THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In May 2016, when she took over as minister, K K Shailaja was unfamiliar with the new mandate and the tremendous responsibility that came with it. “If there was ever a time I couldn’t afford to fail, it had arrived.” This is how she recounts that crucial period. Being a minister in a government that had set itself the task of creating a ‘New Kerala’, she knew it was essential to perform at the highest level.
This and other interesting details are included in My Life as a Comrade: The Story of an Extraordinary Politician and the World That Shaped Her, a memoir by the former health minister and CPM central committee member that is all set to hit the stands next week.
Published by New Delhi-based Juggernaut Books and co-authored by Manju Sara Rajan, the book provides an intricate and detailed narrative of the factors that shaped Shailaja the politician, who went on to win international recognition for her handling of the Covid situation in Kerala. She was even chosen for the prestigious Magsaysay Award, which she subsequently rejected on the party’s directive.
The narrative follows the growth of a shy girl into a teacher, in the course of which she picked up life lessons, her entry into politics and, finally, her eventful spell as minister. The courage with which Kerala dealt with two back-to-back epidemics — Nipah and Covid-19 — under her leadership is captured here. Quoting then finance minister T M Thomas Isaac’s 2017 budget, where he makes a passing mention of noted writer M T Vasudevan Nair’s short story Bheeru to portray the dismal state of government hospitals at the time, Shailaja recounts how she focused on improving it. Isaac was extremely encouraging in mobilising sources for the initiative, she recalls.
CM to release memoir on April 28
Shedding light on the biggest challenges in her life, Shailaja delves into her political life, too. She narrates her tryst with the bureaucracy, how some people had initial reservations about than health secretary Rajeev Sadanandan, how they worked together in an efficient manner, her lightning visits to hospitals and the two spells that put Kerala in the headlines.
The book touches upon how, in an effort to revamp the existing healthcare system in the state, she began with primary health centres, the staff pattern revision and how she took a lesson or two from the Cuban medical hierarchy when setting up the Aardram Mission.
In the memoir, the senior Left leader has also dedicated ample space to the shaping up of the Communist movement in the region, how her grandmother and uncles fought against social ills and how this made an impact on her. Her grandmother, M K Kalyani, was also a great inspiration for Shailaja in the public sphere. The memoir sheds light on how her ‘ammamma’, who had herself breached a few prevailing social norms in her time, managed to occasionally skip caste barriers. Kalyani is a common name in the region. A young Shailaja used to play a game with her cousins where they would try to remember all the Kalyanis of the neighbourhood.
“It’s a look at the Communist movement, an attempt to capture a generation’s fight against the then prevailing conservative social practices, and how the Left government brought about a substantial change in Kerala society and finally, how Kerala was able to contain two back-to-back pandemics. In short, it touches upon several aspects of my personal and political life,” Shailaja told TNIE. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will release the book at the Kerala House, in New Delhi, on April 28. A slew of senior leaders including Sitaram Yechury, Brinda Karat and Subhashini Ali is expected to attend the event.