Dear Mr Vijayan

Yesterday, the protesting ASHA workers marched to your residence in the pouring rain, seeking to rouse you from your utterly inexcusable stupor. Yes, over the past eight months, you tried to first crush the strike, and then to kill it by ignoring it. Who does not know that the worst form of violence is indifference?

Photo credits : Shradha S, Harsh, Ashna Thambi, Santhosh Nilakkal.

You cowered in your palatial official residence without meeting the workers. You forgot that the position that you now occupy, and the luxuries that you and your family wallow in are a gift of the people. You fancy it to be a King’s throne, and hope to seal it permanently for yourself through winning another election — like the fervid authoritarian monsters in many parts of the world. By doing so, you crushed not just democracy and insulted the people of Kerala, you also trampled underfoot the entire political legacy of the Left in Kerala. You are hell-bent on leaving not even a trace of it behind, aren’t you?

Take a look at the protest that unfolded at your doorstep, that you sought to crush with the might of the Kerala police. Do these women look like weaklings to you? The Kerala police, despite the innumerable ‘gender trainings’ that they have received (no doubt that they were vapid and mechanical — as it has become the privilege of the beneficiaries of your nepotism to conduct them), still cling to the most awful gender stereotypes. They did not women workers to climb the barricades; they did not think that they would hang on despite five rounds of water cannon; they were open-mouthed when the women refused to leave after the many blandishments of the senior police officers — they are probably used to seeing women as silly and easily persuaded especially by the big-wigs. Since you sneaked away instead of meeting the workers, you might want to see these photos:

Did you see the women workers climb the barricade, Mr Vijayan? Did you notice their fearlessness? The three women who crossed the barricade and advanced towards your residence to hand you their memorandum were accosted by the police and dragged away. Then, the protestors mounted the barricade and stayed there — and your police just could not believe their eyes.

No wonder, the police opened their can of dirty tricks. Protestors who tried to squeeze in through the gaps between the barricades were handled roughly, as though they were criminals. The others seated on the barricade who jumped down to their comrades’ rescue were dragged by their hair, poked with lathis, and carried away into police vans. The police – male and female — tugged so hard at the protestors’ clothes, that they tore. That’s an old police tactic to shame women, and so much for the ‘gender-sensitive’ tag that the Kerala police are forever flaunting! Maybe that means that police women are allowed to harass women protestors sexually! At least some women had their kurtas torn and felt the hands of the law on their breasts — and the hands belonged to policewomen!

But instead of running away, the protesting ASHA workers put on their raincoats and came right back … Does this not sound like a page from the annals of the glorious history of workers’ struggles in twentieth century Kerala?

Ah! You are probably trying hard to wipe off those memories as you and your ministers kneel to corporate giants looking for cheap and docile female labour?

Then came the dirtiest of dirty tricks: stealing people’s voices. While the police were roughing up protestors on one side, on the other side, a policeman stole the mic; the police pushed the generator and it fell! The enraged workers tried to stop him and the miserable man ran away with it. The whole place resounded with cries of “Police-kkallan” (the thief of a policeman). Supporters of the strike who took videos and photos of the police knocking down the generator were beaten and dragged on the ground.

The police began to fire water cannons on the protestors. Drenched but unbowed, they held their ground. And joked grimly: “Hope this isn’t from some gutter! They want to give is amoebic encephalitis!” The protestors were dragged on the ground to the police vans, and they resisted. Meanwhile, determined to make noise to rouse those who pretended not to hear, the protestors pulled out the steel plates and bowls and spoons which they had used for lunch and began to beat them. The police lost it completely.

Twenty protestors were arrested and taken away in a police van. Protestors trying to retrieve their mic lying in front and back of the police vans were dragged away, and instead of driving away after removing the protestors lying on the ground which was by now a soggy swamp, after five rounds of water cannon, they almost ran over a protestor… The police roughed up the protestors again trying to stop them from making noise. Taking away their mic was the equivalent of stealing their voices; and the police had to deal with noise now, and it drove them mad.

In the end, the police swooped away the leaders of the protest and some seventeen workers, threatening to file cases against them…dragging them on the wet road…

— and then promised the protestors and strike supporters who refused to budge that they would release them without charges and importantly, arrange a meeting with the Chief Minister, if they would kindly move back to the strike pandal in front of the State Secretariat. The protestors withdrew temporarily.

Mr Vijayan, how different are you from the BJP in dealing with people asking for a liveable life? These images show that you are indeed one and the same! Your minions on social media, the beneficiaries of your extreme nepotism, and venal academics who shamelessly climb through craven submission to the Hindutva agents in IITs and other institutes of higher education in India, and then sniff under your table for any crumbs you may choose to drop — they feed your illusion of being the King of the land.

But no, this strike will end only when you submit to democracy. And we will fight till that day dawns, Mr Vijayan.