- Dear all,
**[Following is the translated text of an appeal drafted originally in
Malayalam, to be released to the press in a press conference at Kannur, on
behalf of the Chithralekha Rehabilitation Committee, Kannur, shortly after
the Committee's scheduled meeting on 21st September-
K.M.Venugopalan,Convenor,Chithralekha
Rehabilitation Committee,Kannur ]
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 JRY 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, or by
sending in Ac.Payee Cheque or DD payable at Kannur, or Money Order, to the
following address :-
Dr.D.Surendranath,
Chairman,
Chithralekha Rehabilitation Committee,
Pallikunnu P.O., Kannur.
Among the persons who have already signed this document are,
Bhargavi Thankappan (former Dy Speaker,Kerala Assembly), L.Natarajan ( Retd
IAS),K.C.Venu ( Retired Director, Public Relations, Thiruvananthapuram)
K.K..Kochu (Dalit activist and writer),Sunny Kapikkad (Dalit writer and
activist, Kottayam) , M.B.Manoj ( Poet and Dalit activist, Kottayam), Rekha
Raj (Dalit Women's Forum, Kottayam), K.Panur (Senior campaigner and writer
on Adivasi-Dalit issues & Human Rights, Kannur), K.Venu , Dr.M.Gangadharan,
Dr .A.K.Ramakrishnan (School Of International Relations, MG University,
Kottayam), K.Ajitha (Campaigner in Womens' issues and the leading activist
in Anweshi, Womens'Organization, Kozhikkode) , A.Vasu ( Human Rights
activist, Kozhikkode), Dr.J.Devika (CDS, Thiruvananthapuram), V.P.Zuhara (
Nisa,Organization For Progressive Muslim Women, Kozhokkode) , Anivar Aravind
(Greenyouth Forum& GAYA, Trissur), B.R.P.Bhaskar (senior Human Rights
campaigner and journalist, Thiruvananthapuram), Dr.V.C.Harris (School Of
Social Sciences, MGU, Kottayam) , C.K.Janu (leader, Adivasi Gothra
Mahasabha, Wynad), Prof Sara Joseph ( Literatuer and Womens' Rights
campaigner, Thrissur), Advocate P.A.Pauran (PUCL-Kerala, Manjeri),
K.Haridas ( writer and Human Rights activist, Mumbai ), Dr.Jenny Roweena
(Writer and Researcher in Gender and Caste Issues ,Hydbad), Carmel Chrity
(Research Scholar, Hyderabad Central University & activist researcher In
Gender and Caste ), Elizabeth Philip( Sahaja, Womens' Rights organization,
Kottayam), Ranjith Thakappan ( Lecturer, Indira Gandhi Open University, New
Delhi), I.Gopinath (Media Initiatives and Human Rights activist, Thrissur),
Sarat (Thirdeyefilms , Ernakulam), A.Arun (Research Scholar, Hyderabad
Central University), P.Baburaj (Thirdeye films,Ernakulam),
K.K.Ushakumari(Janakeeya Samskarika Kendram, Kodungallur), Radhika
Menon (Forum For
Democratic Initiatives,New Delhi), Vinod.K.Jose ( Human Rights activist and
Fellow, Columbia Journalism School, New York), K.P.Sasi( Human Rights
activist and film maker, Bangalore), Bauraj.K (writer and activist,
Kodungallur), Shyla.K.John (Secretary, AIMSS, Kerala), Advocate Kasthuri
Devan (social activist, Kannur), Dr.A.K.Jayasree( womens'rights
campaigner,Rajamundri, A.P) ,Dr.K.M.Seethi (School Of International
Relations and Political Science, MG University, Kottayam), Deepa
V.N(Sahayatrika, Kerala), Girija
K.P (Kerala),S.Sanjeev (Kerala), Rev Sunil Raj (Bangalore), Mustafa
Desamangalam ( Media and Films activist, Kerala), Sudeep Joseph (Bangalore),
Bobby Kunju (Human Rights and Legal activist,New Delhi),Sandhya
P.C(GAIA,Thrissur, Kerala), Anil Tharayath Varghese (National Centre
For
Advocacy Studies, Pune), Dr.Ratheesh Radhakrishnan (Kerala),
Shinaj.P.S(Hyderabad
Central University).
We look forward to your co-operation in further spreading the message.
.
thanking you,
K.M.Venugopalan (Convenor)
for Chithralekha Rehabilitation Committee, Kannur .
Kindly use the following postal addresses/ emails as well, for future
communication:
Dr.D.Surendranath,
( Chairman, Chithralekha Rehabilitation Committee),
Pallikkunnu P.O;
Kannur-4,
Kerala (State),
S.India
Pin code- 670004
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
phone: 04972-701279
P.K.Ayyappan
(Treasurer, Chithralekha Rehabilitation Committee)
Ariyil.P.O;
Pattuvam (via),Taliparamba
Kannur Dist,
Kerala (State) .
Pin Code- 670143
Phone: 09447488215
K.M.Venugopalan,
Convenor, Chithralekha Rehabilitation Committee, Kannur.
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
phone: 09447488215.
C.K.Vishwanath,
Member, Chithralekha Punaradhivasa Committe, kannur
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
phone: 04985-277680.
With immense gratitude to everybody and In solidarity,
K.M.Venugopalan.
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