After a surge in dowry cases, CPM distances itself from MC Josephine.
It was long overdue. This time around, the ruling CPM had no choice but to remove 71-year-old MC Josephine from the post of chairman of the Kerala Women’s Commission after her remarks about a woman who complained about domestic violence on a live television show mid-September Week had led to widespread outrage across the state. Josephine allegedly addressed women’s issues, mostly domestic violence, over a live phone program on the Manorama News channel when a woman from Ernakulam called to complain about the harassment of her husband and mother-in-law. There was a slight disturbance on the line. Again and again a visibly irritated Josephine could be seen, who asked the woman if she had filed a complaint with the local police. When the woman replied that she hadn’t spoken to anyone about it before, Josephine was heard sarcastically enna pinne anubhavicho (then you’d better suffer) reply. Social media broke out and even left-wing intellectuals joined the choir demanding their resignation. A chastised Josephine tried to defend herself by saying she lost control “by thinking of the woman’s outrage,” and advised her critics to understand her words as those of a mother rather than a mother-in-law.
Three years ago, when journalists asked the same Josephine why the police had not been informed of a particular sexual harassment case, she replied that “the Party (CPM) has its own police force and judiciary” and so there was no intervention required by the police. The case in question was a complaint by a comrade in the youth wing of the Democratic Youth Association of India (DYFI) against a prominent CPM legislator from Palakkad. Josephine is a member of the highest decision-making body of the CPM, the Central Committee, and in the last four and a half years of her tenure had unabashedly proven her true colors and threw the independent character of the quasi-state body to the wind. While enjoying all the advantages of her position as head of the Women’s Commission, Josephine had no qualms about traveling to Delhi to participate in party concaves. Those who questioned such behavior were asked to shut up.
But things were not over yet. While the Manorama News was being watched live by millions of people around the world wherever Malayalis live, another video clip surfaced Friday that went viral. In this video Josephine was (allegedly) heard telling a complainant who said she was the victim of alleged marriage fraud: “I don’t have time to listen to your old saga and you deserve to be beaten.” Indeed, despite its patriarchy, Kerala was amazed to hear this from someone whose job it was to protect disadvantaged women. Everyone in the state knows that it is the poor who turn to the Women’s Justice Commission, and the CPM claims to represent the interests of the working class. And all of this happened when the state witnessed a chain of dowry-related so-called “suicides” by young women. Kerala is a state where giving and receiving dowry is a criminal offense. Yet, rarely is a Hindu marriage held in the state without exchanges of gold and cash, let alone property and expensive cars. Interestingly, the father of one of the youngest dowry victims is a CPI official, one of the voters of the ruling Left Front. Dowry is a bane of society in Kerala despite the efforts of social and community reformers like Mannthu Padmanabhan, founder of the powerful Nair Service Society, a socio-cultural organization of the state’s predominant Hindu upper class. Ironically, even now it is the Nairs who patronize and perpetuate the state’s dowry system.
This time around, CPM was smart enough to distance itself from Josephine, perhaps because the state is experiencing a surge in dowry cases, most of which resulted in the deaths of young girls who were only married for two or three years. The only exception was DYFI, which supported a beleaguered Josephine. That the leadership of the organization had to hide its face in a very short time is another story. It’s important to note that Josephine’s unsolicited behavior came just hours after Prime Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s announcement that women had set up a police emergency number 24/7 to report dowry harassment, domestic violence and other related complaints against the male community . Immediately after the Josephine fallout, CPM announced its decision to launch a Stree Paksha Keralam program starting July 1, with party leaders visiting every household and spreading the message of women’s safety. People see it as just another political gimmick to cover up the Josephine fiasco. The government is sure to find another party card holder to run the commission, and the same old story would follow.
The claim of society in Kerala to be matrilineal is pure nonsense. It is the men who are in charge, be it socially or politically. A classic example was the decision of the previous Left Front government, led by the same Prime Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, not so long ago to build a women’s wall to counter the Sabarimala agitation. It is well known that not a single woman was consulted before Vijayan announced that a million women would stand up and build a wall across the state to defend the state government’s decision to allow women access to the mountain shrine in front of the Supreme Court grant judgment that allows the same. The fact that hundreds and thousands of women were obediently lined up sums up Kerala’s story of “Stree sakthi”!