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The old Secretariat Building in the heart of Thiruvananthapuram has an iconic entrance called the Satyagraha Gate. It is here that hundreds of protestors have gathered over the years. They came from different parts of the state, had different agendas, different political affiliations, and demands.
On any given day, one can see protestors sitting under a makeshift canopy, holding up placards or raising slogans. During quiet breaks, they would be eating a simple meal or sleeping on a mat.
If the protests are big, they can block the arterial MG (Mahatma Gandhi) Road, which stretches in front of the Secretariat. Sometimes, they can get violent too.
During my years as a journalist in Thiruvananthapuram, I had interviewed a variety of satyagrahis sitting in protest at the gates. They ranged from fisherfolk and teachers, to headload workers and political dissidents. Sometimes, my car got stuck in the middle of a swelling ocean of sloganeering satyagrahis who would be amused to see the rare sight of a woman driver. They would knock on my window and ask me to get out of the car and join them.
Kerala is unique in many ways. The world’s first democratically elected communist government was formed here in 1957 under EMS Namboodiripad. It came into power without revolution or violence, but through a free multi-party election. Even though it was dismissed by the Union government two years later and replaced with President’s rule, the democratically elected communist government in Kerala stands in the records as the first of its kind.
It also brought in its wake revolutionary social reform, which brought about dramatic changes in what was once an oppressively feudal society.
Over the next couple of decades, satyagraha had become a way of life. “Thozhilali (worker) Zindabad” and “Inquilab Zindbad” were cries often heard on the streets.
The protesting groups could be any size. They could belong to any religion, community, or political party. We could even sometimes see a couple of flag waving protestors standing outside a small business like a cloth shop demanding their rights.
Satyagraha was a part of daily life.
And then, the Gulf and the tourism booms happened. Trade unions slowly began to fade away as privatisation took over and more jobs opened up.
But the need to dissent didn’t just disappear, as I discovered on my recent trip to Thiruvananthapuram when I met some of my old activist friends who were still involved in protests.
We reminisced about some of their successful protests in the 70s and 80s like the one against the proposed hydroelectric project to be built in the midst of the Silent Valley, home to a pristine untouched rain forest where the endangered lion tailed macaque lives.
All the political parties were then united in wanting the hydroelectric dam across the Kunthipuzha river, which cut through the heart of the forest. The then chief minister had even declared that men were more important than monkeys when the issue of the lion tailed macaques was raised.
What began as a protest by environmentalists gathered momentum. It became a nationwide protest and finally in 1983, prime minister Indira Gandhi announced the project would be cancelled.
There were also many local issues like the need to ban trawler fishing during certain months each year because it was destroying the livelihood of traditional fishermen. Here too they were able to achieve their goal.
More recently, some of them had agitated against the privatisation of the multi crore Vizhinjam port, which they said was also destroying Kerala’s extensive coastline. But here the stakes are too big to tackle through agitation.
This time, I met Mercy Alexander, a woman in her 60s who came from the fishing community. She is now in the thick of battling for women’s rights. She had gone to jail while agitating against a minister who had sexually harassed a senior woman IAS officer. Mercy told me about the many domestic violence cases in Kerala in which her group had successfully intervened.
I found that the Satyagraha Gate was still alive and active. On the pavement in front of the old Secretariat, ASHA workers were on strike. Their demands included, among other things, increased wages and backpay to be settled.
It was a well-organised strike confined to the pavement skirting the secretariat. The strikers were mostly women, but they were joined by many men, including politicians who supported them. Plastic chairs were provided for the strikers and they were being served snacks, tea, and water. The policewomen on duty who were on friendly terms with the dissenters, chatted with them.
The ASHA workers invited me to sit down and share a cup of tea. They told me their problems. How long had they been sitting there, I asked. They told me the satyagraha had been going on for quite a while and they took turns to sit. In the night, usually the men took over and kept the protest going.
A police van arrived. More politicians came and gave some speeches. Everything went on as usual at MG Road
The middle-aged woman with whom I was chatting offered me more tea as I got up to leave. Come again, she said.
Yes, dissent was alive and well. Also, interestingly, it had taken on a more woman-friendly face. The Women in Cinema Collective had stood up in unison for their colleague who was sexually assaulted. This was at the cost of losing assignments and being stigmatised by their male colleagues. They had also convinced the government to appoint a committee to probe the problems of sexual harassment and other issues that plagued women in the film industry. This in turn brought out many worms from the woodwork.
When I lived in Thiruvananthapuram in the 70s and 80s, there were very few women journalists. Now there were many more and they stood up for their women colleagues who were harassed. The Press Club for one could no longer function as a men’s only den.
As I left Thiruvananthapuram, I thought of my two old powerful activist friends who were no more.
I missed the multi-talented poet Sugathakumari who used her voice not just for women’s rights but also for the environment. She was a key person in the Silent Valley protest and wrote the poem “Marathinu Stuthi”, which became the anthem for the movement.
I also missed Mary Roy, the strong and feisty activist who single-handedly took on the entire powerful Syrian Christian community to win for their women the right to inherit on par with the men.
Gita Aravamudan is a journalist and the author of Baby Makers: The Story of Indian Surrogacy.
Views expressed are the author's own.
