[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.