THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala prides itself on being a state with empowered women, or, at the very least, one where women empowerment is not just a slogan or buzzword.
As per the final electoral list published on Friday, Kerala has 1.43 crore women voters, higher than 1.34 crore male voters.
The same cannot be said about the state’s politics, as is evident when one takes a gander at the candidate list of the major parties that are locking horns in this Lok Sabha elections, or the state’s history in electing women to the Parliament.
Of the total candidates fielded by the three fronts — UDF, LDF and NDA — for the 20 LS berths in the state, just nine are women.
LDF has fielded three women candidates. Two of them, K K Shailaja (Vadakara) and K J Shine (Ernakulam), are from CPM and one, Annie Raja (Wayanad), is from CPI. NDA has fielded five women — Sobha Surendran (Alappuzha), M L Ashwini (Kasaragod), T N Sarasu (Alathur) and Niveditha Subramanian (Ponnani) from BJP and Sangeetha Vishwanathan (Idukki) from the BDJS.
Congress has just one woman, sitting MP Ramya Haridas (Alathur), in fray, a fact that had surprised as well as irked many, including those within the party. The Indian Union Muslim League has none.
There’s more. Between 1952 and 2019 — Kerala has had just 13 women MPs. And barring the 1991 and 2004 general elections, there never have been two women MPs from the state in the Parliament at one time.
“We as part of ‘Thulya Prathinidhya Prasthanam’ have urged CPM, CPI and UDF leaders to implement 33% women representation in candidate selection,” actor and activist Jolly Chirayath told TNIE. “We also submitted a representation before the state government. Nothing happened,” she said, adding that here, it becomes the women’s duty to prove their ability. “Even if a woman won previously, she has to prove herself every time,” Jolly said.
CPM holds the record of having the most women MPs (8). CPI has had just one woman parliamentarian.
Freedom fighter and lawyer Annie Mascarene was the first woman to represent Kerala in the Lok Sabha. In the erstwhile Travancore-Cochin state — Kerala was not formed at the time — she defeated Socialist party stalwart T K Narayana Pillai to win as an independent candidate from Thiruvananthapuram.
Kerala had no woman representation in the second (1957) and third (1962) Lok Sabha polls. Sarojini, a Congress candidate, was defeated. Fifteen years later, in the 1967 elections, CPM’s Suseela Gopalan got elected from Ambalapuzha in the 4th LS. Besides Suseela, A N Beevi from Congress and Ani Thayil from Kerala Congress were the women contestants from Kerala in 1967.
In 1971, four women — Dhakshayani Velayudhan, Leela Damodhara Menon, Suseela Gopalan and Bhargavi Thankappan — contested. Bhargavi (CPI) won by more than 1 lakh votes from Adoor. In 1977, 20 women contested, but none emerged winner.
There were two women candidates in the 1980 general elections, which saw Suseela return to the Parliament by defeating Omana Pillai. In the 1984 election after the death of Indira Gandhi, seven women contested from Kerala, but none won. In 1989, eight women, including writer Madhavikutty, contested, but only Savithri Lakshman of Congress won.
In 1991, 10 women candidates were in the fray, a first. Two of them, Congress’ Savithri Lakshman and Suseela, were elected. The 1996 elections had no women candidates from CPM and CPI, while Congress and Janata Dal fielded one woman each. In all, there were 10 women in the running but none emerged victorious.
In 1998, for the 12th Lok Sabha, 13 candidates contested, but only one, CPM’s S K Pemajam from Vadakara, was elected. Highlighting the low visibility of women in electoral politics, writer Rekha Raj said it is very difficult to protect women’s interests in a parliamentary party structure that is controlled by patriarchy.
“There should be concerted efforts outside that structure. When women reservation was implemented in the local-self government elections, women from lower strata of the society, who were active at the ground level, were not considered. It were the ‘good women’ from families who got a chance. I feel, community-wise reservations should also be considered within the women quota,” Rekha said.
There were 13 women candidates in the 1999 general elections held for the 13th LS, but only CPM’s A K Premajam was elected for her second term from Vadakara. In 2004, 15 women contested from Kerala. P Sathi Devi of CPM won from Vadakara by over one lakh votes, while in Mavelikkara, C S Sujatha of CPM defeated Congress’ leader Ramesh Chennithala. In 2009, 15 women contested but none won. In the 2014 elections for the 16th LS, a record 27 women contested, but just one, P K Sreemathi of CPM, was elected. She defeated K Sudhakaran.
The 2019 elections for the 17th LS saw 23 women candidates in fray. Only Congress’ Ramya Haridas, who was handpicked by then AICC president Rahul Gandhi, emerged victorious from Alathur. “In every party, there is a perception that women should be selected on the basis of the political interest of their male counterparts or higher leaders,” Congress leader Shanimol Osman told TNIE.
“All parties are male-centric. This time too women have not received equal opportunity. Malayali men use social media to insult women. They write derogatory comments in Malayalam on social media against women of foreign origin too. I usually pay no heed to such statements,” Shanimol said.
Women in Parliament
1952 Annie Mascarene
1967 Suseela Gopalan
1971 Bhargavi Thankappan
1980 Suseela Gopalan
1989 Savithri Lakshmanan
1991 Savithiri Lakshmanan & Suseela Gopalan
1998 AK Premajam
1999 AK Premajam
2004 P Sathi Devi & C S Sujatha
2014 P K Sreemathi
2019 Ramya Haridas