Kerala Dalit woman auto driver fights for right to live in dignity

Trivandrum: A Dalit woman auto driver, who has been waging a lonely battle against the alleged caste and gender 'intolerance' of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers in Kannur for a decade, has taken her fight to the Kerala capital.
Chitralekha, who was hounded by the CPM-affiliated Centre for Indian Trade Union (CITU) workers after she entered their workplace with an auto rickshaw she bought with bank loans in 2005, has launched an indefinite stir in front of the state secretariat from Tuesday demanding her right to live in dignity.
The CITU workers at Edat near Payyannur had chased her away by allegedly burning the auto rickshaw. When she returned to the auto stand dominated by the CITU workers with another auto donated by human rights activists, she and her family were attacked and her vehicle damaged.
Moved by a 122-day dharna she staged in front of the Kannur Collectorate early this year, State Chief Minister Oommen Chandy promised to rehabilitate Chitra and her family that comprises her husband and two children outside Edat with a five cents land to build a house.
She says the CITU workers have been trying to stall the allocation of land by unleashing a false propaganda that she owned five acres of land in the district. She is in the state capital to prove the allegation wrong and expedite the land allocation.
Chithralekha said that she will end the current stir only after she is given the allocation order. The authorities so far have not taken notice of her stir in front of the secretariat. However, members of various human rights organisations have come forward to support her.
They have described Chitralekha as a symbol and sign of marginalisation that Dalits face in modern Kerala. An investigation into the harassment and torture suffered by the Dalit woman by Feminists Kerala Network found that she and her family were the victims of untouchability still prevailing in north Kerala.
When Chithra resisted the victimisation, her tormentors adopted a new tactic and started tarnishing her image with poster campaigns throughout the district making living difficult for her. The posters branded her grandmother mad, mother a prostitute and she a woman with loose characters.
Chitra's is not a lone case of victimisation by the CPM workers. The agricultural workers wing of the CPM did not allow a widow in Calicut district to carry out agricultural activities in her own three-acre plot, to take the yields from it or to move freely in the village or visit her relatives for six years after she questioned some of their alleged malpractices.
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