Govinda Pillai P

P Govinda Pillai (Parameswaran Pillai Govinda Pillai), also known as PG, is a  rare intellectual amongst the journalists of Kerala.  Political observer, Parliamentarian, author, orator, linguist, media critic, and philosopher - he is first and foremost a communist who profoundly assimilates and promulgates proletarian theory and above all lives it. He is highly enterprising and relentlessly industrious. Born to Parameswaran Pillai and Parukutty Amma in a middle class family of Pulluvazhi, near Perumbavoor, Ernakulam district, he mastered almost all subjects ranging from astrophysics to spirituality. 

PG is also an editor who brought about remarkable changes in Malayalam journalism. The linguistic innovations he had adapted in ‘The Desabhimani’ were unconditionally accepted by almost all dailies. The role of PG in elevating Deshabhimani from a party media to the position of a well accepted public newspaper was not a mean task.

He was made the Chairman of the Kerala Press Academy on 1 April 1981. He retired from his services on 31 March 1982. Thereafter, submitting to the directions of CPI(M), PG  took up a new assignment as the editor of the party’s popular publication in Delhi. He served as the editor Deshabhimani daily, member CPI(M) state committee, member Calicut University senate and so on.  He was made the chairman of Kerala Film Development Corporation twice. It was during his tenure, the government started theatres in various districts.  The Centre for Development of Imaging Technology( C-DIT) Trivandrum was another feather added to PG’s versatality.

PG’s work ‘’Marx, Aesthetics, History and Progress’’ has bagged the Kerala Sahithya Academy award.  He was ostracised from CPI (M) state committee after the controversial observations  he had made in an interview to Bhashaposhini. However, he stood against all odds with erudite felicity by engaging himself in reading, writing and publishing books on Renaissance of Kerala, and three biographical works of EMS, Angles and Archbishop Mar Gregarious.

PG has one son MG Radhakrishnan, Assistant Editor of India Today  and   one daughter Parvathi Devi,  a journalist.  His wife Rajamma is a retired college professor. PG died on 22 Nov.2012