Thiruvananthapuram: From expanding membership drive to increasing the digital media presence for public engagement, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s international wing the Association of Indian Communists (AIC) is on a mission to bridge the gap with the Malayalee diaspora ahead of the Kerala polls.
Talking to ThePrint, the organisation’s secretary Janesh Nair said the team will chalk out a detailed plan for increasing the AIC’s engagement with the diaspora through the 30 branches of the party active in Britain and Ireland.
“There is no lack of political awareness here. We know the news before people in Kerala hear them,” Janesh said, adding that there was a gap between the party unit in Kerala and the international diaspora as the AIC mostly communicates with the CPI(M)’s central committee.
There are 3,69,000 Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) in the UK while the number of persons of Indian origin is 14,95,318, according to the data of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) released in November 2024. In Ireland, the NRI population is 30,000 while people of Indian origin is 31,386.
“Now, the Malayalee population is increasing here. We try to communicate the work and the importance of the ideology to the population,” Janesh said, adding that a group of party supporters, under the group of Left Democratic Front (LDF)-UK, has been engaged in campaigning for the party there.
He said the works to lay out the roadmap will soon begin after the party congress, slated to be held in Tamil Nadu’s Madurai in the first week of April.
“As the first Malayalee elected as the Secretary of the Association of Indian Communists (AIC) UK & Republic of Ireland, I feel both honored and deeply responsible for carrying forward the legacy of this esteemed organisation,” Janesh said.
The Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) government is facing anti-incumbency in the run-up to the Kerala assembly elections in 2026.
Ahead of the CPI(M)’s 24th Party Congress scheduled from 2 to 6 April, the AIC held a conference in England’s Southall on 15 and 16 March, where it discussed the party’s political strategy until the next conference. CPI(M) politburo member Ashok Dhawle presided over the event. The meeting also elected Janesh Nair as the organisation’s secretary of the international wing of the party. Nair, a Kottayam native, is the first Malayalee to hold the post.
Apart from the political wing, the AIC also has a mass workers organisation Indian Workers Association, a culture organisation Kairali UK, and a wing of the Students Federation of India (SFI), and a Punjabi writers’ forum. Besides Kerala, the AIC has members from Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
Officially formed in 1967 following the anti-revisionist struggles of the 1960s, the AIC has been actively engaged in local and international issues. In the 1990s, it collaborated with the Shaheed Udham Singh Welfare Trust to campaign for the public release of Indian revolutionary Udham Singh’s last words. Singh was executed in 1940 for assassinating Michael O’Dwyer, the former lieutenant governor of the Punjab, who ordered the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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