“Goodbye Gouri Amma. It is the misfortune of Kerala that you did not become chief minister of the state.” It’s not surprising that this tribute came from the far end of Kerala’s left-wing spectrum, rather than the mainstream CPI(M). From Civic Chandran to be precise—poet and publisher-editor of Paathabhedam, a monthly devoted to Dalits and Adivasis. Associated with the pro-Naxalite streams of Kerala’s cultural politics in the ’70s-’80s, Civic Chandran has never been one to pull his punches on the sanctimonious, big brotherly attitude of the big Left party. Behind its calibrated public rhetoric, there’s a less-illuminated zone of strategic silences and erasures that he’s fairly familiar with.
In mid-May, when the demise of K.R. Gouri hit the headlines, party apparatchiks lost no time harking back to the glory days of the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, a time when Gouri was an inspirational party figure, both a catalyst and an embodiment of its ideals. What it forgot to touch upon was the Communist betrayal of Gouri, a woman who had social justice as her life’s very mission. She lived to almost two months short of 102, and somewhere during that long sunset the party had sought to make some cosmetic reparations. But none of those photos of Pinarayi Vijayan and Gouri chatting at her centenary celebrations in 2019 could undo what had happened a quarter century before that.
You’d think an extreme step such as expulsion would be reserved for outright transgressors. No one in Kerala would say the grand old lady of the revolution, fondly called Gouri Amma, qualified as that. She was a lifelong fighter for social and gender justice—that defined the person and her politics. Passionate about pursuing what she believed in, her unwavering vote on the side of justice whenever there was a debate meant that, on many occasions, she publicly opposed even the policies of the Communist party, especially when they went against the interests of Dalits and Adivasis. That finally led to expulsion on January 1, 1994. Many leading Communists later admitted the CPI(M) had done great injustice by someone who was a founding figure of the party. But the real betrayal had predated even that by seven years. In 1987, the CPI(M) had gone into elections projecting Gouri as the chief ministerial candidate. Its main campaign slogan was a resonant and alliterative “Keram thingum Kerala naattil K.R. Gouri bharicheedum”. Kerala, the land teeming with coconuts, was going to be ruled by K.R. Gouri, the Ezhava lady who had struck the first blows for freedom from elite-caste landlordism….
At the centenary function, Gouri created some discomfiting moments for party stalwarts by gesturing at that slogan and asking Pinarayi directly, “What happened then, Vijayan?” What happened was this: after the election, the party named E.K. Nayanar as the CM. (That he was a Nair was no doubt a coincidence.) A minor re-run of that was seen exactly nine days after Gouri’s passing when the universally loved Shailaja Teacher was passed over the health portfolio. Tragedy and farce?
Gouri had a last innings though, floating a new party that aligned with the Congress-led UDF. When future generations analyse Gouri’s contribution, her role in protecting the rights of Adivasis and Dalits will shine forth. In 1999, when the assembly discussed giving land rights to people who had settled on Adivasi areas by repealing a 1975 law, she was the lone voice in the 139-member house who opposed it. She won that battle two years later when the Adivasis led by C.K. Janu reached an agreement with then CM A.K. Antony after a historic, 48-day agitation. It was also Gouri’s hand that ensured the Adivasis got their right to self-rule officially recognised. She was a senior minister then, but it was no secret that the Adivasis had her blessings, and the Communists described it as a state-sponsored agitation. Thus, a career in government that began in the 1950s with Gouri being the architect of revolutionary land reform legislation ended on an emancipatory note too.
Her biography glitters with inspiration. Born in 1919, the first Ezhava woman lawyer, active politics by age 22, the storied love affair with comrade-in-arms T.V. Thomas, marriage as ministers in the first EMS government. And plenty of prison. About her torture in police custody, Gouri famously said that if police batons could impregnate, she would have had many offsprings! Unborn children of a revolution still awaited.
(This appeared in the print edition as "K.R. Gouri Diary")
