Kerala women should lead the fight for equal representation, says Annie Raja

Annie Raja, general secretary of the National Federation for Indian Women, has maintained that it is the responsibility of women in Kerala to fight for equal representation in power.

“Women have a better role in Kerala society than anywhere else in the country. Hence, we need to be in the forefront of this fight,” she said inaugurating the Emily Davison commemoration event organised by Thulya Prathinithya Prasthanam (Movement for Equal Representation) in Kozhikode on June 8 (Saturday). “It is not easy to shake the iron clad feudal mentality of the patriarchy. The first step should be to bring more women into party leaderships,” she added.

Ms. Raja confessed that she was also part of a women’s organisation that used to oppose the women’s reservation in Parliament when the idea was introduced. “Because of the role played by women in the freedom struggle, we expected to be acknowledged after independence. We thought we would get our due share of power by default. But it did not happen so,” she said, adding that it was around 1975 that the women’s organisations realised the absence of women in decision-making bodies and started discussing reservation.

Malavika Binny, assistant professor of history at Kannur University, in her Emily Davison commemoration talk, explained Ms. Davison’s role in the suffragette movement in early 20th century England. “We are standing over the corpses of many martyrs like Ms. Davison, without whom we may not have had the right to vote. Now it is our duty to follow their footsteps and fight for equal representation,” she said.

Convenor of National Alliance of People’s Movements Kusumam Joseph, in her presidential address called upon the women of Kerala to project themselves as a vote bank and to convince themselves that equal representation was their right. “It is a matter of shame that we do not have even one woman MP from the State. We need to take it as a challenge to ensure that women have at least 33% representation in the forthcoming Assembly,” she added.

Women’s right activists K. Ajitha and M. Sulfath, transgender activist Vaiga Subramanian, historian K.S. Madhavan, and veteran human rights activist GROW Vasu were present. The movie Suffragette was screened on the occasion.

The Movement for Equal Representation that was launched a few months before the Lok Sabha elections were announced, had organised a signature campaign to compel political parties to give women their due share of seats.