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2007 Caste Atrocity victim: Chithralekha, Kerala
Photo: Ms Chithralekha(woman in red saree) receiving keys of her new vehicle from Ms C.K.Janu of Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha, on 7th June,2008.
Ambedkar Scholarships is pleased to donate Rs.20,000 for her rehabilitation.
Donors:
Ambedkar Scholarship fund : Rs.5,000
Prof Anandswarup Gadde, Australia: Rs.5,000
Prof Ravishankar, US : Rs.5,000
Mr Karthik Subramanian, US : Rs.5,000
Public Function On 7th June Held at Kannur Concluded Successfully –Chithralekha Rehabilitation Committee, Kannur,Kerala (as reported by Mr K.M.Venugopalan)
Modest function held at the police club auditorium ,Kannur in which Ms.C.K.Janu of Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha gifted the keys of a new Bajaj diesel auto to Chithraleka was concluded yesterday with a firm resolve and perseverance to support Chithralekha in her continuing struggle for the right to work and live with honour.
A.Vasu (Vasuettan), Dileepraj, V.P.Zuhra , Advocate P.A.Pauran, Mini K Philip, M.K.Jayaraj and Munderi Balakrishnan spoke at the function presided by Dr.D.Surendranath (Chairman, Chithralekha Punaradhivasa Committee).
Jenny Roweena and Carmel Christy, authors of the much debated report"Chithralekha's Burning Auto: Caste and Gender In the Urban Space of Keralam" ( paper published in Sarai), who had stood all along with the Chithralekha Punaradhivasa Committee in support of this campaign, were also present in the function.
The session was temporarily taken outside the hall, while Ms C.K.Janu handed over the keys of vehicle to Chithralekha , with Chithralekha standing aside the auto. Chithralekha had chosen to name her new vehicle after Mayilamma, the heroic Adivasi woman of anti-coke struggle at Plachimada who passed away last year. This choice of name has the additional relevance that it was Mailamma who had inaugurated the convention for protection of Rights of Dalits and Women
held at Payyanur by the Citizens' Action Committee in 2006 February in the context of the early stage of struggle by Chithralekha in the aftermath of the grave crime of burning her vehicle.
Texts from messages received from B.R.P.Bhaskar (senior journalist and human rights campaigner), Dr.A.K. Ramakrishnan (Jamia University, New Delhi),Prof.Shiva Shankar(Chennai Institute of Mathematics), J.Robin (Editor,Keraleeyam Monthly), Dr.J.Devika (CDS,Thiruvananthapuram), Benjamin Paul Kaila(ambedkarsholarships),Dr. Hari.P.Sharma of South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy(SANSAD) were read out to the audience.
Messages in expression of solidarity from Dr.T.T.Sreekumar, Anivar Aravind,.Salim.T.K, Aftab Ellath, K.Ajitha, K.Venu, Sunny Kapikkad, P.V.Ayyappan, Rekha Raj, C.Padmanabhan, K.K.Kochu, Dr.K.M.Seethi(M G U, Kottayam), Dr.A.K.Jayasree, Sarathchandran, Mitesh Domania (US),Dr.Ranjith (Indira Gandhi Open University,New Delhi) ,Deepa V.N, Joy Charles(US),Prof.Alladi Sitaram(Indian Institute of Science, (Bangalore), Prof.Sujata Ramodari Stalin.K (documentary film maker) and many others who though could not directly attend the function but whose support had been reiterated on various occasions throughout the ten months' long campaign were acknowledged by K.M.Venugopalan, Convener, as he read out the texts of felicitation messages.Earlier,he gave the welcome address .
Mr.P.K.Ayyappan, Treasurer, (Chithralekha Punaradhivasa Committee) proposed the vote of thanks before the session concluded.
A fair presence of media persons, both of print and the electronic, was there throughout the function.
K.M.Venugopalan,
Convener,
Chithralekha Punaradhivasa Committee
PS:
Afew words about the accounts:-
A total sum of Rs 1,53,700 is received as donations as against the targeted amount Rs 1,50,000.00;
the Committee has yet to sit and formally announce the particulars of contributions.
Certain out station cheques received in the later phase have yet to get credited to our Account, and such delay of several weeks in getting the cheques collected in the conventional banking practice is considered" normal"!
There is already an understanding that after realizing the actual expenses incurred in the campaign and the expenses incurred in relation to the purchase ,insurance ,road taxes,body etc of the vehicle,the actual balance left in the Account will be transferred to the personal account of Chithralekha.
The Case:
[You may please read here the original message by the Chithralekha Rehabilitation Committee here, which may help recap the whole story ]:
[Following is the translated text of an appeal released at a press conference on 26-09-07 in Kannur, by the Chithralekha Rehabilitation Committee, Kannur, Kerala ]
Dear friends,
Despite our pride in having achieved 100% literacy, we have to acknowledge sadly that Kerala's social life continues to be reigned by several unwrit rules of caste and gender, rather than by law. A series of incidents that took place at Edat (Payyanur, Kannur District) starting from organized abuse and harassment of a dalit woman at her workplace, physically attacking her for having complained to the police, and finally seeing her only means of livelihood, an autorikshaw, destroyed by unknown persons setting fire to the vehicle in the dead of night, and to cap these all, a CITU autorikshaw workers' union coming out openly to defend the accused persons, seems to demonstrate this.
Chithralekha had procured her autorikshaw under the PMRY Scheme in October 2004. Nevertheless, she had to wait for three months before the permission to park her vehicle in the Payyanur College bus stop Autostand as well as the membership in the Union was given to her by the CITU Union.
When finally she did succeed in this, she was greeted by an all-male group of non-dalit autoworkers by the following comments"Look, the pulachi ( female gender for pulaya, name of a prominent SC) is coming with with her auto".
Since then, Chithralekha had to suffer a host of humiliations and untold sufferings. On 11-10-2005, Ajith, a fellow auto driver tore the hood of her vehicle. She complained to the Union only to be ridiculed and turned back. Further, a complaint made to the Police ended up with her tormentor being warned by the police. Obviously outraged by this daring act of Chithralekha petitioning against a comrade to the police, Ajith along with Pavithran, Naveen and Rameshan physically attacked Chithralekha at her workplace, the auto stand on 14-10-2005 morning. They publicly dragged her out from the vehicle and drove one of the autorikshaws on to her body, which caused injury to her leg serious enough to stay as inpatient in the Payyanur Govt hospital for many days. As they were doing all these acts of brutality, one of them shouted these words" pulachies of your ilk in future shall never ride auto here, and it is the union's decision"
The above incident has been booked by the Payyanur Police under various sections of IPC as well as under sections of the SC/ST Atrocities (Prevention) Act of 1999. This case with FIR No 367/05 is presently posted for trial before the Special Court (SC/ST Atrocities), Thalassery.
We believe that but for the timely intervention of the District Level Monitoring Committee which is a statutory committee for monitoring such cases of atrocities against dalits, the above mentioned case would not have been booked at all; on the contrary, the dominant caste-gender set up in combination with the generally existing status-quoist bias of individual police officers would have ensured impunity for the offenders and further institutionalization of such crimes.
Even against the successful intervention on the part of the Dist Level Monitoring Committee to get the case booked and properly pursued, collectively expressed hatred and openly displayed hostility against Chithralekha were only heading to a point of vantage. In the night of 31-12-2005, her vehicle was burned by unidentified persons. This incident was registered as FIR No 474/05 in the Payyanur Police Station.
As we hear further stories of intimidation and demoralizing of witnesses by several quarters of vested interests with a view to weakening of these cases as such, we notice that unless the civil society actively involves in the process of bringing justice to the victim, this kind of crimes motivated by caste and gender is going to get institutionalized.
Chithralekha is presently dependent solely on the Monitoring Committee that includes a few civilian(dalit) representatives and the State mechanism available. While it needs to be clearly reiterated that without such State mechanism it would not have been possible to bring the culprits to book under the relevant provisions of law, the ridiculously unwarranted attempts to impose virtual compromise on the victim by intimidating and demoralizing her witnesses and in many other ways need to be resisted. The absolutely unfair interventions of political manipulators to protect the non-dalit, male accuseds from the reach of law, in this case, should be effectively challenged by vigorous pursuit of the Rule Of Law by an informed civil society.
It is worth mentioning in this context, that a citizens' action committee based at Payyanur was indeed on the scene until April 2006 to support Chithralekha. The committee though succeeded in getting an auto for her on rental basis and as part of their endeavour to restore work to Chithralekha, it became defunct soon after the election campaign for the Kerala Assembly picked up momentum. Due to several reasons, Chithralekha was virtually compelled to return the hired vehicle to its owner. Since then, she had to support herself and her family by going outside for unskilled labour in the building sector, evenwhile she refused to compromise in her determined struggle against the cast-gender hostilities still propagated against her.
On the 29th August of this year, a new initiative to support Chithralekha came to existence by forming a new forum based at Kannur, the District headquarters. The meeting convened by Dr D.Surendranath was personally attended by Mr. K.K.Kochu,the well known dalit leader.Several other prominent dalit activists and intellectuals had also extended thier support to this initiative. This committee was named as Chithralekha Punaradhivasa (Rehabilitation) Committee and it took stock of the situation as a whole.,against the background of conspicuous lack of any collective expression of solidarity with her continuing struggle.The next meeting of this committee on 4-09-2007resolved to extend unconditional support to Chithralekha in her struggle for justice.The committee identified the urgent need of rehabilitating Chithralekha, with the work as well as a nightmares-free workplace restored to her. For this, it was decided to purchase a new autorikhshaw for her by collecting the necessary fund from the people. For carrying out this effectively and transparently, Dr Surendranath(Chairman), Mr.P.K.Ayyappan (Treasurer) and Mr.K.M.Venugopalan (Convenor) would jointly operate an account in the Thalap branch of the Kannur District Central Co-operative Bank in connection with collecting and depositing of a targeted fund of Rs1,50,000/=
While we ourselves fully endorse the above mentioned objectives of the Chithralekha Punaradhivasa Committee,Kannur, we would like to request the entire civil society of Kerala to come forward in support of these causes ,viz; of ending hostilities toward a dalit woman and allowing the law to take the right course on the one hand, and helping rehabilitation of Chithralekha by restoring her means of livelihood and work.
Hence,we request everybody to make contribution to the Cithralekha Rhabilitation Fund either by depositing direct to Chithralekha Rehabilitation Committee SB Ac. No.1 of Thalap branch of CDCC bank of Kannur ( Kannur District Central Co-operative Bank), or by sending in Ac.Payee Cheque or crossed DD payable at Kannur, or Money Order, to the following address :-
Dr.D.Surendranath,
Chairman,
Chithralekha Rehabilitation Committee,
Pallikunnu P.O., Kannur.