Author: Pioneer News Service
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: June 3, 2005
The State Women's Commission has
sent notices to five local leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
on a petition by Valsa Sumithran of Koorachundu in the Kozhikode district,
the latest victim of the "ex-communication" policy of the Marxists.
The case of Ms Valsa is the second
of its kind in the past fortnight. The other case related to an attack
on Vinitha Kottai by the Marxists for not succumbing to a decade-long blockade
imposed by the party's local unit in Kuttiyadi in the district itself.
State Human Rights Commission member S Verghese had termed the attack on
Ms Kottai as a "severe breach of human rights".
The action of the Women's Commission
follows the continuous harassment of Ms Sumithran whose husband is a poor
daily wages worker. The Marxists had gone to the extent of abusing her
through public meetings of the party.
The party local unit turned against
Ms Sumithran, till recently a card-holding member of the CPI (M), when
she refused to surrender the sewing machine she got through a special scheme
of the Kudumbasree programme, a woman-empowerment initiative promoted by
the government. She had got the machine along with four other women of
the area.
The party asked Ms Sumithran to
surrender the machine to the party's collective work unit, which she refused,
saying she wanted to make a living by using the machine as she was very
poor and her husband did not have any regular job. The party unit objected
to it.
When all efforts by the CPI (M)
to make her toe the party line failed, the Marxists began a vilification
campaign against her, charging her with immoral activities, a Women's Commission
member said. It all started as a whispering campaign, but as days went
by the issue became very serious. When Ms Sumithran did not succumb to
the mounting pressure, the party resorted to harsher methods.
The campaigners began to spread
untrue stories about her illicit relationships. Men would stand at street
corners and abuse her with derogatory comments.
A native said party activists used
to hurl abuses right at her face. When all efforts failed, the party unit
held public meetings just to abuse the woman and ask the villagers not
to cooperate with the family in any manner.
The women's panel member said there
were times when the woman had thought of committing suicide as the excommunication
tactics by the Marxists grew unbearable.
The commission decided to send suo
moto notices to five local Marxist leaders after it was convinced of the
atrocities. Earlier, Ms Valsa had lodged a complaint with the panel, she
added.
"It is unthinkable that a party
so strong in its anti-fascist and human rights proclamations is behaving
like this. But that is a reality in this part of the state," said a resident
of Koorachundu, a remote village. "That this happens in the most literate
and politically conscious state of the country is unimaginable. But it
is happening, and it has happened always," he added.
The state Human Rights Commission
had taken a serious view of the Ms Vinitha Kottai case recently. Ms Vinithai,
a former teacher and a resident of Kuttiyadi in the same Kozhikode district,
had to be admitted in hospital after she was attacked allegedly by Marxists
following a decade-long row with the Kerala State Karshaka Thozhilai Union,
the farmers' wing of the CPI (M), which had enforced a blockade on her.
The party, which virtually rules
over the area, had to be ordered by the district collector in 2004 to stop
the blockade. Though the blockade ended under the official order, she had
continued to receive threats. The row ended in her being attacked by the
Marxists.
"To those outside Northern Malabar,
the Marxist party may look like the torch-bearers of socialism, humanism
and human rights. But, the reality here is quite opposite. It is just like
the old rule of the kings. You can't open your mouth against the party
lords. And you can't deny them anything. That is what happened to Vinitha
and Valsa. And there are many like them," said a social activist in Nadapuram,
Kozhikode.
