The air feels heavy, and the sun beats down without mercy. Yet these women remain steadfast day and night outside the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram. Their faces are lined with exhaustion. They lean against one another, holding hands for comfort.
Some clutch faded hospital bills and letters warning of overdue loans. A few break down into tears as they narrate their struggles back home.
But they refuse to quit. Since February 9, ASHA workers in Kerala have been protesting for improved wages and benefits. Their primary demands include raising their monthly honorarium from Rs 7,000 to Rs 21,000, and securing a retirement package of Rs 5 lakh.
The protest began after the government failed to pay over 26,000 ASHA workers across the state their pending dues.
“It’s upsetting that we still – in this 21st century – have to protest for fair wages after doing our jobs. On top of that, we face insults and contempt. This is not one would expect in a democracy, especially in a state led by a Left government,” says ASHA Workers’ Association general secretary M A Bindu.
“From the very first day of our protest, we have faced harsh comments, propaganda campaigns, accusations, and cyber-attacks. But we are determined to keep going.”
Uprisings and social movements led by women are not a rarity in Kerala. From the Channar Lahala, where women fought for the right to cover their upper bodies, to the Perinad Mutiny, where Dalit women discarded stone necklaces that marked their caste status, women have led many struggles.
Even in the Vaikom Satyagraha, women had a strong role – organising protests, mobilising support, and taking charge when men were arrested, ensuring the movement’s momentum continued.
A more recent example is the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC), which was formed in 2017 after an actress was abducted and sexually assaulted. It brought together several women in cinema to advocate for gender equality and safer workplaces in the film industry.
The group’s efforts eventually led to the formation of the Hema Committee, which probed gender discrimination and sexual harassment in Malayalam cinema.
It takes a lot of grit to sustain such efforts in a biased society, says P Viji, who led ‘Penkoottu’, a movement that amplified the voices of women employees through their fight in 2009 for toilet facilities in unorganised workplaces.
“When women protest, many in society tend to brush aside the demands or assume that they lack the intelligence to organise such movements,” she says.
“Even when women raise legitimate demands, this patriarchal society constantly tries to suppress them. There are continuous attempts to politicise and divert these issues. So, in a way, women with a sense of their rights are protesting against a society that refuses to acknowledge the value of their contributions and labour.”
Viji recalls the slogan of the Penkoottu movement that took root in Kozhikode: ‘Recognise us as humans, accept us as workers.’
“At the time, the then president of the state’s traders’ association mocked us, saying, ‘We can tear down the shops on Mittai Theruvu and build toilets instead.’ We were insulted, and our demands were trivialised. Despite humiliations, we kept the protest going, and in the end, we succeeded in achieving our goal,” Viji says.
Following this movement, Penkoottu formed the Asanghatitha Meghala Thozhilali Union (Unorganised Sector Workers’ Union) to advocate for the right to sit during work, fair wages, and regulated working hours at shops.
Salesgirls in textile showrooms across the state staged the ‘Irikkal Samaram’, a sit-in protest, which eventually led the government to amend the Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1960, to ensure better working conditions for women.
In 2011, the United Nurses’ Association was formed in the state to address and discuss the challenges faced by nurses in private hospitals. In 2012, hundreds of nurses went on a protest demanding better wages and improved working schedules.
“We didn’t even know what our basic pay scale was,” recalls Rashmi Parameswaran, one of the leaders of the protest. “We worked overtime, often forgetting our families, all for a meagre income. It was against this exploitation that we decided to protest.”
Rashmi, who had gone on a hunger strike for nine days, recalls that there were several attempts to weaken the protest that lasted for 84 days. “Some even criticised us in the name of morality for protesting on the streets. But none of us backed down as we were tired of living like slaves,” she says.
Among the protesters were several young mothers who faced extreme hardships during the 84-day-long protest. With two months of unpaid wages, some couldn’t even afford their rent. In response, the group collectively pledged their ornaments and raised money to support those in need.
“Looking back today, I feel proud. The improvements we see now, including a better basic pay scale, regulated working hours, and proper maternity leave, are the result of that protest,” says Rashmi.
A few years later, a group of women in Munnar also launched a protest over similar issues. The ‘Pembilai Orumai’ movement began in September 2015, with plantation workers taking to the streets demanding an increase in wages and bonuses for its over 4,000 women employees. Over 10,000 workers united during the strike.
“We faced a lot of struggles,” says Gomathi Augustine, one of the leaders of Pembilai Orumai. “They threatened to terminate us. We were labelled as extremists from Tamil Nadu. They tried to mentally break us down by spreading degrading remarks about some of the women. The aim was to scare us into stepping back. We endured all these, and stood firm together. The same is happening now with the ASHA workers, too.”
Gomathi adds that she is disillusioned with the current Left leadership. “Communism’s very foundation was built on the workers’ cause,” she says.
“But in recent times, leaders seem to have strayed from the roots or perhaps comfortably forgotten them altogether.”
It’s not just about collective movements. There have been lone warriors as well. No one can forget the iron lady of Kerala politics, K R Gouri Amma. As the only woman in the first democratically elected Communist government in the state, she presented the revolutionary Land Reforms Bill in 1957, which later became law.
Another such example was Mary Roy’s legal battle against the state of Kerala, in which the Supreme Court upheld equal inheritance rights for Syrian Christian women.
And, of course, there is the unforgettable legal battle Prof. Monamma Kokkad fought against smoking in public places. She stood up against tobacco lobbies, and her petition led to a historic High Court verdict on July 12, 1999, that laid the groundwork for the nationwide ban on smoking in public.
“For years, I used to commute from Ernakulam to Kottayam, where I was teaching at a college. During those train journeys, the compartments would often be filled with cigarette smoke. On rainy days, once the shutters were down, the entire compartment would turn into a smoke chamber. Non-smokers, including women and children, had no choice but to inhale the smoke,” she recalls.
“I used to be accompanied by a colleague who suffered from asthma. I spoke up for her, but that hardly ever made a difference. Men would argue about their freedom and right to smoke. That’s when I started thinking about the right to breathe clean air. I decided to take the legal route, and eventually, a positive outcome followed.”
Monamma continues raising her voice against injustices. In 2019, she launched an initiative called ‘Never Me’ – amid rising ‘Me Too’ cases – to address the atrocities women face in society. “As part of this initiative, I visit schools and colleges to teach how girls can protect themselves,” she says.
While patriarchy has not been erased from society, women today benefit from several reforms and laws. These didn’t emerge on their own; they are the result of persistent struggles by women, author, feminist, and academician C S Chandrika.
“Be it for the freedom to dress as they chose, the right to vote, the right to work, or access to education, even the most basic rights had to be fought for,” she says.
“These struggles are far from over, as women continue to face oppression, exploitation, and violence. But changes are happening, and it will continue to happen. Every woman can make a difference.”