Kerala's Iron Lady: Gowri Amma

#Kerala's first revenue minister, a firebrand politician, a dyed-in-the-wool communist, a hard-core rebel with a cause, the lone woman member in Kerala's first cabinet-the EMS cabinet, a born-fighter, a no-nonsense woman, fierce, savage, and ferocious, words flow like molten lava and yet it falls short to describe the woman who should have been the first woman CM of Kerala.

#GowriAmma forayed into the political turfs of #Kerala when the 200-year rule of the British Raj had broken its unique matriarchial system and made Keralites irrevocably prudish. It was a time when women were not expected to be ferocious or opinionated, least of all in political matters. She was to be demure and obedient to the diktats of the deeply patriarchal society. And yet she chose to tread the least trodden paths, anticipating attacks from all quarters alike, expecting to be abandoned by her own party, and despite being shown the door in 1994 from the party for which she sacrificed it all, she still remained a staunch communist till her death at 102 years of age.

This was possible because she was a communist with no political axe to grind, no greedy ambitions, no blood-stained hands, and above all a true humanitarian.

Not like the communists of today that is red in teeth and claw, but the communist that believed and strived for an egalitarian society, where poor was not frowned upon, where caste and creed never accorded respect to one community and deprived it for the other, where men from all walks of life could climb the social ladder based on meritocracy.

When her love life was in shambles, where her party was splitting into two, when her own party members kept her in the dark about its public meetings and programs, when the party decided to take action against her for alleged "anti-party" activities, when in 1987 she was denied the CM post only because she was a woman, #GowriAmma stood her ground like a deep-rooted tree that was unwilling to be battered by the recurring, menacing storm. When the CPM split into two factions, it drove a wedge between her and her husband who chose to be with CPI.

When a Mohanlal starter movie Lal Salaam was released, everyone in Kerala knew that it was the tragic love story of GowriAmma and her late-husband TV Thomas.

As an old Chinese proverb goes, when an elderly person dies, it is akin to losing a library. And for once putting aside my political moorings, for the woman who fought tooth and nail against a system that derided her for being a woman, for a woman who was arrested with charges of alleged espionage, for a woman who faced brutal torture at the hands of the police for her party activities, for the woman who didn't break when the same party abandoned her, for a woman who held her head high when all else failed, for a woman whose struggles were a lighthouse for all women in this state, one last Lal Salam to you #GowriAmma.

May your soul rest in eternal peace!