Dear Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan

It is distressing to read the news of the way in which the ASHA workers’ strike in Kerala is being handled. To say that ASHA workers are being misled by anarchist organisations, as one of your senior leaders did, is to deny their own agency as they agitate for their just demands. It is wilful forgetting of the long history of trade unionism and social activism in the state, which contributed to the famed Kerala model of development.

In your first term as Chief Minister, your government earned global encomiums for its handling of the pandemic. This was in no small measure due to the incessant labour of ASHA workers who were on the frontline risking their lives. How can all that be forgotten even as the state was showcasing its model of development and inviting investment in the recent global meet?

The work of ASHA activists is care work, the most valuable kind of work on which social reproduction depends. The ASHA is a professional, in the sense that activism is her main source of livelihood and her remuneration comes from the government. But unlike external expert professionals, the ASHA lives and works in the community she serves, creating mutual trust and understanding.

It is the centralized, top-down and bureaucratic approach to ASHAs, seeing them as “volunteers” who can be ordered around at will, the long hours of work at low pay and shabby treatment by superiors, which has made them conscious of their identity as workers. It has made them question the description of their work as voluntary, and therefore meriting only an honorarium.

As a leader of a communist party which recognizes that it operates within the bounds of capitalism, you surely understand the process by which the ASHA becomes aware of her identity as a worker, rendering care which is a special form of labour in a capitalist society. ASHA workers therefore naturally unionize and demand a just wage for their labour. It does not behove a communist-led government to respond with intimidation and insults.

Chief Minister, please do not stand on false prestige because a group of women have challenged the government with their strike. Recognise that they are from the most vulnerable sections of society, with families of their own, struggling to make ends meet amid high inflation. A remuneration of Rs. 21,000 per month is around the national average, and is it too much to ask that this minimal amount be paid before the 5^th of every month and not indefinitely delayed? Please rein in the bureaucracy which imposes unrealistic conditions to reduce even these meagre amounts, and keeps increasing the workload of every ASHA. A state that prides itself on the social protection that it offers to its citizens should not scrimp when it comes to pension and lumpsum retirement benefits for its frontline community health workers.

Just last month, ASHA workers in Karnataka went on strike. Within days, the State Government recognized the legitimacy of their demands and conceded. Of course, it should not have come to this, but now that the attention of the whole country is on Kerala, graceful acceptance of the ASHA workers’ demands can salvage the situation for your government and your party.

With the hope that you will take the right decision,

Yours sincerely

Rajesh Ramakrishnan

[Rajesh Ramakrishnan is a development sector professional with over 30 years of experience with NGOs and consulting firms on governance, natural resources management and rural livelihoods. He is a member of the Indian Community Activists Network (ICAN). He lives in Chennai.]