Kerala's Backwaters and their Citizens

  Those days we spent on the Backwaters of Kerala that used to be in the past enormous plantations of rice, and a birthplace of the workers struggle for the change that culminated in 1957, with the first elections won in the world by the Socialists. Today, the Backwaters are mostly a tourist attraction, yet many problems that were present a hundred years ago are still here. We could hear about some of them in the local orphanage that is inhabited by girls, boys, and in some cases also mothers with their children, and abused women.

We met there– Gale, about a 40 years old woman, who belongs to the British-Indian family, speaking fluently in English, and who dresses like us in ‘supermarket clothes’, not traditional Indian clothes that wear other women in that place. Our talk with Gale has opened our eyes for the hardships women go through in Kerala, what includes abuse, alcoholism of their partners, discrimination, and a total lack of rights in the society that they face on daily basis.

Some of the Keralites say that this all because of the colonialism and the British – they replaced Kerala’s pre-colonial matriarchy with the domination of males. Some also praise the rule of Socialists as the reason of women well-being in Kerala. As a matter of fact, the infanticide of girls is much lower here, and the gender structure in Kerala is much more ‘natural’ than in the rest of India where girls are aborted; however still the problems of dowry, of discrimination, of marginalizing women, are present also in this ‘Socialists’ paradise’.

Gale is taking care of Dixon, a four years old boy, who is very energetic and extremely joyous. Unfortunately, once he turns five she will have to ‘give’ him to another institution; here orphanages separate girls and boys. Other woman, Sharon, in the third month of pregnancy, was crying all the time while we stood there– she knew that her baby can be affected by high fever she had, probably caused by malaria. For women like Sharon and Gale there are no perspectives in India; of course many women today become CEOs and are very successful, but in the countryside and small states like Kerala not so much of it. And on the other hand, it is not the point that every women and men should be a CEO in order to be happy, the point is that their status should be equal, and life should be normal, and this for sure is not the case in India. The same with the kids in this orphanage – they will inherit poverty and misfortune, and pass it to the next generations. However, we can also ask is it only here? Or, is our world like that? Is the fate of marginalized people in the USA or Poland much better? For example, the Poles who live in the former state-owned Agricultural Farms [PGR – Państwowe Gospodarstwo Rolne] have also no chance for improvement of their life conditions, their problems are unheard, and poverty is being inherited by the future generations. […]

         

We also visited the private school lead by Mary Roy, a mother of Arundhati Roy, a well-known Indian activist and writer (famous for her book “The God of Small Things”). Her mother in the past neglected Indian patriarchy and made a lawsuit in front of the Supreme Court challenging the law of inheritance that discriminated women. Being without resources and with two daughters she started her own school to give her daughters equal chances, her home-schooling evolved into one of the best schools in Kerala, and her daughters to women who are not silent for discrimination and marginalization of others.


Lukasz W. Niparko