Abstract
The phenomenal development in female education and empowerment is not reflected in their exercise of political power. In the developed as well as developing countries women’s access to governance is minimal, particularly in India where social and public sphere is marked by class, caste and gender. Female life narratives form an apt platform to discourse on the intersection of gender, governance, and politics. Unheard voices of the past when rendered representation, open to the dim lit corridors of power which connivingly sabotaged the rights of half the population. The proposed paper attempts at analyzing the personal narratives or lived-in experiences of veteran female politician, Accamma Cheriyan, of Kerala whose political career was trampled over by the male political clout. The narration, read in the light of the paradox of Kerala Model of Development founded on an enviable Gender Development Index and miniscule visibility in governance offers powerful insights into the entrenched gender ideology, enmeshed in the complexities of cultural, social, historical and political processes at work.
Keywords: Gender, governance, politics, autobiography, culture, history, representation
Introduction
Laudable advancements of women in myriad fields of life have not precipitated in female participation in political power or governance. Exploring the trajectory of women in politics, one may encounter the impediments confronted by them in legitimising their rightful space in state/national governance. Regardless of cultural disparities, gender gap is seminal in the corridors of political power across the world.
“Women’s access to formal political space has been stymied” (Tadors 2). Most often, available female representation turns out to be an adroit masquerade with no impact on the de facto exercise of power. Reservation policies have curtailed female marginalisation from public sphere to an extent and quantified representation at the lower levels, but has not mitigated invisibility at the advanced echelons of power. The imperceptible agendas, networks, and conclaves impede women’s ascendance to persuasive positions in formal politics.
Women’s political pathways are obstructed by various structural, cultural, and attitudinal barriers (Tadors 30). Historical subordination, lack of exposure and familial support, and role pressures distance women from the public sphere. Patriarchal societal structure crisscrossed with class, religion, caste, and political affiliation further regulate women’s access to politics.
Life-history approach has been extolled as an effective tool in capturing the political pathways of women, “to understand how women define and understand politics, the relationship through which politics is mediated, and the contexts in which women operate” (Tadors 2).
Female Life Narratives and Historiography
Male-centric historical narratives concentrate on political history of action and power. Since history grounds on documents of past events, female contribution to and participation in history, as it goes unrecorded, unrepresented, or misinterpreted, becomes erased. National movement in India under Mahatma Gandhi mobilised massive female participation, as did any other mass movement, yet it failed to precipitate ripple effect in the governance which followed, thrusting the female again to the periphery.
Given the complexities of the genre like form and technique, life writing has become a popular genre in India as well where the concept of individual self had been carpeted under the concept of the community. A woman’s life can be rendered by herself, a biographer, or as fiction based on her affiliations. “Autobiographical discourse allows women to resist erasure by inserting a sense of ‘self’ within a historical and social framework that otherwise accepts women’s invisibility or silence. In this context, autobiography becomes a political statement” (Nee 356).
Stuart Hall considers culture as “the actual grounded terrain of practices, representations, languages and customs of any specific society” (Hall, qtd in Barker 7). Female autobiography thus offers not only a slice of history, but also a chunk of culture which is missing from the gender apathetic historiography.
Accamma Cheriyan’s Narrative
Jeevitham Oru Samaram (Life: A Struggle), the autobiographical narrative of Accamma Cheriyan, becomes a cardinal record of the unheard voice of an indomitable spirit hailed as “Jhansi Rani” and “Joan of Arc” of Kerala. Cheriyan always considered her life as a protest or battle and every one as soldiers involved. Hence the title Jeevitham Oru Samaram: “To fight against orthodox tradition, meaningless mores, injustice in the community, discrimination against the female, and everything against truth and justice has become a pattern of my life. I consider it as a responsibility” (Cheriyan 19).
Born in a wealthy Catholic Syrian Christian family at Kanjirappally in Travancore in 1909, Cheriyan begins her narration by retreating to the roots of her family. Her life narration provides a glimpse of the socio-cultural tempo of the time. It was her life in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Travancore, from 1934 that initiated her into politics and revolutionised her life.
In 1938 State Congress was formed as a unified front to establish responsible government and peaceful protest against bureaucratic upper hand. Urged by her inner spirit to resist the injustice prevalent in the country, Cheriyan consented to become the twelfth President of State Congress, at the age of 29. She was entrusted with the responsibility of leading the historic mass rally to the palace of the Maharaja. With over 20,000 people surging behind her, she marched to the royal palace to present the people’s memorandum to the Maharaja.
Post-Independence Political Marginalization
In the first Universal Suffrage in Travancore held in February 1948, she was elected unopposed, one of the three women elected to the 120 member assembly. Yet when the ministry was formed, she was side-lined. She cites two occasions when the chance to enter the ministry was snatched from her: “I became fed up with politics. The experience I got from nation service is bitter… Those who pushed women to the forefront during the agitation jostled them to the side and went ahead when encountered with power” (Cheriyan 177).
“Money power and church nexus operated to side-line those who sacrificed their blood, sweat and money for national independence” (Cheriyan 188).
The Kerala Paradox
The much-extolled Kerala Model of Development, couched on the high social gender development indicators in a low per capita income, stands contested now. The flattering GDI indices mask the gendered marginalisation reflected in the corridors of power, politics, and governance. The proportion of women legislators has been less than 6 percent since the formation of the state in 1956 despite the fact that 50 percent of the total voters are women.
Conclusion
Female autobiography has turned out to be privileged site for discoursing on the intersecting genres of culture studies, literature, and history. “History and autobiography derive their value from rendering significant portions of the past as interpreted past” (Weintraub). From fragmented dispersed vignettes of memory, a fusion is effected, constructing a kaleidoscope of micro-culture.
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