Housewife’s anger on Left leaders: Kerala’s AAP moment?

A housewife on a scooter in Thiruvananthapuram made to Kerala’s media headlines on Thursday and Friday because she publicly blasted a bunch of CPM and Left party leaders who were organising yet another roadblock in her locality. The men, who are otherwise never short of their revolutionary fervour, were stung and struggled for words even as the woman continued to accuse them of being anti-people, and threatened to bring more women from the area and stone them away. After she left, the leaders looked miserable chiding the police for landing them in a woman’s wrath. Was it Kerala’s Aam Admi Party moment? Probably, yes. People in the state are fed up with the frequent lockdowns—earlier called “bandhs”—forced on them by political parties, mostly the Left. Matters had come to such a head in 2000, when the high court even banned them. But the ritual continues to be practised with greater vigour in a rechristened form called “hartal”. For the people of the state, it implies absolute misery, sometimes even a question between life and death, and has inspired artists, film makers and socio-political commentators to respond.[caption id=“attachment_1285893” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. Image courtesy PIB[/caption] What enraged the “aam” housewife on Thursday was an ongoing siege that has made life difficult for the people living around the Chief Minister Oomen Chandy’s residence. The CPM and its allies want Chandy to resign over a recent scam and are on a 140-day siege of his official residence. In view of the violent attacks, allegedly by the CPM, that injured Chandy in the northern district of Kannur recently, the police promptly barricades the road to keep them away. On Thursday, the housewife used the road to drop her kids to school in the morning, but when she returned it was barricaded because of the blockade. She got wild and shouted at the leaders. While one of them told her that the agitation was for the public, it made her angrier – “which public?” She also alleged that the CPM workers had collected Rs 100 each from each house in the area and were now obstructing their right of way. She even said that the chief minister was elected by the people and should be allowed to rule. Under normal circumstances, the situation would have turned real ugly as happens in the countless “hartals” in the state, but somehow the CPM and Left leaders recoiled in disbelief because the attack came from a lone housewife. She wasn’t bothered that the people she shouted at included a powerful district secretary of the CPM and a former minister. The hartals, mostly organised by the CPM when the party is out of power at the drop of a hat, often turn violent when people resist. The state’s media chose to make it a headline because finally there is a pushback from the public to the never ending lockdowns in the state that severely disrupt public life. Reportedly, there were 363 hartals between 2005 and 2012 by various parties in the state. Ever since the present ruling coalition came to power, organising such protests have become a routine habit for the Left parties, mostly the CPM, even as they continue to keep away from issues of genuine public interest. So far this year, there have been 100 hartals in the state. Blocking the chief minister’s residence is one such farce. A few months back, the CPM and its allies brought about 100,000 people from across the state for a round-the-clock, indefinite siege on the government secretariat, but abandoned it sooner than later because it was turning out to be a sanitary disaster. Some alleged that a compromise between the top leaders of the Congress and the CPM had led to the strike being called off. Many socio-political commentators believe that there is an “omerta code” among the top leaders of political parties. The CPM however said that they would not abandon their stir until the chief minister resigned, and announced a blockade to his official residence. But as the due date for the siege approached, the party changed its stand and said it was going to be merely symbolic and time-bound - for a few hours in a day for 140 days. Soon, the stir lost its steam and became a ritual that seemed to have been driven by an unwritten pact between the police and the protesters. They leaders and workers will sit “in protest” on the road that leads to Chandy’s residence and the police will arrest them in no time. Although it’s a historical charge that investment stayed away from the state because of militant labour and such frequent lockdowns, there is increasing resistance to this incredible practice that’s not seen at such a scale in any other part of the country except in conflict zones. What defies logic is why the political leaders continue with the practice despite clear writing on the wall - that people don’t like it and they are fed up. It robs the state, run by a bankrupt government, of a lot of money, affects the lives and movement of people, including hundreds of thousands of expatriates who keep the state’s economy going. It also affects tourists and one of the state’s key economic engines, the hospitality industry, and the sick and old people. With the frequency of the hartals rising to the present level, particularly after the Left parties lost power (an average of 9-10 a month), unpredictable disruption to life is something that people in the state are forced to live with. Last month, the Kerala High Court came down heavily on another hartal organised by the CPM and others against the Kasturi Rangan report on preserving the Western Ghats. The bench asked if the activists knew what the report was about. It also said that the frequent hartals over the years have affected the state’s development. This is the context of public anger that compelled the helpless housewife to take on the Left leaders. Her threat of organising other women to resist such roadblocks should be an early warning of increasing resentment among people. This public anger is exactly the sentiment that AAP rode on to a spectacular victory in Delhi. Thursday’s AAP moment in Thiruvananthapuram should worry both the CPM-led Left and the Congress-led rivals. Politics cannot continue to be organised thuggery, that too driven by forced public funding, and AAP in Delhi showed that there is a way out by junking the conventional political parties. It’s only a matter of time before it fires the imagination of people in Kerala. The beginning has already begun - a top industrialist in the state on Friday announced a gift of Rs 500,000 to the housewife as a reward for her resistance. And she is turning out to be a viral-rage on social networking sites.