 Welcome to NewsClip. Recently, a tall communist leader, Paisley Shivaraman passed away. On May 30th, she succumbed to a COVID-19 disease. She was a member of the Communist Party of India Marxists and also one of the early members of the All India Democratic Women's Association, Hyderabad. She authored two important books haunted by fire and fragments of her life. She was also a trade unionist, a working class leader. To speak to us about Paisley Shivaraman, today we have with us Sudha Sundar Raman, the former General Secretary of Mahitva and also a close aide of Paisley Shivaraman for nearly 40 years. Thank you very much for joining us today. Can you actually introduce us to Paisley Shivaraman? Who was she? What did she do? Hello and thank you very much to NewsClip because I think to learn about, know about leaders like Paisley Shivaraman who were so active with the Communist movement, the Left movement is very, very important and relevant today. Paisley Shivaraman was a trade union leader as well as a very great leader of the women's movement, both at the national level as well as in Tamil Nadu. In fact, in Tamil Nadu, she has been one of the founding members and worked towards building up the organization over here. At the All India level, when the first conference of Eidwa was held in Chennai in 1981, she was right there and they were formulating how Eidwa would take up the multi-class, multi-level exploitations and oppressions that women suffer from and she was right there at that time. So she has been with the women's movement and with the trade union movement and not only that, she also was a great leader of the untouchability movement over here. She spoke up so much for Dalit rights. She has written a lot about the exploitation suffered by Dalits and much of her work and her writings are about Dalit oppression in a gradient Tamil Nadu. So she was actually a Marxist leader. She was with the CPIM right till the end. So she is that kind of leader whom we have lost. Somebody who had a privileged education, she came from a comfortable background but she came on the ground and fought for the people. How did she get inspired to become someone? That's a very interesting story, you know, because she was actually a student in Chennai when she got an opportunity to go abroad. She went to Syracuse University and when she was studying over there doing her master's initially, she was very inspired by the major movements, major uprisings that were taking place in the US at that time which included the anti-Vietnam upsurge. It included all the race issues that were coming up in a very big way and she identified herself with those protests and she was extremely inspired by that. And then when she came on to the UN where she was taken on into that committee on decolonization she was looking at various issues, human rights issues, larger issues and she got a chance, she wanted to go to Cuba. In fact she went to Cuba unofficially and she went there and she saw what was happening in Cuba and she was terribly inspired by the sort of revolutionary zeal displayed in Cuba and the way the people's movements over there, the uprising, the rising over there she was greatly motivated and these were the things that really informed her. She read a lot, she read much of the literature of that time and then all this put together she said that, you know, it's not enough to just learn about these things. I want to do something, I want to make a difference, I want to make a contribution. So with this in mind she came back to Chennai after about four or five years over there. So she came back to Chennai and she started involving herself with the trade union movement over here. She also made a visit to kill Venmani. Those were the days when a lot of, you know, agricultural unrest was taking place and the agricultural labourers were demanding fair wages. They were also protesting and organizing themselves. There was a terrible incident in a place called Kui Venmani in East Tanjavu where 44 agricultural labourers, Dalit labourers, they were burnt alive and this was for demanding higher wages, a very minimal wage increase actually and they were burnt alive by the feudal landlords over there and this was actually not even taken seriously by the ruling state. So she went there along with other activists, local activists, the communists over there and she made a study of it, she wrote about it and then she worked it up and intervened on that issue. It really changed things both for her also and intervention was made to the state and the state also was exposed as being hand in hands with this kind of exploitation. So this was I think a kind of turning point in her life and then she came back, she worked a lot with the trade union issues in Chennai and with women workers. So she built up the union and the women workers associations also and then she also moved ahead and started working on gender issues and women's rights issues because she realised that was also very necessary and she did all this in those early days, in the initial days I mean she would just sort of get into the instances of violence against individuals, violence against people and she would document it and on the basis of that document they would put it together into demands and then they would mobilise around it. So this was the sort of thing that she did and I think in that way she created a link between what was happening on the ground and between the way in which the state was also complicit in this whole exploitation of common people. Can you tell us about some of the movements that she led? She got quite disturbed by that and she took it up but what about Vacharthi and what about criminalising what was known as Eve teasing and some of those movements? Yeah, so Maithili actually went in to study and intervene on a wide range of issues one of the initial issues which I also remember very well because those days we were also very young and we were working with leaders like Maithili, Papa Omana etc and one issue that was coming up at that time which was I think late 1970s, early 1980s was this whole issue of sex selective abortion, female feticide and infanticide as it was called at that time So in and around Salem and some places around Madurai etc. So what we were made to do and Maithili was one of those who guided us go there conduct a survey amongst the hamlets over there and see what is happening and we discovered to our horror that whole families were part of this the women also were part of this so we came back with a survey and then Maithili put it together and she pointed out that the women also are victims of this system which sees women as a burden, a capitalist system which the women carry this whole thing and actually also gets the woman as an agency in this so she explained that and she showed that you cannot blame the victim for something that is happening to her So that's how we developed an understanding and then we also had major movements and struggles around that whole issue of sex selective abortion was one major issue with her even later K.P. Janaki Amal Trust was set up and one of the things that we did was try to intervene in households where two or three female children were there and the possibility of filling up that third child was given to such families and try to do something to change the circumstances over there and similarly in this whole sexual harassment issues of Eve teasing in many places in Tamil Nadu also Eve teasing was not looked upon as a major crime it's just a little bit of teasing what's wrong with it but Maithili showed how it was actually a violation of the woman's right to her person and it cannot be accepted and we had some very major movements on that because of which law itself was changed and the other thing I want to mention because that's another very important thing that we did at that time how we took on state violence See there was a case of this seeralan this emergency days the police murdered a boy and then in those days there was no justice for youngsters who were being killed or disposed of by the state police similarly in another in that Vachati case it was the police themselves the forest guards who went into the woods in search of Veerappan there was a big decoy over there those days so they went ostensibly searching for Veerappan but they landed up gang raping a whole tribal hamlet Adivasi women Adivasi women they were sexually molested and raped gang raped it was a terrible incident and after that there was no action in that Maithili went in and along with Edwa we did a very major intervention and along with other organizations tribal rights organizations etc so that case was filed it went on and on and on and mind you after 19 years the court ruled that yes the police were culpable and they should be punished and the women so we took 19 long years but Maithili set that actually into motion and of course Edwa was also there as part of it I remember going to the court at that time standing with the women who were speaking up they were terrified but they spoke up bravely so that is one more thing one more major movement was this anti-untouchability movement there was this two glass system where you had a set of glasses for the upper castes and the other castes and you had a separate glass in tea shops in rural hamlets you had a separate glass for the SCSTs so when we went in and discovered these things then we took this up and Maithili was very much there in taking up many of these struggles against untouchability forms of untouchability practices of untouchability so I must say that many of these things a kind of guidance a kind of leadership came from there from Maithili now we will never forget the role that she played in Tamil Nadu in the way that we took up all those issues over the years I am sure there is a whole list of other movements that she would have led but I think this gives us a gist of the movement that she has led but you are somebody who worked very closely with her for I think 40 years I suppose yeah you know the passing of Maithili how many lights she touched how many youngsters she inspired and brought into the movement I don't think we can even sort of find out because now when people are writing in from all corners saying I knew her in this way she spoke this over here and I was so motivated by that from a lot of places these kind of messages are coming in and I myself was greatly motivated she used to come to Etiraj where I was studying at that time and she used to take this kind of it wasn't a class it was more a discussion under the trees over there explaining how the oppression of women, gender oppression is invisible to the eye what are its roots what are the roots of gender exploitation so the great quality about Maithili which really inspired and motivated people like me was the way that she could explain the roots of the kind of oppressions the kind of inequalities that were being suffered by the people and this theory she would link up into practice and that is what gave us the ability to take up those issues and to educate ourselves also and another thing about she was everyone's friend she would go out of her way her house was open house we would be able to land at any time we could have discussions with her we could ask her lot of questions we did ask her you know there was a time when this whole literacy movement Arivoli here come in Tamina but total literacy movement all India level where we went into education now education was one of Maithili's passions she wanted actually to go in and this total literacy campaign was along with the government so we had a large discussion what does it mean when we go along with the government is it you know helpful will it work for progressive advancement and that is when you know we thrashed it out and she pointed out that in itself literacy for women can be a tool of empowerment can be a tool where they learn to question learn to understand and that was really something at that time we were able to therefore do a widespread total literacy campaign and so many youngsters young girls they all came out in that and even now some of them are leaders of this movement so it is the sort of inspiration that Maithili gave to different sections and you know the warmth but she could be very steely she could be very determined on some things now I remember there was one marriage now in marriages we insist on very simple you know marriages no ritual etc now this in one over enthusiastic style so they were sort of giving all our women you know saris and so on and she just said why what about the expenditure to that family this is not okay then in another instance I remember so there was this NGO large NGOs from outside and they were holding this thing on poverty and linkages with rural situation etc and they held it in this 5 star hotel I think in Chennai and she went there and the first thing before she started and she made a brilliant intervention there but before she started she said so we must find a different place a different platform where we can hold these discussions holding it in 5 star comfort will not allow us to come to the heart of the problem and she said it in front of all those you know all the big people who had come from all these NGOs etc so she never hesitated to speak of mine any uncompromising on these things but when a woman approached her when one of our activists approached her she was always there always with a smile so gentle so unassuming and she taught us that leadership is not about positions leadership is not about power leadership is about getting the people to recognize the roots of gender oppression come together and organize and fight for change I think that is the great lesson that I got from my theory and I will never forget it never forget her and I hope that I will be able to continue in some way some part of the legacy that has been handed down to us by leaders like Maitri just to listen to these things these small snippets are very inspiring so thanks a lot thanks for sharing these things about Maitri Shivraman thank you very much for being there thank you thank you all there is so much more to be said and some others will also thank you very much