Dr T M Thomas Isaac loves to wear bright-coloured kurtas and sport a warm, affable smile that has earned him a kind of Santa Claus persona in Kerala politics. Isaac’s self-assured smile in front of 24/7 TV cameras is deceiving, to say the least, as he bids goodbye to another potential term as minister (he’s been denied a seat) in a political front saddled with its own inner contradictions and a desperation to retain electoral power at any cost.

This irony is highlighted by the fact that the LDF has now joined hands with Jose K Mani’s Kerala Congress-M for an electoral alliance, keeping aside the strong anti-corruption stand the party took against tainted party leaders in the 2016 election. CPM MLAs had actually disrupted K M Mani’s last budget speech questioning the credibility of the budget itself. Politics, as they say, has strange bedfellows and Mani Jr may well turn out to be a ‘suitable boy’ for the post of cabinet minister in case LDF continues in power.

Isaac must be the first person to realise this change in power equation within his own party. Party insiders say he was finding it increasingly difficult to say ‘yes’ to all cabinet decisions, some of which were unviable but nevertheless came up for approval. The approval for the controversial Unitac housing project was one such instance. “He was getting isolated for two reasons. The first was because he was initially seen as part of VS Achuthanandan’s group and not part of CPM’s ‘Kannur lobby’, though he stood by the CM and even wrote a book defending Pinarayi in the Lavlin corruption case,’’ says a party insider.

Unlike Isaac, Pinarayi Vijayan has had no qualms in transgressing the socialist line by wooing private investments — be it continuing with the Adani’s Vizhinjam port project or not effectively blocking the same group’s successful bidding of the Thiruvananthapuram airport. His close proximity with some of the richest NRK businessmen reveal that he sets his own rules for a new economic regime in Kerala. The CM may have earned the nickname “dhoti-clad Modi’’ among hardcore Left ideologues but the fact remains that Pinarayi is today by far the most popular political leader in Kerala. His hands-on approach of providing freebies like free ration kits, and the daily you-are-allsafe sermons on primetime television during the height of the pandemic has endeared him to middle class Keralites like never before. The opposition has not been able to dent the CM’s image and allegations of corporate corruption has not made a sizable impact in the minds of voters.

In comparison, Isaac had to face the music as the CAG questioned the tweaking of rules in Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Development Board( KIIFB). The CM’s response defending Isaac came in rather late, considering the fact that CPM’s cyber cell has always been hyperactive on such issues. Isaac is part of the Indian Marxist school that believes in bringing about change through a social democratic process. This school had long forsaken the dream of a revolution as conceived by Marx, as they were of the view that this is a rather difficult path, considering the complex caste-communal structure of the country.

But then, the vexed question remains on how the party-led government will raise capital for pushing the growth engine, especially in a state like Kerala which has neither the wealth of the Scandinavian countries nor has a populace willing to surrender its rights and privileges like in China or North Korea in the name of economic growth. Economists point out that the communists forget the fact that the largest private investment came to Kerala over the last four decades through NRI remittances and that this changed the social and economic landscape of the state into a high-labour cost, consumerist society.

Isaac’s reluctance to acknowledge Kerala’s transformation from an agrarian economy into an over-dependent and consumerist economy, is understandable given the fact he represents a party that still claims to stand for the poor. The economic census data shows that there is a chasm in the wealth holdings between NRKs, who have settled in Kerala, versus the rest of the population who never went to the Gulf.

Even as government employees are able to get their annual pay hikes through organised protest, the plight of the voiceless, marginal communities — be it tribals, paddy farmers and the fishing community — are yet to be addressed by the LDF government. Interestingly, it was Kerala Congress which mostly took up the issue of falling rubber prices, though in the interests of their vote bank, and made a difference in the lives of the rubber farmers.

To be fair to Isaac, he cannot be blamed for this shift in developmental model which occurred mainly due to change in land use, unionised workforce and high unemployment rates amongst the skilled workforce.

Kerala did move ahead of other states, investing in healthcare literacy and decentralised planning and Isaac was a guiding force in the People’s Planning Process during his stint as a member of State Planning Board in the eighties.

Born into a traditional Christian family in Kodungallur, his father ran a successful copra unit which went through a bad phase over a period of time. Isaac was a meritorious student, a voracious reader and by the time he began working for Student Federation of India, he had read several key Marxian texts and was abreast of world literature. “It was Isaac, who was senior to us in college, who introduced existentialist writers like Camus, Sartre and Brecht here. He also had grassroots knowledge of the rural economy of Kerala,’’ says noted Left intellectual and politician C P John who shared a close bonding with him in the CPM for years till they parted ways.

Isaac’s doctoral thesis from Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram was on “Class Struggle and Industrial Structure: A Study of Coir Weaving Industry in Kerala 1859 – 1980”, still considered a landmark study on a major segment of the working class population of the state. “I see his stint as a member of the State Planning Board as one of the most fruitful years rather than his long stint as finance minister. I felt K M Mani was more astute with numbers and had a better grasp of macro-economics,’’ C P John says.

But economists like Dr Mary George, former member of public review expenditure committee, says that Isaac fared better than Mani for the simple reason that his intentions were noble and did not face any corruption charges. “KIIFB is a good example of financial innovation, though there are questions that need to be asked on how they are going to re-pay these loans. If Isaac was given a second chance maybe he would have found a solution for that,’’ she says.

Dr George is critical of the fact that Isaac still has not been able to address rising fiscal deficits in each budget and plug the massive tax leakages. “It is just not enough that we raise capital for infrastructure growth. Our real assets, which is our talented young generation, still have to leave Kerala for quality higher education and employment. The state is also facing new realities like climate change-induced disasters that are going to affect lives and livelihood of every Keralite. The old models of development need to be reviewed. Unfortunately, this kind of deep thought is absent in the planning process and allocation of resources,’’ she said.

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Views expressed above are the author's own.

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