Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s choice of poem to commemorate former minister KR Gouri’s 100th birthday at an event on 14 July 2018 was unusual. He recited a verse by Balachandran Chullikkad:
The Gouri who never cries or tires
The Gouri who becomes Bhadrakali in her rage
Hearing her stories, throughout our childhood
We routinely escaped from our fears.
It took the audience by surprise. Not because this praise for the only woman minister in Kerala’s first Cabinet was misplaced, but because the poem was written when she was disgraced by the top leadership of the CPI(M) and unceremoniously expelled from the party in 1994.
But such was the legacy of Kalathilparambil Raman Gouri ‘Amma’ that the party which rejected her was rallying to claim her and her colossal political clout before she reached the end of her life. KR Gouri died on 11 May 2021.
The firebrand revolutionary is remembered as one of the architects of the ‘Kerala model’. She relentlessly rallied for the poor while fighting vile sexism and casteism, oftentimes within her own party.
Apart from holding the position of revenue minister in the 1957 Kerala Cabinet, Gouri led six ministries — agriculture, industries, excise, social welfare, and administration of justice — and held over ten portfolios. She was at the helm of the historic land reform bill, women’s commission bill, and anti-corruption bill.
She shaped India’s largest information technology (IT) park, Trivandrum Technopark, Kerala’s milk cooperative Milma, and the Cashew Corporation, which made Kollam the cashew capital of the world.
“IAS officers froze when Gouri Amma looked up from a file, with a frown,” wrote Arun Ram, journalist and a family friend of the politician. She was known for her quick decisions. IAS officers who worked with her say that “she never sat on a file”.
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Politics ruined personal life
Gouri’s involvement in politics began when she was pursuing her law degree at the Government Law College, Thiruvananthapuram. Inspired by her brother KR Sukumaran, she joined the Quit India movement. Upon her graduation, she became the first woman from the Ezhava caste with a law degree. Her involvement with the undivided Communist Party began as a legal representative. She often opened her house for party meetings.
But it wasn’t until 1948 that Gouri became an official member of the Communist Party of India and contested in the Travancore election. While the CPI lost, she was one of the four candidates who retained their deposits. The relative victory pushed her into the spotlight.
The attention meant she was under the scanner of the Travancore government who imprisoned her for “provocative speeches and engaging in mass agitations”. Her biography on the official website of the Kerala legislative assembly notes that she “was jailed on a number of occasions for participating in political activities”.
She was also subject to intense police brutality. “If lathis could reproduce, I would have borne many lathi babies,” she has often said in interviews.
Her first time in Poojappura central jail in 1948 changed the course of her life. Romance blossomed between her and her cellmate, fellow Communist leader TV Thomas. They tied the knot after a long courtship in 1957. But their relationship was tumultuous, affected by politics.
In 1964, the Communist Party split into CPI and CPI(M). Thomas stuck with the former. But Gouri’s loyalties were firmly with the latter, so much so that she was willing to live separately from her husband when they were both made ministers in the 1967 coalition government.
They knocked down the wall between their official residences but it was not enough; the parties had caused strife beyond repair. Their separation and Gouri’s miscarriages were used to taunt her in the state assembly.
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Victim of a political hit job
Throughout this time, her political clout had not waned — she won elections (1954) that even the Communist stalwart EMS Namboodiripad lost.
In the lead-up to the 1987 election, the streets erupted with slogans of ‘Keram thingum Kerala naattil, KR Gouri bharicheedum!’ (In Kerala, the land of coconuts, KR Gouri will rule). But EK Nayanar was made the CM instead. There were allegations at the time that it was her gender and caste that robbed her of the role.
“The person who didn’t let me be the CM then was E.M. Sankaran Namboodiripad. He said that I am incapable. In my opinion, I wasn’t a bad minister at all. But maybe I wasn’t as smart as EMS,” Gouri said in an interview with journalist Leena Gita Reghunath. In an earlier interview with Malayala Manorama in 2006, she said that she “felt like a disrobed Draupadi” due to the casteist abuses hurled at her by her own party colleagues, with EMS’s son calling her ‘chovvathi’, a caste slur.
It was the beginning of the end of her journey with the CPI(M). In 1990, there was a rain of allegations against her — of “indiscipline and corruption”. Investigations were conducted by both the erstwhile LDF government and the following UDF government.
As 1994 began, Gouri was expelled from the party, for being a “power-hungry politician in search of plum positions, with extreme low standards in her public and political life.”
But that wasn’t the final blow the party delivered. EMS had to make sure she was “politically finished”. Between 4 March and 7 March 1994, Deshabhimani, CPI(M)’s mouthpiece, published a series of articles titled Kashuvandiyude Thondu Polichappol (When You Skin a Cashew), written by a special correspondent. The title was a reference to the allegations levelled against Gouri for allegedly pulling the strings of the Kerala State Cashew Development Corporation during her time as industries minister.
It maimed her political credibility.
G Shaktidharan, then-editor of the newspaper, revealed almost two decades later that he was tasked with writing the series by EMS and Nayanar. He refused to use his byline as it was a political hit job, he wasn’t allowed to name others who were involved.
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Lasting legacy
Gouri was never one to accept defeat. Immediately after she was expelled, she founded the Janadhipathya Samrakshana Samithi (JSS).
In the 1996 election, She won with her career-best margin, four times greater than her margin in 1991. The message was loud and clear — KR Gouri would never be politically finished.
She was even courted by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) founder Kanshi Ram to form a national third front.
In 2001, Gouri partnered with the Congress-led UDF. She became the minister for agriculture, first under AK Antony, then under Oommen Chandy.
She lost the 2006 assembly election; her first loss since 1977. She contested one more losing election, in 2011, at 92, before retreating from active political life.
When she died at the age of 102 on 11 May 2021, she was draped in a bright red flag by party leaders, a pitiful compensation for the woman who almost became the chief minister of Kerala.
(Edited by Prashant)