In the past few weeks, the CPM ministers, CITU leaders like Ilamaram Kareem and CPM cyber propagandists have been relentless in their attack against the SUCI, heaping on them insult after insult. The preferred insults have been ‘anarchists’ and ‘tin-pan fund collectors’. The SUCI is a small group of committed people who have however produced significant political impact. They have indeed been a thorn in the flesh of the local CPM for quite some time — from at least the anti-waste dumping struggle at the panchayat of Vilappilsala in 2012 to the K-Rail protests, the SUCI’s intrepid persistence was important in forcing the government to back off. These insults are not new either; we have been hearing them since back in 2012 or earlier. But the Kerala Asha Health Workers’ Association has been especially targeted for slander, as though they were just a tool of the SUCI.

I have been speaking with many, many women protestors at the protest site. I asked them why they chose the KAHWA over the CITU-affiliated ASHA workers’ federation. There can be little doubt that the latter is better connected with the government and dates earlier that the KAHWA too. I remember clearly how the ASHAs were recruited around the 2006-7 period, something we observed during fieldwork in the panchayats. The women who became ASHAs were often well-connected with the CPM through their families. This was seen as a step towards building community connect, a valuable resource to achieve mobility in panchayat politics through governance structures. The workload was small; many of them did other sorts of gainful labour alongside. The natural course would be joining the ASHA workers’ federation.

An ASHA who had been with the KAHWA since 2013, its beginning, told me that by 2011, it was apparent to her and her co-workers that they needed a new association. “Even among CPM supporters there are big differences,” she reminded me. “Those of us who are just supporters were often ignored while the wives and daughters and sisters of the CITU men could expect everything good!” The SUCI’s role in the Vilappilsala protest had convinced her that seeking advice from them to form another association was wise — they seemed to be focused on social justice. The KAHWA was founded by these ASHAs in 2013 with the support of the SUCI. Like in many of the ‘no politics’ associations of women workers in the past two decades, the initiative came from women workers themselves.

But there is more to this preference, it seems. Almost every worker I spoke with told me that they preferred the KAHWA because “it did not have any politics”. Now, this is a response that I have often encountered in field research on women’s mobilisation — since 2007 at least. Women have formed many associations against exploitation and governmental neglect in the past two decades in spaces as diverse as that of widows in the Wayanad district to women workers in the Apparel Park in Thiruvananthapuram. All of them have almost unfailingly flagged that they have ‘no politics’; all of them have, however, sought the aid of an experienced trade unionist, a male usually under the circumstances of the intensely masculinist nature of trade unionism in Kerala. This is also noted also by labour researchers in Kerala — Neethi P for example. The difference in the KAHWA, apparently, is that it is supported by experienced women activists of the SUCI, not the men, barring the state president, a senior activist. “We need him to talk with the other unions,” a striking worker said. “The trade union leaders here don’t think that women can be workers at all, leave alone leaders!”

What do you mean, ‘no politics’, I asked them. Almost all the workers clarified that this did not mean that they had no political affiliations. Indeed, each of them had different preferences of political parties. The answer I received stressed three things — firstly “…they don’t drag us into their rallies or meetings or other protests and things … they don’t expect us to agree with them on everything. Secondly, “they don’t ask for money.” Thirdly and most importantly, “… they don’t force us to take a membership … even if we aren’t members, we can join any protest and stay in the loop by being part of the Whatsapp groups.” The workers believe that the larger numbers of ASHAs are with them, even if they are not participating in the strike or openly proclaiming their support. In some districts, the large majority of the workers are with KAHWA, they said.

The SUCI activists I spoke to confirmed this. Membership-building was never their priority precisely because of the precarious nature of the employment, and more importantly, the fact that such a drive could elicit vindictive rage against the workers from the CITU. “We are interested in raising issues and bringing them vital information, connecting them across districts, and so on,” one of them remarked. “But we are fully aware that these workers toil in the are informal sector. We do not suggest rigidity that may affect their employment, nor do we exploit them for funds etc.”

So there! That’s where the ‘anarchist’ and ‘tin-pan collectors’ slurs come from. The structure of the association is a flexible one — workers may enter and exit, and it is based on trust in them, that they will not be merely free-riders. Yeah, that is good enough for Stalinists to smell ‘anarchy’! What is ‘anarchy’ here is actually an organisational form flexible enough for informal sector workers’. For non-Stalinists, it would look like democracy, actually. The funds for strikes are raised from ‘public collections’, not from workers — though thrown at the striking workers as a slur, ‘tin-pan collectors’ is actually adequately descriptive. As I was interviewing the workers, I saw, within two hours’ time, at least three very upper-middle class looking groups park their cars on the other side of the road, walk over to meet the workers, assure them of support, and make donations. Whatever the CPM and its clueless leadership think, people do see that ‘tin-pan collectors’ are more likely to be on the side of the people than fancy leftists who do not rely anymore on the small contributions of ordinary people.

The KAHWA has been portrayed to be some stray organisation that popped up, like we say in Malayalam, mushrooms in the rain. This is entirely untrue and if such slander still circulates, it is merely evidence for the poor quality of journalism in Kerala. The KAHWA began by organising several smaller protests for the timely payment of honoraria. The KAHWA has always chosen its battles, an SUCI woman activist remembers, and they have not always been about pay. “In fact, the participation of ASHAs in KAHWA saw a huge spurt in 2018. ” The issue was not about honorarium. The ASHA workers were expected to be present in all the major meetings, for example, the inauguration of various health projects of the Department of Health. Usually, these were held in the city of Thiruvananthapuram. ASHA workers from different parts of the district and even outside were expected to fill the hall and find their own transport. They were ordered to do so. There was much suppressed anger about being used thus. The KAHWA openly protested and pointed out that the ASHAs were not obliged to be present at such meetings. From then, the workers made sure that the authorities hired vehicles to transport them to the respective venues

Then, last year, the workers openly showed their anger at being constantly sidelined and downplayed at such events. “That evening, at the hall, workers openly showed their anger. The authorities did not even offer decent meals to workers who they ordered to be present. They would get bunches of the jail-chapathis (chapathis prepared by prisoners in the Poojappura central jail, the cheapest in the market) and keep them outside the hall (because food is not permitted inside the Tagore Theatre, where the function was conducted). Take what you need on the way out, they would say! This time the workers did not take the insult lightly — go feed your own, they snapped back.” Why, I asked. “Because there was no love! No love at all! No mention of the ASHAs who were to carry out major responsibilities in all these projects even once, even in the welcome or the vote of thanks! We were not offered the food with love and recognition!“

Love — like ‘no politics’, this too has a different meaning when women carrying out public care work use the word. Public care work requires emotional investment. The emotional connect women in public care work build with the people has to be sustained by emotional care for them by the tiers of authority above them. Women did not take the mechanically — even contemptuously — offered food because the authorities did not care to see their need for emotional sustenance, which would need public demonstrations of respect for their work, the loving acknowledgement of their presence in the public health system. The 2018 event seems to have also been a key moment in which the contradiction between their status as ‘volunteers’ and the forced participation in the interest of the government’s image-building came to light in their eyes. “It was after this event that the KAHWA grew stronger,” an early KAHWA supporter said.

But the KAHWA has consistently fought for better pay and benefits, too. Over the past four years of so, they have demonstrated for festival allowance of Rs 10,000 — and the state did grant them a thousand rupees. When their work demanded the use of a smart phone, the KAHWA protested for a phone allowance. Again, a meagre sum of Rs 200 was granted to each worker (that they all had to buy a smart phone, often on credit, is remembered by many with bitterness). Then, in 2022, the government issued an order than ASHAs of the age of 62 or above should be retired — without announcing retirement benefits. The KAHWA protested and spread information about the Bengal government’s retirement payout for ASHAs — of 3 lakhs (now 5 lakhs)– during the state-wide ‘ASHA fests’. The resultant furore made the government take a step back and freeze the order. But freezing at the top did not make much difference at the bottom. In Kannur, a 62-year-old ASHA was retired. The KAHWA forced the government to reappoint her. “We are not saying that the government should continue to rely one ageing ASHAs”, a KAHWA leader clarified. “Just that they should receive some provision before being retired.”

Many of the CITU-affiliated ASHA workers’ organisation were first taken up by the KAHWA, she claimed. “For example, the demand to remove the criteria for the disbursal of pay. The CITU took it up later. The Minister first removed five, and we demand removing them all.” The criteria was a blow, she remembers. The honorarium had gone up to Rs 4000, but the application of criteria meant that most workers got less than that; besides, the rule that one ASHA was to take care of 1000 people was changed to one ASHA per ward!”

I asked the SUCI activists if their work supporting KAHWA could be called ‘women’s empowerment’. They burst into giggles in response. “Empower them? Oh, they are tough as nails, already empowered!” one of them said. “We learn from them, rather. They just need information, they are capable of asking for what they want!” The ASHA workers, some of seventeen years’ experience or more, have worked on their own and survived insults and overwork for years. Their sense of self respect is firm. “They have held up families and whole wards from sinking in worry and fear, from the dengue-chikangunya epidemic, to the catastrophic floods, to the COVID-19 pandemic! If the state empowers them further, that will be good for the state, mainly!”

A senior woman worker who sat next to me listening quietly till then chipped in : “Oh, we know about purushamedhavitvam and all that alright… how wouldn’t we know? Isn’t that the sea we swim in? Look, there was the leprosy survey they wanted us to do. We were told that we had to necessarily get a male volunteer to come with us. We had to find the volunteer on our own! Now, we were given a sum of Rs 1000 each. That was ridiculous. Because no man can even make sense of working ‘voluntarily’ — with no or little pay, that is … and for a thousand rupees, a house to house survey …. ambbo! Can a man imagine being paid that for such work for even a single day! Yeah, so what did we do? We begged our sons and nephews and other male relatives to come with us …”

She burst into a laugh. I joined her. That is the laughter of political insight that comes from seeing the injustice of patriarchy. It will shatter the patriarchal foundations of Kerala’s social development, I thought.