[Reader-list] fifth posting: caste and gender in the urban space of Keralam

[jenny chithra]

dear friends,

In this post we want to write a few things about the way in which the
Left strategically engages with the Malabar region.

>From the outside, most panchayaths in North Kerala, even the most
interior places, looks urbanized or at least like small towns. Most
panchayaths are marked with small bazaars and bus routes that lead to
the main town. The panchayath area in which Chithralekha lived and
tried to work as an auto rickshaw driver is also similar. The auto
rickshaw stand where her assailants still spend time reading the
newspaper has a small bakery, a tea shop, a Photostat cum STD booth, a
vegetable shop and a bus stop with buses that come every 10 minutes.

Yet if you are from such an area, you would surely know that this
urban development combines itself with a very conventional and
conservative mind-set severely marked by strict codes concerning
caste, gender, religion and sexuality.

The minute you get down from the bus, like we did in the Edaatu stand,
you know that you are being watched, scrutinized and discussed mainly
because you happen to be a woman. Anyone who has lived in such areas
can immediately recognize the very rustic, prying, gossiping nature of
such panchayaths. This seemingly harmless attitude can at times turn
into large-scale cultural policing at any time.

In fact, when everyone and everything new or different is discussed,
what is also being reiterated are the given codes of ideological
conduct.  Anyone subverting these codes or exceeding given limits are
noticed, talked about and dealt with.

 Such policing happens at various levels and in many ways the Left
political institution in Malabar is deeply entrenched in this local
culture of the small-town, where ideologies are kept warm through
constant prying, gossiping and cultural policing.

This is what happened in the case of Chithra Lekha too. The Left came
forward with all its power to play an active role in suppressing
Chithra Lekha's aspirations, which in many ways challenged given
ideological codes. We feel that is very important to understand the
very local nature of this intervention by the Left. We could feel it
everywhere during our field trip. We came to know that when Chithra
Lekha complained against her harassers, the Leftist auto rickshaw
drivers union, unleashed a huge public campaign against her. Huge
boards were written and notices distributed where in Chithra Lekha was
accused of loose sexual morals. Her mother was called a whore and the
activists of the action committee were termed pimps.

With this kind of a campaign, Chithra Lekha, who had once been a very
popular driver – with many preferring her to the men in the auto stand
–­­ suddenly fell from grace. All the local men we met told us about
her loose morals. Women talked about her arrogant and unwomanly
nature. In distant auto rickshaw stands, auto rickshaw drivers, both
men and women, told us again and again that the fault was all hers.
Again and again we heard the same message: "Yes, burning her auto
rickshaw was very wrong, but she was an immoral woman and that is why
all this happened." In other words: SHE ASKED FOR IT. And the
party-aided local men were always there to give it to her or any other
such persons, who try to wriggle out of the strict codes of conduct
laid out by various cultural ideologies.

We saw a similar pattern in all the other cases of sexual harassment
among women auto rickshaw drivers.  Most of them were from developing
panchayats like that of Chithra Lekha and were harassed by men with
the support of Leftist trade unions.

 However, we would not call this desire for cultural policing as
belonging to the party alone. Instead we would say that this is the
cultural desire of the region also, which the party strategically
uses.

christy, jenny

-- 
(All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave)