also awarded Padma Bhushan in 1998. He accepted it but returned the prize in 2005 citing "gross violation" of government honours.