Friday, March 29, 2024

K R Gowri Amma: Kerala’s tallest politician is 102 years young now

Kerala’s first revenue minister, communist icon and firebrand woman K.R Gowri Amma is 102 years young now.

Born into an OBC Ezhava family, she was the first female law student coming from the Ezhava community in Kerala.

Gowri Amma, the second longest serving MLA in Kerala Legislative Assembly was a minister in the communist-led ministries in 1957, 1967, 1980, and 1987 and in the Congress-led cabinet in 2001.

Her biggest contribution is widely accepted as the implementation of the land reforms bill during the EMS government.

She was also elected to Travancore-Kochi Legislative Assembly in 1952 and 1954 before the Kerala state was formed. At the age of 22 as a law graduate, she first contested the election in 1948, lost.

The eleven times MLA was arrested several times and even tortured in police custody. She was elected to Kerala Assembly while serving her jail term in 1957. Recounting the brutal stories in police custody she once told an interviewer that if lathis had the power to impregnate, she would have conceived several times.

Caste politics in the CPM scuttled her chances of becoming the first female and Ezhava chief minister Kerala and her criticism of the leadership leading to her expulsion from CPIM in 1994.

“I was not made the Chief Minister of Kerala because of casteist mindset of EMS,” Gowri Amma accused late EMS, Kerala’s first chief minister of casteism.

In 1994, she ended her 45 years of association with the communists and formed Janadhipathya Samrakshana Samiti.

Sahid Faris
Sahid Faris
Sahid Faris is a freelance journalist in Kerala.
spot_img

Don't Miss

Related Articles