In a Facebook post written in Malayalam, Congress MLA from Kerala V. T. Balram, has insinuated the revolutionary communist leader A. K. Gopalan, who was also first leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha in 1952, of being a paedophile. In his post, Balram questioned Gopalan’s character for marrying a 22 year old Susheela in 1940s, after being in love for over a decade.
Gopalan was already married to his first wife when he married Susheela. As per reports, Balram had first accused Gopalan of paedophila in reply to a comment by a Facebook user who had questioned alleged sexual harassment of Saritha Nair by various Congress leaders.
Balram refers to a 2001 The Hindu story ‘Love in the time of struggles’, which talks of Gopalan marrying his wife, Susheela, in 1952. The report says that Gopalan got close and fell in love with Susheela when he was in hiding in early 1940s. Since Susheela was born in 1929, in early 1940s, she’d have been a pre-teen or a teenager when 1904 born Gopalan would have been a middle aged man.
Balram’s comment irked communists who told him how morality of one era couldn’t be applied to another and how even Mahatma Gandhi had married early.
One can argue that the defense of communists is whataboutery and needlessly dragging Mahatma Gandhi in the whole controversy, but the fact is that groups and people following leftist ideologies have often been found indulged in sex scandals and crimes.
Earlier, another leftist extremist leader was accused of raping a 15 year old girl in Jharkhand. Another former woman cadet had accused another leftist extremist group of being a den of various sex related crimes. Violence against women, including torture was alleged to be a norm rather than the exception. Recently, a communist leader in West Bengal was also accused of raping a homeless woman several times after giving her refuge, taking advantage of her situation.
