The nauseatingly patriarchal attack by the CITU State Secretary K N Gopinath on the striking ASHA workers sets a new low, but it is not unexpected. K N Gopinath’s ugly, sexually-coloured remark was about the BJP MP Suresh Gopi’s visit to the protest site. After the police pulled down the did not allow the tarpaulin shelters, the striking workers continued the strike in the pouring rain. The MP distributed umbrellas to the workers. Gopinath said that he knew that the MP distributed umbrellas, but he did not know if “he distributed kisses” there. When questioned, he admitted that the reference was to a sexual harassment complaint against the MP. The man kept defending his offensive remark, in his own admittance a sexually-coloured one, even when questioned strongly by journalists.

K N Gopinath’s name sounded familiar — of course, he is the CITU state secretary, but the name was mentioned in another context. When I remembered that I had heard in connection with a case of sexual harassment at workplace. This was about a young woman actor’s brave attempt to expose Alencier, a notorious sexual harasser in Malayalam cinema. The skewed power relations between a young woman cine-actor, a worker and a senior and well-respected male actor did not deter her from making those revelations. The SUCI had been one of the many organisations that stood with this young woman who happens to be K N Gopinath’s daughter.

What does this tell us about the situation of labour and labour organisations in Kerala? Clearly, women workers — from cine-actors to ASHA workers — are fighting patriarchal devaluation, often paying a huge price and winning paltry, superficial gains. The more the authorities seek to quieten and suppress women workers in one field, the more their protests and demands erupt in another. In the past decade and a half, we have seen women tea garden workers, nurses, retail-sector workers, domestic workers, cine-workers, and ASHA workers, try to build trade unions that address their interests and not subject them to the interests of the top leadership of men. In some of these strikes, there have been head-on confrontations as the women workers tried to expose the complicity of the male leadership in perpetuating their plight. Thus the Pomblai Otrumai women workers’ union, which exposed the complicity of the elite leadership in workers’ exploitation bore the full brunt of the CITU male leadership’s fury and vengeful violence. Now the KAHWA is targeted because they are inconvenient to the image-building exercise of the Kerala government.

However, even the children of the all-powerful CITU leaders, if they are women, will suffer the patriarchal devaluation of work, as Divya Gopinath’s experience showed. If Divya Gopinath exercised her right to protest against attacks against her at the workplace that made her work impossible, the KAHWA workers are fighting for their lives — for it is impossible to survive on a monthly remuneration of just Rs 7000, or even Rs 13,200 (and the Health Minister herself admitted in the Legislative Assembly today that more than 80 per cent of the ASHAs receive wages of Rs 10,000- 11,000 only). If Divya Gopinath stood tall against the cyber-thugs who defended the sexual harasser Alencier, if the KAHWA women workers stand tall and dignified, refusing to be cowed down by his disgusting words. K N Gopinath, some might think, would learn something from his brave daughter’s experience, but that expectation is naive, to say the least. For the brute patriarchal power of the CITU in Kerala is built on devaluing women’s work, despite the valiant efforts of such leaders as Susheela Gopalan and others. What is striking in this coincidence is that even an unrepentant patriarch like Gopinath can completely ignore the fact that women workers in Kerala will not succumb to patriarchal attitudes that degrade women’s work and devalue it — because these struggles are getting closer home as more and more groups of women workers become aware of their plight.

The CITU national leadership rejected Gopinath’s misogynist remarks, though A R Sindhu justified the refusal of the demands of the KAHWA citing the same reasons as the Kerala government, she agreed that the strike should be brought to an end soon through negotiations. Also, she refused to endorse the blatant misogyny of her colleagues in Kerala.Which comes as a huge relief. Sindhu claimed that the demand of a monthly honorarium of Rs 21,000 by the KAHWA was unreasonable, but as the latter pointed out, she herself led the ASHA strike in Haryana which demanded Rs 26,000 per month as honorarium. But the KAHWA leaders welcomed A R Sindhu’s intervention and agreed that negotiation mean that both workers and the government are ready to make concessions.

The government seems to be clinging stubbornly to its refusal to initiate negotiations. By doing so, they are turning this into a most unworthy ego issue, as though giving in to the women workers’ demands would be a loss of face. Even women workers of the CITU-affiliated union who also work for a pittance would benefit if the government addressed them, but the government and the CPM lackeys on social media would rather sacrifice their interests than allow this ‘loss of face’.

The strangeness of it all is unmissable. The same CPM and the Kerala government and CM who made a big show of being with the WCC, the same ‘independent’ intellectuals who waxed eloquent about the devaluation of women and their labour in Malayalam cinema, turn the strike of women care workers for decent remuneration into an ego-confrontation. The WCC has the privilege of visibility which the CPM and the LDF government was keen to exploit. The ASHA workers were undoubtedly the reason why the LDF was able to secure a second consecutive term, but they lack glamour and visibility, being grass-root level care-workers. And therefore the CPM and the government ignored the KAHWA’s strike.

The WCC’s strategy has been to remain generally been cooperative, polite, respectful, and responsive towards the CPM and the government. The KAHWA too submitted petitions and tried to negotiate with the government without agitation, but when rejected completely, they decided to fight openly. It is worth noting that the WCC’s strategy has not yielded the expected gains. The KAHWA too may fail. The government may succeed in killing the strike through apathy.

But the ultimate loser, in both cases, is going to be the CPM and the LDF — the tyranny stands exposed. The SUCI, which has stood with both women cine-workers fighting sexual harassment and devaluation, and has been supporting care-workers fighting for dignified pay, at least, is not traveling to the bottom of the moral and political abyss.