K R Gouri Amma, 102, no more; Kerala loses a true rebel

K R Gouri Amma, 102, one of the senior most politicians in Kerala and a founding member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), is dead.

For those who have not heard about her, a few facts first: Gouri Amma was one of the longest- serving politicians in the state and was the first revenue minister of Kerala.

She served as the minister for revenue, excise and devaswom in the 1957 Kerala cabinet led by EMS Namboodiripad. The veteran leader was elected 11 times to the Assembly and was minister in different state governments five times, handling multiple portfolios.

Her life is a story that has no parallel in Kerala's political history. It is a story of persistence, political will and backstabbing by her own trusted party men.

A true rebel

Gouri Amma was born into an affluent Hindu Ezhava family on July 14, 1919, in Pattanakkad village in Alappuzha district of Kerala. Her family was landlords with over 132 acres of landholdings at that point. Her elder brother, K R Sukumaran, was a prominent trade union leader and it was he who inspired young Gouri to enter public life.

After her graduation from Maharaja's College, Ernakulam, and later taking degree from the Government Law College, Ernakulam, Gouri Amma took the plunge into politics. In 1946, she started her public life, at the age of 27, joining the Communist Party and starting as a trade union activist, raising her voice against the oppression of economically weaker sections by the dominant upper caste Hindu-dominated Kerala society.

At that time, there was strong opposition in Gouri Amma’s own community and in her own family about her political entry and even her ambition for higher education. Girls from lower castes were not supposed to attend schools, needless to talk about higher education.

Gouri Amma was the first woman who graduated from Kerala’s Ezhava community. The conservative society found women getting higher education, forget about entering public life, as taboo. But for someone like Gouri Amma, who had already made up her mind about her future, there were no second thoughts though.

Gouri Amma’s childhood witnessed the storm of a political change in the southern state. It was when she was just 10, in 1929, when V T Bhattathiripad wrote his play, Adukkalayil Ninnu Arangathekku, exposing the plight of women in the Brahmin community.

The ripples of a radical social change continued in the following decades. Gouri Amma was imprisoned during the emergency. Police tortured her brutally and even inserted ‘lathi’ in her private parts. About the police raj, Gouri Amma later said: “If ‘lathi’ had semen, I would have given birth to a thousand lathi babies.”

In 1990, a movie, Lal Salaam, was made, loosely based on her life. But Gouri Amma later said some of the scenes in the movie were widely exaggerated.

Those were also the days when revolutionary leaders like EMS, K P Gopalan and C Achuthamenon emerged as major influencers in Kerala’s political scene and the society was witnessing the first wave of rebellion against the patriarchal, Brahmin-Nair-dominated social system.

A fighter for the downtrodden

Gouri Amma’s focus was on the plight of lower caste workers who were deprived of basic rights. They were untouchables for the dominant upper caste. Through endless agitations, Gouri Amma soon rose through the ranks of Kerala’s Communist movement.

Gouri Amma was recognised for her struggles in 1957, when the first democratically elected Communist government was formed in Kerala under EMS. She created history by becoming the first woman minister in the cabinet. Perhaps, Gouri Amma’s biggest contribution to the state was that she piloted the Kerala Agrarian Relations Bill, which later led to land reforms in the state. The reforms meant the affluent couldn’t keep landholdings beyond a certain limit and should leave the remaining to the landless.

This reform changed the face of Kerala’s social landscape and influenced its economy. The land lobby attempted to water down the Bill with the help of the Congress. but when the EMS government returned in 1967, Gouri Amma made amendments to the Bill to return to the original character.

A failed marriage

Her political life took a toll on her personal life. During her initial years in the party, Gouri Amma fell in love with party colleague T V Thomas and married him in 1957. Thomas was a prominent Left leader from Alappuzha. In 1964, the Communist Party of India (CPI) split and a new party – the Communist Party of India (Marxist) -- was formed.

Gouri Amma chose to move to the newly formed CPM while her husband stayed with the CPI. The political split affected their relation. In 1965, the couple separated ways. In 1967, both served as ministers in the EMS government but lived separately in the same compound in their respective official residences. A decade later, Thomas died.

Backstabbing by own party

In 1987, the CPM projected Gouri Amma as the chief ministerial candidate during campaigning. The party won the elections but Gouri Amma was not given the post. E K Nayanar was chosen instead. It was a lost opportunity for the state to have its first woman chief minister till date.

Gouri Amma continued as a minister in the government but her relationship with the party was not smooth ever since. The rift widened in later years and Gouri Amma’s friction with the likes of V S Achuthanandan, a party strong man, led to her ouster from the party in 1994. She was 75, but had the will for another fight. She formed a new party, Janathipathiya Samrakshana Samithy (JSS), and began a new political journey. She travelled across the state to grow the party.

JSS later joined the United Democratic Front (UDF) and Gouri Amma, once again, became a minister in the 2001 UDF government, headed by A K Antony. But the UDF stint of JSS didn’t last; in 2015, JSS joined the LDF.

No words are enough to describe Gouri Amma's struggle in her political and personal lives. It was a lifelong fight against social evils, patriarchal domination and labour exploitation. She didn’t get the recognition she deserved from the Communist Party she lived for, in her final years. But Gouri Amma’s struggles have inspired generations in the state. Kerala has lost a true rebel.