Thiruvananthapuram: Former Kerala Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan says a personal social media post she wrote just before retirement on the colour and gender bias she faced in the service led to an uncomfortable but much-needed discussion in society.
A 1990-batch Kerala cadre IAS officer, Sarada recently retired as Kerala’s chief secretary after 35 years in public service. However, a month before her retirement in March, she posted on social media that her tenure was labelled “black” based on her skin tone and gender compared to that of her husband.
“These last seven months have been a relentless parade of comparisons with my predecessor, and I have become quite inured. It was about being labelled black (with that quiet sub text of being woman), as if that were something to be desperately ashamed of. Black is as black does. Not just black the colour, but black the ne’er do good, black the malaise, the cold despotism, the heart of darkness,” she wrote in her post.
“But why should black be vilified? Black is the all pervasive truth of the universe. Black is that which can absorb anything, the most powerful pulse of energy known to humankind. It is the colour that works on everyone, the dress code for office, the lustre of evening wear, the essence of kajol, the promise of rain,” she added.
In an interview with ThePrint, Sarada said her post got an overwhelming response from ministers, political leaders and the bureaucracy, who reached out to her and said she was raising an issue often kept under wraps, even though it was widely experienced in communities.
However, she added that even in sympathetic responses to her post, she saw colourism creeping in.
“And in quite a lot of the responses, even the sympathetic responses that I got, I did still see a lot of colourism creeping in. It is like, ‘You know, despite being dark, despite being a woman, you’ve been doing this’. And I want to say, ‘No, it is because I am dark and because I am a woman that I am who I am’,” she said.
“There was, of course, a set of people within the bureaucracy as well who felt that I was making too much of a small deal. ‘Come on, we deal with this all the time. What’s your problem? Can’t you handle this? Why do you need to go to town with it?’” she said, adding she didn’t want to disclose the identity of the person as she wanted the discussion to be rooted firmly in the subject and not the person.
The former civil servant is known for her significant contribution while heading the acclaimed Kudumbashree Mission for six years between 2006 and 2012.
She also worked at the Ministry of Panchayati Raj and as the Chief Operating Officer at the National Rural Livelihoods Mission and Director General at NIFT. She succeeded her husband, V. Venu, as the Kerala Chief Secretary in August 2024 and retired from the post in April this year.
Although Sarada is known as one of Kerala’s top civil servants, she said she never envisioned herself joining the civil services. Recalling her childhood, she said she was quite studious and reserved and “contemptuous” of anything that involved physical activities, but had a great passion for the arts.
“Coming into the bureaucracy was not something that I was looking forward to,” she says, adding that it was a commitment she made because she was allowed to study literature.
She added that she wanted to quit in the first few years, as it felt like all the misconceptions of the bureaucracy were getting proved. However, she said she decided not to quit because she found a lot of interesting people, who were driven and wanted to learn so that they could deliver. “I’m glad I did not quit,” she said.
‘Vijayan man of few words’
Having worked closely with various chief ministers in the state, Sarada said the current chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, has shown himself to be a statesman, especially during times of crisis, though he is a man of few words.
“So if you look at Mr Oommen Chandy, he was a person who liked to go out and connect with people. I have seen him on the train at 11 pm, handling, looking at hundreds of petitions that have been received and making small notes on each and every one of them,” she said.
She added that his predecessor, V.S. Achuthanandan, was known for being strict, he held everybody to account for what they were doing, while A.K. Antony was into consensus-building across the system.
She said the perception that Kerala’s bureaucracy is being overly politicised stems from the state’s unique political landscape.
“As civil servants, when you enter the service, you are completely contemptuous of the politician… The more senior you become, you begin to respect them. Because you understand that they are the ones who have the pulse of the people and not you,” she said.
Sarada said she has always been open to changing her perceptions of right and wrong through lived experience. Months after retirement, she finds herself planning to travel, shifting from Trivandrum to Kozhikode, and enjoying historical stories, K-dramas, K-romances and Chinese romances.
“Maybe I’ll get into thrillers and magic and other stuff, but right now, nothing very heavy-duty, although we have a huge collection of books waiting to be read,” she said.
She said she is still planning her retirement and learning not to feel guilty about not working, but added that it was an interesting experience to make oneself the main priority.
“Today morning, my husband was saying that you had a perpetual frown between your eyebrows and it’s gone. So that’s what retirement has been doing to me,” she said.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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