ThiruvananthapuramJul 13, 2025 23:37 IST
First published on: Jul 13, 2025 at 12:08 IST
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The President on Sunday nominated Kerala BJP leader C Sadanandan Master to the Rajya Sabha. Sadanandan Master is a survivor of the political violence that rocked north Kerala’s Kannur district three decades ago.
“Shri C. Sadanandan Master’s life is the epitome of courage and refusal to bow to injustice. Violence and intimidation couldn’t deter his spirit towards national development. His efforts as a teacher and social worker are also commendable. He is extremely passionate towards youth empowerment. Congratulations to him for being nominated to the Rajya Sabha by Rahstrapati Ji. Best wishes for his role as MP,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on X following the announcement.
A retired schoolteacher, Sadanandan Master was last week appointed one of the state vice-presidents of the Kerala BJP. His village of Perinchery near Mattannur in Kannur was a CPI(M) stronghold. Although hailing from a family of Communist supporters, he joined the RSS, making his way into the Sangh through its students’ wing Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). In 1984, he joined the RSS and for a time functioned as the RSS boudhik pramukh in Ernakulam, responsible for the intellectual activities of the Sangh and ideological training of the cadre.
His decision to join the Sangh allegedly provoked the local CPI(M) and placed him in its crosshairs. On January 25, 1994, a gang attacked him at around 8.30 pm when he was walking towards his home after alighting from a bus at Uruvachal near Mattannur. At the time, he was serving as the RSS sahkaryavah in Kannur district.
Recalling that incident, Sadanadan later said, “A gang suddenly started hurling bombs, seeking to create a scare, and people started running and shut their shops. The gang approached me from behind and caught me. They laid me down on the road, then hacked both my legs below the knee and threw them away. No one dared to come to help me until the police arrived and took me to the hospital.”
After a few months in the hospital, Sadanandan, who has had prostheses for both legs, returned to his school that was struggling for want of enough students. The BJP then took it upon itself to rehabilitate him, and he was appointed sub-editor in the BJP mouthpiece Janmabhumi. In 1999, Sadanandan joined as a teacher in a school in Thrissur run by the Sangh.
Even after the attack, Sadanandan remained active in the Sangh Parivar. In the 2016 Assembly elections, when the BJP made “CPIM-sponsored” violence a key issue, it fielded Sadanandan as a candidate from the Koothuparamba Assembly constituency, where some of the brutal political killings in Kannur took place in the 1990s. He finished third behind K K Shailaja of the CPI(M) and the JD(U) candidate K P Mohanan, polling over 20,000 votes. Sadanandan retired as a teacher from a school in Peramangalam in Thrissur in 2020 and in recent years has been active with the Bharatiya Vichara Kendram, an intellectual wing of the RSS, and writes columns in the media.
Sadanandan’s appointment to the Rajya Sabha comes at a time when the BJP is trying to make a renewed push in Kerala, hoping to make gains in the Assembly elections next year. Last year, the party won a Lok Sabha seat in Kerala for the first time — Suresh Gopi bagged Thrissur — and has appointed a new state president, former Rajeev Chandrasekhar. The party’s short-term objective will be to perform well in the coming local body elections, while its long-term objective is to emerge as an alternative force in Kerala’s bipolar electoral landscape by consolidating Hindu and Christian votes and reaching out to the aspirational, educated youth.