From: v.geetha <v.geetha@tarabooks.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 3:00 PM
Subject: [PMARC] AIIMS............
To: Dalits Media Watch <PMARC@dgroups.org>
We don't know if you have seen this. I append it for your attention.
Geetha
This is the report of a solidarity mission that was invited by Feminists Kerala Network to visit Payyanur and attempt to ascertain the facts around an incident of violence involving Chithralekha, a Dalit woman auto driver, on January 20, 2010.
Feminists Kerala Network is a loose network based in Kerala and outside, of feminists, Dalit activists, queer activists and other individuals involved with new social movements in Kerala.
The solidarity mission consisted of
Gail Omvedt, Professor, B. R. Ambedkar Chair at Indira Gandhi National Open University, Delhi; V Geetha , Publisher (Tara Books), author and social activist, Chennai; K.K Preetha, Advocate, Kerala High Court, Ernakulam; Nivedita Menon, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.
The team visited Payyanur on February 7-8, 2010.
Background on the History of Violence against Chithralekha and on the Decision to set up a Fact-finding Team
Carmel Christy and Jenny Rowena, Feminists Kerala Network
Chithralekha, a Dalit woman, from Payyanur in Kannur, Kerala, was one of the first woman auto drivers to enter a workplace dominated by men from higher castes. Chithralekha is a symbol and sign of the marginalization that Dalits face in modern Kerala. Her small, unfinished house stands at the very end of a kilometer long road which is filled with huge houses belonging to people from Hindu Backward caste communities who are sustained by Gulf money. Here, Chithralekha and her family function as the Dalit "other" of this region. This is clear from the fact that Chithralekha's grandmother is branded mad, her mother called a local "prostitute" and Chithra is also looked down upon for her non-womanly, aggressive character and "loose morals." Most importantly, (as Chithralekha has revealed to the world in her interviews and interactions) even today there are rituals based on untouchability which is practiced in this panchayat (and in the entire Malabar region) which claims for itself a modern, secular and progressive identity. In addition, the fact that she is married to a man from an OBC community has led to continuous victimization of both by the local Thiya-CPI(M) nexus.
So, right from the beginning there was a strong resistance to her and there was a three month delay in giving her a membership of the auto drivers' union. Later, when she went on to become an efficient and extremely popular auto rickshaw driver, the resistance against her took a violent turn. Soon she was subject to many acts of workplace harassments by her fellow auto drivers. She was routinely called derogatory caste names, on one occasion, the hood of her auto was ripped, and a fellow driver even tried to run her over with his vehicle. Chithra, a fiercely independent woman, protested against all of this, lodging complaints with the police and even managing to get one of the workers arrested and taken to the police station with the help of a local Dalit activist. In the course of her protest, she also brought to light the fact that her district and locality still practiced untouchability, albeit in modern forms.
Once the issue went outside the purview of the local auto stand, the auto drivers union and the local CPI (M) goons adopted a new tactic and started tarnishing her image with wide spread poster campaigns. Through these posters Chithralekha was branded as a sexually loose woman, a woman who drinks, whose mother was a sex worker, who talks like a man, who does not listen and who does not know how to behave. The caste issue raised by her, the CITU, CPI (M) propaganda claimed, was only Chithralekha's ploy to hide her own loose morality. With such a campaign, Chithra lost all support in the locality with even woman auto drivers in distant stands convinced of her "bad" character.
What is important here is the fact that most people responsible for victimizing Chithralekha are official members of a trade union affiliated to the Marxist party and they deny any kind of caste/gender angle to the whole debate. However, the Left is leading a criminalized social network, with Backward Caste communities as its leaders and foot soldiers, in a highly casteist and masculine manner. In the Chithralekha case, the Left came forward with all its power to play an active role in suppressing Chithralekha's aspirations, which in many ways challenged given ideological codes.
However, Chithra continued to fight back this kind of a representation and by aligning with Dalit and feminist activists, she managed to organize a huge protest and bring forth a huge media coverage about her issue. They convened a Dalit woman convention in her home town in which it was decided that there would be a local initiative to rehabilitate her with a new auto. However, the committee could only arrange a rented auto and Chithralekha could not ply the same, due to various reasons. So she surrendered the auto to the committee in ten days. After this she lost touch with the members of the Citizen's Initiative and the feminists and became more prone to attacks from the local CPI (M) and CITU. In a few days her relative who was mistaken for her husband was attacked and soon Chithra had to flee her hometown and live in a far away town, in a rented house, almost in hiding.
It was at this time that yet another Citizen's Initiative with strong support from local and other Dalit activists were launched to talk about her present situation and to rehabilitate her. This was also based in Kannur but this time things were different. There was wide circulation of the issue through the internet and she found the support from people all over India. As part of this, a Chithralekha Rehabilitation committee was formed and a group of people collected enough money to help her procure a new auto rickshaw, which was handed over to her by the prominent Adivasi activist, C K Janu, in a public function in Kannur. After this there were some negotiations with the local CPI (M) leaders too and soon Chithra started running her auto from the Payyanur stand itself.
In the meantime she lost her case against the CITU and was also engaged in further struggles with the local CPI(M) about the bureaucratic obstacles that they were placing in rebuilding her house. Small arguments were continuously happening between the local CITU and Chithralekha. This is mainly because the local CITU had never accepted her, a smart, assertive and independent Dalit woman, as part of their male, Caste Hindu fold. They always saw Chithralekha who does not fit into the typical Malayalee imagination of the "good woman" as an immoral and worthless woman.
It is at this point that the current incident happened on January 20th.
The Need for a Fact Finding Team
The Feminists Kerala Network is a loose network based in Kerala and outside, of feminists, Dalit activists, queer activists and other individuals involved with new social movements in Kerala. The FKN decided to take up this case as they felt that Chithralekha's was not an individual case. As some other studies by Feminists Kerala Network members have shown, another Dalit woman's auto rickshaw was burned a few years back in Kannur. Yet another Dalit woman was branded a sex worker and was forced to quit her profession as an auto driver, again in Kannur. A Thiyya (OBC) auto woman committed suicide due to workplace harassment and a Muslim woman auto driver in Kannur has complained of severe harassment by fellow drivers. Many of these women were harassed by men with the active support of their official trade unions, which in Kannur is often the CITU.
Moreover, not only is there growing violence against women in Kerala, but the entire Dalit and Muslim community in Kerala is being increasingly targeted by the media and the State. Moreover, many incidents in Kerala – please recall the incident in Payyanur itself, where noted writer Zacharia was physically attacked by local CPI(M) workers for making statements about the Communist movement that offended them – are pointing to the fact that there is an evolving Malayalee consensus that law and order can be suspended and given over to a violent and aggressive male crowd, in certain situations.
The Chithralekha case also points to the way in which the CPI(M) party and its organs have created a highly fascist atmosphere in North Malabar. In fact, Chithralekha is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the various issues that are haunting North Malabar. In Malabar, there are entire villages that are controlled by various political parties, of which the CPI (M) is the most dominant one. Once a party takes over a village, it enforces an extra judicial power over all the people who live in that village. The CPI (M) exists and thrives in North Malabar through the use of such power over entire villages. Anyone who questions the party or goes against its wishes are harassed, alienated, ostracized and sometimes even killed. In the workplace, trade unions, such as the CITU wields the same power and uses it over the village and people, to control and dictate terms to its members. Often such collectives are energized by OBC youth who use male violence to counter all new assertions by Dalits and women.
Chithralekha is a woman who has struggled against this huge and oppressive edifice of the party. The party has used systematic methods, like poster campaigns to defame her character in Payyanur and Kannur. The recent attacks on Chithralekha is also being similarly hushed up and denied. A reporter from a prominent channel who was willing to go to the site after being called by a local activist, later pulled out, after listening to the police/CITU story told by his field reporters that Chithralekha was drunk and not in her senses.
In such a situation, it is important to bring out the various issues involved, by conducting an unbiased investigation. In fact, only such a report can bring out the real story and this might be the only way in which one can prevent further attack and violence on Chithralekha and others. Moreover, the Feminists Kerala Network feels that if Chithralekha's versions are investigated and found true, a report based on this would go a long way in exposing and questioning the utter tyranny that is imposed on the villages of North Malabar, by various political organizations, especially the CPI (M).
Report by Fact-finding Team on the Incident of January 20th, 2010
Involving Chithralekha at Payyanur.
(February 7 and 8, 2010)
We are a women's solidarity team from different places in India, representing a wider group of people concerned about Chitralekha, a Dalit woman who has been attempting to become an autorickshaw driver in Payyanur, Kerala.
We are concerned because women have only barely begun in the male-dominated profession of driving, whether cars, buses, or autos. We are also deeply concerned because for decades and centuries Dalits and other subordinated caste people have been excluded from occupations "reserved" for members of so-called "higher" castes.
The facts of the case are this. Chitralekha is a young woman of Pulaya community, who has made an inter-caste love marriage with a man Shreeshkant, from the Tiyya community. This has not been received well by his family and they have had to face a lot of organized opposition, including acts of violence. Shreeshkant is an autorickshaw driver. In March 2004 Chitralekha began an effort to become a driver herself, utilizing the opportunity provided by a government scheme. From fairly early on, she experienced harassment from the CPM union in an area adjacent to Payyanur town. This included remarks that denigrated her both as a woman and as a dalit, and which implied that she was being upstart. Typical for women moving into professional fields, where only men have worked until recently she was slandered sexually as well – constant charges of prostitution were levied against her and her mother. Her auto was both damaged and then burnt.
The most recent incident of discrimination and violence was the one that has brought us to Payyanur. This occurred on January 20, 2010, when she had gone to buy medicine for her son, who had been stung by a bee. While her husband got out to buy the medicine, Chithralekha, her brother and her son were waiting in the auto. There ensued an altercation with auto drivers – a police jeep that was passing by was stopped and the policemen asked to mediate. They took away both Shreeshkant and Chitralekha to the Payyanur police station, where he was sent away to have an alcohol test done on him. She reported she was beaten. The police have since denied this, and insisted that both of them were drunk and had to be taken away from the spot in order that they do not cause further trouble.
When we came to know of this incident through the Kerala Feminists Network, who wanted us to come and do a preliminary investigation as to what happened, we agreed to do so. We are deeply concerned with issues to do with gender and caste discrimination – and in different ways have been engaged with bringing into public focus and debate persistent issues to do with discrimination against Dalits and women. That this should continue to exist in a state with high development indices in a way that precludes public debate on it, is very disturbing.
Members
Gail Omvedt, Professor, B. R. Ambedkar Chair at Indira Gandhi National Open University, Delhi
V Geetha , Publisher (Tara Books), author and social activist, Chennai
K.K Preetha, Advocate, Kerala High Court, Ernakulam
Nivedita Menon, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
On 7.2.2010 we met
Chithralekha
Shreeshkant
Their son
Two people who did not wish to be identified
The Circle Inspector and Sub Inspector (Payyannoor)
The Auto Union representatives
The owner of the chemist shop in front of which the incident happened.
On 8.2.2010 we met the Superintendent of Police at Kannur.
On 10.2.2010, Nivedita Menon spoke telephonically from Delhi to PK Ayyappan, Citizen MemBer of the SC/ST Atrocities (Prevention) Act, District Level Monitoring Committee.
1. Chithralekha's version:
At about 9.30 am, Chithralekha and Shreeshkant went in their auto to buy medicine for their son who was stung by a bee. Chithralekha was driving, Shreeshkant, their son and Chithralekha's brother were in the back-seat. She parked the auto inside the track where autos stand in line for passengers, and Shreeshkant got off to buy the medicine from a shop directly in front of which the auto was parked.
Meanwhile, an auto driver who was parked behind them asked Chithralekha abusively to move her auto since he was in line ("vandi mattivekku, naayinte moley"), and she replied that they will leave in a moment after Shreeshkant returned with the medicine from the shop. This led to an altercation, soon more CITU-linked auto drivers arrived at the scene, they called the police who arrived promptly, roughed up Chitra and Shreeshkant, and took them to the police station.
As they were being bundled into the jeep, CITU members threatened her in front of the police. A WPC asked her if she was drunk, Chithralekha said she did not drink, at which the WPC said "Today you smell" ("Innu manakunnallo") and Chithralekha replied – "If you smell, use perfume ("Manakunnundengil scentu pooshikko"). At the station, a WPC roughed her up, and at one point Chithralekha held the WPC's hand back to stop her from beating her, after which she was beaten quite badly. The police demanded that she go with them to the hospital, but she refused to go unless they told her what the case against her was. Meanwhile, her husband was taken to the hospital, administered an alcohol test, and the report states that he was intoxicated. They remained in the station till the evening, about 6 pm.
Throughout this process there were a large number of people at the market, and a crowd gathered at the station as well. One person from the crowd at the station took photographs of Chithralekha being beaten, using his mobile. The mobile was snatched from him by the police and the pictures deleted.
Chithralekha went to a nearby hospital after being released and had her wounds tended to. She was bleeding from the vagina due to being beaten in her lower abdomen. She sustained bruises and contusions. She has a hospital record that shows these injuries.
Chithralekha also says that there was Rs 10, 000 in her auto which she had borrowed to repay another loan, which went missing during the incident
2. Police Version
We met the Circle Inspector, P. K. Sudhakaran and Sub-Inspector, Pavitran at the Payyanur police station. The CI said that he supervised the case, and he gave us the following account: A passing police jeep was flagged down by some people near Perumba market saying that some people were drunk and were creating a problem. Since they said one of them was a woman, the police jeep picked up two WPCs and went to the scene, accompanied by SI Pavitran. It was immediately evident to the SI that Shreeshkant and Chithralekha were drunk and out of control. Since the situation was getting out of hand, he decided that they should be removed from the scene to pre-empt any further trouble. Both at the market and when taken to the police station, Chithralekha was abusive and violent. She refused to submit to an alcohol test but her husband was tested and proved to be drunk.
The CI accompanied us to meet the SI and SI Pavitran confirmed this account in every detail. There was one detail on which there seemed to be initial disagreement. When asked how long Chithralekha and Shreeshkant were detained, the SI said till the evening, the CI corrected him, saying they were let off around lunch, with a petty case of drunken misbehavior against Shreeshkant. Both officers denied that any physical assault took place on either Chithralekha or Shreeshkant. WPC Sindhu who had been named by Chithralekha as the one who beat her, was called in to meet us and she denied this charge flatly, saying that instead it was Chithralekha who attacked her.
The police insisted that it was Shreeshkant who had been driving and that Chithralekha was in the back with two young men (cheruppakkar). They said there was no child (kutti) accompanying them. They said that the reason that Chithralekha and her husband were in Perumba was to meet a relative from Vadakara who wanted to borrow Rs 1000 from them. This relative did not want to meet them at home because of Chithralekha's reputation and had asked them to meet him at Perumba. He later came back to the police station and told the police that when he arrived, saw the situation and realized they were drunk, he decided to leave.
3. Auto Union Version
We met about 12 members of the Auto Samyukta Coordination Committee, belonging to CITU, INTUC and BMS at CPI(M)Area Committee Office building, Kannan Nair Smaraka Mandiram. None of them had been present at the scene of incident, and their report was based on what they had heard from Union members who had been there.
Their account: Shreeshkant parked in the track, blocking the auto behind him. The other driver asked him to move, but Shreeshkant was drunk and abusive and Chithralekha too joined in. She too was drunk. There were two young men in the back seat who left when the altercation started. When the situation got out of hand, the other auto-drivers flagged down a passing police jeep.
The Union members described Chithralekha's behavior during the incident thus, in a formal written statement they handed to us: "yatrakaariaayi vandiyilundayirunna stree, avarum nannayi madyalahriyilaayirunnu, tarkatthil idapedukayum tozhilaalikale aake velluvilikunna taratthil, aarthattahasicchu azhinjaaduvaan aarambhikukayum cheythu," ("The woman traveling in the vehicle, who was also thoroughly drunk, intervened in the argument, and as if challenging the workers, began to behave wantonly, with loud boisterous laughter.")
When we asked them if there had been any previous complaint to their committee by a passenger or the police, of drunkenness on the part of either Chithralekha or Shreeshkant, they said there had never been such a complaint, but added that these two people hardly ever drove their auto. Unlike other drivers who arrived at the Payyanur stand in the morning and took passengers throughout the day Chithralekha and Shreeshkant were infrequently at the stand and the Union members wondered how they really made a living. They denied that they had discriminated against Chithralekha and said that there were many women amongst the 2000 drivers in the city, including dalits. When asked how many, they said there were 4 women, of whom two are dalits, and one from a tribal community. They repeated several times during the meeting that they were determined to enforce their model code of conduct for auto-drivers and would not tolerate drunkenness. They insisted that Shreeshkant had been driving, not Chithralekha.
While talking to us after the meeting was over, one of the members told two of us that we must understand that Chithralekha was a woman who lived her life "outside the track" ("trackinu puratthu"). When asked to explain, he said that we could ask any child in her neighbourhood about her character. He added that her mother and grandmother had lived in the same area without any problem and why was it that only she kept getting into trouble.
4. PK Ayyappan's version (by telephone)
Around 12.45 pm on the 20th of January, he received a phone-call from Shreeshkant at the police station saying they were in police custody and could he come immediately. He was at that time not in the area, and was busy in another meeting, so he immediately called the SI, who told him that Chithralekha and Shreeshkant were drunk, and had been taken into custody to prevent any further trouble. The SI held out the phone for Ayyappan to hear Chithralekha shouting, to prove that she was out of control. The SI also claimed that WPC Sindhu had been attacked by Chithralekha.
Ayyappan said that he told the SI that it was not a crime to be drunk, and why were they being held in the police station for that; at best a petty case could be registered against them and they should be let off.
About an hour later, the CI called Ayyappan and told him to come immediately to the police station, at which again the latter told the CI that Chithralekha and Shreeshkant should not be kept in the station like this, it was becoming too much of a sensational matter.
Around 2 pm, Vanita CI Nirmala called him from Kannur, and said she was going to Payyannoor immediately and that he should accompany her. Ayyappan was able to finally reach Payyannoor at about 3 pm. He was immediately surrounded by police, who told him their story. A Remand Report had been written and the police were ready to register a case and present Chithralekha and Shreeshkant in court ("courtil haajiraakkan taiyyarayirunnu"). They were waiting for Ayyappan's arrival to go ahead. But Ayyappan insisted that they could not be arrested simply because they were drunk. He also asked the police why, if Chithralekha and Shreeshkant were posing a law and order problem, CITU was being given the authority to intervene in the situation.
He wrote a statement asking that they be released, and the police prepared to do so. However, Ayyappan was worried about the safety of Chithralekha and Shreeshkant because when he arrived at the police station, he could see a large crowd of about 500 was waiting threateningly at the gate and in the grounds. So he demanded a police escort for Chithralekha and Shreeshkant, and at about 5 pm, Ayyappan and CI Nirmala accompanied them home. Ayyappan asked Chithralekha and Shreeshkant to write a complaint about being beaten if they indeed had been, but when they left the station, Chithralekha wrote out a complaint only about the missing money.
Some time after they had been dropped home, Chithralekha called him complaining that she felt breathless and was in pain from the beating, so Ayyappan asked them to go the hospital.
Ayyappan's own assessment is that there had been a pre-planned campaign on the part of CITU to precipitate such an incident with prior mobilization. Otherwise he could not explain the sudden crowds and the prompt arrival of police.
He expressed serious concern for the continued safety of Chithralekha and Shreeshkant.
When asked why he thought Chithralekha was being targeted in particular, he replied that it was because she was not one to take anything lying down ("pratikarikunna svabhavam aanu").
Inconsistencies
a) The time of release from police station.
Chithralekha says she reached home around 6 pm; the police said they were let off after lunch. Chithralekha says that it was past 3 pm when the Asia Net team arrived at the police station, in which case it is clear that she was certainly held long past lunch. This fact can be easily verified. PK Ayyappan's statement too, corroborates Chithralekha's claim.
b) Police beating
The medical record in Chithralekha's possession states the extent of injuries. We told the police that we had seen the record, and the police at that point did not offer any explanation, and only repeated their denial. After we had left the police station and were meeting the Auto Union, the Circle Inspector came there, approached one of us and said that he had spoken to a doctor from the hospital that we had named, who had denied that Chithralekha had any injuries. The CI then telephoned the doctor (not the one who had attended to Chithralekha) and put him on the line, but the doctor only told our colleague that he would have to check the records. He neither denied nor confirmed that Chithralekha had injuries. The doctor who attended to Chithralekha, we were told, was not available to meet us that day.
After 3 members of the team had left Kerala, the police presented to members of Feminist Kerala Network what they claimed was the actual medical certificate from hospital records, on Chithralekha's injuries. This one is dated as late as February 8, 2010. We may note that the team had met the CI at Payyanur PS on 7th February and mentioned that Chithralekha was already in possession of a medical certificate from Saba Hospital.
The Diagnosis by Dr Shyamala Mukundan and Treatment Certificate issued by Dr VC Raveendran of Saba Hospital on February 8, 2010 are different from the originally issued documents by the same doctors on January 20, 2010 as below:
The case sheet dated 21-1-10 shows her condition on that date and mentions contusions on her foot and hands. It also showed bleeding per vagina on examination.
The treatment certificate dated 8-2-10 signed by Dr. Ravindran (Chief Medical Officer) states that when she was examined on 21-1-10, the patient complained of pain in foot and hand but there were no signs of injuries physically and no bleeding.
The case sheet by Dr. Shyamala dated 8-2-10 mentions about periumbilical tenderness (pain elicited and confirmed by doctor around umbilicus) but no other abnormalities detected.
c) Chithralekha flatly denies the story about the relative who came seeking a Rs 1000 loan. She says that the relative who came to the police station that evening, had come to her home to invite them to the utsavam at Vadakara, was told by her son that they were at the police station, and that's why he came to see them there. This is all that happened.
d) After our meeting at the Union office we had a small discussion amongst ourselves and then went to the medical store in Perumba market, where the incident had happened. There we found that one of the Samyukta Committee members, a CITU man who had been present at the meeting, had preceded us there, and was standing outside the shop. We spoke to the person at the counter, who said that on the morning of the incident, the man in question, Shreeshkant had come up to the counter and asked for DFO gel, which is used for pain, but almost immediately turned away from the counter, since the altercation had already started. He did not wait to collect the medicine.
According to the Auto Union version, the trouble started immediately when the auto was parked, because Shreeshkant was drunk and unreasonable. It is significant that both the Police and the Auto Union give no credence to Chithralekha and Shreeshkant's account that they had stopped briefly only to buy medicine; while the person at the counter of the medical shop corroborates their account. This person also said, when asked, that Shreeshkant did not appear to him, to be drunk.
We also met two other persons who were frightened to be identified. One of them is with CITU, the other is a businessman. One of them was the person from whom Chithralekha had borrowed money to repay the loan she had taken from the other. They said that they were not present at the scene of the incident on January 20, but they had heard from some others present there, that the auto was properly parked and there was no need to ask it to move; and the situation deteriorated rapidly and suddenly. Both these men felt that the incident arose out of the long history of hostility that Chithralekha has faced.
e) Chithralekha denies the Auto Union's charge that she and her husband never run the auto. She says that she is not required to park at any one particular stand. She says that like other auto drivers, she runs her auto everyday, all day. Sometimes she and her husband who also drives the auto, take alternative routes to avoid confronting the Union members.
Evaluation
The January 20 incident is not an isolated one. Other Dalit women auto drivers in this region have faced intense intimidation, sexual harassment, caste-related abuses, accusations of promiscuity and immorality, and damage to their autos. We spoke to one such Dalit Christian woman who plied her auto in Pazhayangadi, who told us that unrelenting and intimidating sexual taunting from her fellow auto drivers, including the widespread posting of her mobile number as belonging to a woman who was publicly available, led her to the brink of suicide. She told us that she was targeted because she was confident, popular with women passengers and because of her refusal to be sexually available. She no longer drives the auto. She also told us about another Dalit woman driver, now working in Payyanur, who faced discrimination in the past while working in a neighbouring area, where her auto was burnt. Now this woman drives an auto in Payyanur, but she takes care never to cross the CITU on any matter.
Chithralekha has a long history of struggle against such harassment and intimidation. She told us about how an auto driver at her stand and a member of CITU drove his auto at her and ran over her foot, and how her first auto was initially damaged and finally burnt. She is continually addressed as "pulacchi" and accused of being drunk, immoral and unfit to be a "proper" auto-driver. Her marriage to an OBC man is another issue, which is used to harass both of them. His family which is strongly rooted in the CPI(M) still refuses to accept the marriage and the family/party has, in the past, made attempts on his life. Since 2005, Chithralekha has had to struggle against tremendous odds – to assert her right to life and livelihood and to fight social ostracism.
Significantly, the Auto Union's statement quoted above, which was handed over to us formally, describing her behavior in the market on January 20th, is hardly "factual" – the sentence we have quoted uses metaphors that insultingly link her caste status, gender and sexual immorality. It also refers to her as "claiming to be the wife of the man driving the auto" ("Bharyayennu parayunna sthreeyum mattu rantu purushanmmarum vandiyil undayirunnu" [Auto Union's Written Statement). It is striking that both the Auto Union and the police deny that her son was in the auto, insisting instead that there were two "men". The implication is that she is incapable of maternal responsibilities and that she is sexually loose. We may note in passing that her son is an adolescent boy, with a budding mustache, who is in fact a "young man". Her brother who was with her that day is also a young man.
The Auto Union was very insistent that they do not recognize caste as a factor in their work. They also insist that they are only interested in producing "model" workers. In some news reports after the visit of the fact-finding team, the Auto Union seems to be implying that the attitude of the team was elitist and anti-labour. In other words, the Auto Union refuses to see the victimization of Chithralekha as an issue involving a "worker". Their refusal was expressed in 'technical' terms: we found that on the one hand, they maintain that they came to be involved with Chithralekha only in 2009, when she came to their auto stand in Payyanur and they are therefore not responsible for whatever happened to her before that. Yet on the other hand, they insist that she has a long history of trouble-making, going back to 2005.
Interestingly, they did not appear to think that their appearing to want to speak on behalf of all 'model' auto workers contradicted their disavowal of the 2005 incidents of violence against Chithralekha – they said that these had nothing to do with them, as that auto stand did not come under their 'jurisdiction'.
The CPI(M) party organ Deshabhimani's report on the visit of the fact-finding team is revealing. Dated 8.2.2010, its headline reads: "Chitralekha sambhavam vivadamaakkan feminist sangham Payyanuril" (Feminist team visits Payyanur to make the Chitralekha incident into a controversy). No Deshabhimani journalist spoke to any member of the fact-finding team. The report says that the team (which it wrongly states was backed by Solidarity, a youth movement of Jamaat-e-Islami, Kerala, probably a (deliberate?) misinterpretation of the team calling itself a Solidarity Mission) visited the police and the Auto Union representatives, hoping to make the Chithralekha incident into a huge controversy, but had to return disappointed ("Chithralekha sambhavam van vivadamaakan solidarity pravartakarude sahayatthode Payyanuriletthiya sangham niraashayodeyaanu tiruchhupoyathu" (Deshabhimani, 8.02.2010). This kind of biased reporting reveals the support of the CPI(M) to the forces aligned against Chithralekha.
It is noteworthy that at a press conference convened by the Auto Union on 10.02-2010 at Kannur, the media appeared to have asked no specific questions about the preliminary fact-finding report and press note that had been circulated to the press earlier on 8.02.2010, although the Auto Union had earlier made a statement about being ready to face any impartial enquiry.
We are also concerned with the strategic shifting of blame to Shreeshkant in the course of this incident, in which the claim is that he was driving the auto on January 20th, that he was drunk, and therefore the informal adjudication committee of the auto unions has the right to prevent him from plying the auto in the region. On this matter the media has carried conflicting reports – some say the Auto Unions declared a ban on his driving, others that there is no such ban. Nevertheless, it is clear that the incident has been used now to target Shreeshkant, who has transgressed caste boundaries by choosing a Dalit woman as his life partner, probably because Chithralekha herself has now become the focal point of wide mobilization of Dalit-feminist-non CPI(M) Left energies within the state and outside. As is evident from her retort to the WPC, her physically holding the WPC's hand back, and her refusal to be cowed down in the police station, Chithralekha is not an easy person to silence.
This unease with Chithralekha as well as the characterization of her as a woman "living outside the track" reveals their inability to tolerate this Dalit woman's assertiveness, stubborn courage and confidence despite her caste and gender.
Appendices
1. Certified true copy of Chithralekha's Accident Register Cum Wound Certificate No 867, Dated 20-01-2010, 11-10 pm.
2. Certified true copy of medical report dated 08-02-2010 given to FKN by police, signed by the same doctors as above.
3. Copy of Medical report given by Dr Shyamala Mukundan on February 8, 2010.
4. Auto Union Statement
5. Deshabhimani report on fact-finding team's visit.
Signed/
1. Gail Omvedt
2. Nivedita Menon
3. V. Geetha
4. K.K. Preetha
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