Icon of Resistance

the plight of a widow who has been haunted by the CPI (M) for the last 15 years….

Freedom is the life-breath of human beings. But the series of the negation of freedom are mounting even in this contemporary democratic realm. Even though the slogan ‘Stop Violence against Women’ (SVAW) has been reverberating in the global society for the last many years, no political parties are ready to hear the same.

The Communist Party of India(Marxist-Leninist) - CPI(M) - claims that they have been striving for the working class and the under privileged. But their revolutionary fervor is turned to be a weapon against a humble widow - Vinitha Kottai, alias Vinitha teacher, hailing from Pathirapatta village in Kozhikode district in Kerala.

The father of Vinitha teacher , comrade Krishnan Master, was an ardent communist. “In 1950’s my father was the Kurubhandu Taluk secretary of the undivided Communist Movement. He had been jailed in many times for actively working with the Movement”, the teacher says. Even though he was ardent leader of CPIM, the life of his only daughter has been made hellish by the propagators of ‘Inquilab Sindabad’.

In the later part of 60’s, the most celebrated Kerala Land Reforms Act came into effect. As per the law, the comrade granted the settlement right to his domestic servant Cheeru allowing 10 cents of land. Even though the prime land was given in the plot of Krishnan Master to Cheeru and her son Balan, they used the settlement right as a license for the land encroachment. Cheeru and her son constructed a house on that property and cultivated there. But the cultivation was on the land encroached from Krishnan Master’s property.

It is known that the CPI (M) acquired the supremacy as a movement from the various agitations and strikes led by them. But it is ashamed to point out that it (the acquired supremacy) is used against the darling daughter of their own comrade.

Vinitha teacher married to Dr.Rajendran Kottayi, a Maharashtrian ,with whom she was in Bombay where she worked as an Economics teacher in various Colleges. During the vacation of 1993, Vinitha Teacher, who returned to their place , found out the encroachment of Balan. But he was not ready to vacate the encroached land since he was the branch Secretary of CPI (M) .

The staunch support extended by A.Kanaran, a senior CPI (M) and Kerala Karshka Thozhilai Union (KSKTU) State Leader, added the power of Balan. Constant threats and attacks from Balan and his family went on imposing unwritten blockade which prohibited that no labourers should work on the property of Vinitha teacher. At last Krishnan master surrendered himself ,without being able to resist the encroachment of his own party , by giving 6 more cents of land to Balan. This should have put an end the atrocity against Krishnan Master and his daughter. But it was kept on. Krishnan Master bid farewell to the world, on July 1994, when the blockade on its peak.

Attacks of Balan have not spared the even children of the teacher.“Balan and his family have assaulted my both children on many occasion. So they are always preferred to keep away from the surroundings and it has affected their personality development to a large extent”, the teacher lamented.

In 1996, teacher’s husband died by heart-attack. Subsequently, the teacher left Bombay and started to stay permanently in Kerala and at the same time the attacks of Balan went on. He destroyed the road to teacher’s residence, filling rocks from his own quarry; but teacher secured an injection order against it from Nadapuram Munsiff Court.

The potency of her resistance was indigestible to the male-dominated party. As a result, they declared blockade. The continuous blockade transformed the homestead of Vinitha teacher into a land of weeds. “Neither coconut nor areca nut was allowed to pluck. Though all these produces were denied (to me), the sponsors of the blockade made it all their own”, the teacher reveals.

In the meanwhile, her elder son Hrishikesh fell into the well. A vein in head was damaged and sustained to a deep injury on back-bone also. Hrishikesh was bed ridden for a long period in Calicut Medical College. The blockade begun from’93 shattered the financial stability of the family. Since the teacher was not in a position to find the ways to extract money for the treatment of her son, she thought of selling the trees from her homestead to meet the financial requirements. But the party did not allow her to do so.

In 2001, the media made the tragedy of teacher and her children public. The intervention of media forced then the Dist. Collector T.O.Suraj to teacher’s house. Subsequently, the collector reached a compromise with the proponents of the blockade; but in fact it remained in declaration only. Though the blockade was lifted, the fury of Balan against teacher and her children did not lessen. On May 20, 2005, there was an attempt to kill her by pouring Kerosene and setting fire on her body. She was admitted in Kozhikode Medical College Hospital after having a face to face meeting with death.

After the murder attempt, the Human Rights commission intervened in the plight of the teacher and directed the government to provide the police protection to teacher and her children.The system gives importance to the administrative measures like police protection on the ground of human rights violation against teacher and her children. Here it is the political movements are evading from their social responsibilities. Despite she understands the police protection, which is more or less equal to house arrest, is an encroachment to the privacy, the situation compelled to have the same.

“My electricity and telephone connections are being cut intermittently. The attempt to attack by dog. All these have occurred when the police protection has been on. It’s clear that the police security is not a sufficient protection of the life and properties of us”, disgruntled teacher points out.

On June 03,2005, the resistance of teacher had a new turn staging a dharna right in front of the Secretariat, demanding a gun for self-protection. This symbolic dharna was marked as a permanent stain in the so called enlightened political history of Kerala. “I don’t know how to use gun. On demanding that, I wanted to expose the intensity of intimidation of Balan against me and children”, she explains.

The diversities in surroundings which would have been the lights for the personality development were denied to the teacher’s children due to the intensity of blockade. The children have been encircled by the anxieties of isolated youth. The political party that claimed to stand for new world through the path of revolution, in fact, denied the new world for the children of Vinitha teacher.

No witness against the atrocities towards the teacher because in Pathirapatta Village where the command of the party is the final word. With the blockade, the elimination of societal relations of teacher’s family was actually becoming complete.

Teacher’s life is filled with the complexities of resistance. Isn’t she becoming a woman who forgot to live while on fighting against consistent crisis? By becoming an icon of resistance, teacher is ,in fact, seeking justice. Therefore she never feels that everything could have been avoided.

It is a generosity of the society that woman deserves sympathy. But she doesn’t want the mercy extended by the society in which we live. No doubt it is the commendable stand of the teacher who fight against the anti-woman stand of the so-called ideological champions of oppressed.

Feminist, human and civil rights organizations have been functioning in the socio, political and cultural arena of Kerala apart from Women’s commission. But it is ashamed to point out that no organizations, except the Kerala Predesh Mahila Congress, have come forward in extending a meaningful support to the teacher.

Now the teacher turns 51 years. She is not in a condition to bear the torture of Balan and his party anymore. That’s why she is preparing to leave the native place and returning to Maharashtra. However they are being haunted here in native place, she is sure that in Maharashtra nobody will target them to attack.

A question to the teacher - “whose assurance will make you stay back in homeland?” She replies that she has no more belief in the administrative system and political parties in Kerala. It is, no doubt, really a noticeable reply.

Since she has been engaged in battle against the anti woman attitude of the sponsors of the ideology, which glorified as ‘binocular of era’, she could be regarded as an icon of resistance . At the same time,the persuasion of the teacher and her children to bid farewell to birth place may be a forced surrender also. It (the surrender) will not be the defeat of the family but the spiteful victory of a responsible political party who engages in violating the fundamental rights of a hapless widow.

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