KR Gouri Amma passes away: The first woman law graduate from the backward Hindu Ezhava community, Kalathilparambil Raman Gouri Amma passed away in a private hospital in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday. She was 102.
Gouri Amma, as she is popularly known in Kerala, was one of the founding members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). She was suffering from age-related ailments and had been hospitalised a few weeks back, her family said on Tuesday. The veteran Communist had led an eight-decade-long political life, becoming the longest-serving woman minister in the state.
During her last days, she served as the president of Janathipathya Samrakshana Samithi (JSS) she had formed in 1994 after her stint with CPI (M).
Gouri Amma was elected to the Legislative Assembly as many as ten times and was serving as a minister for 16 years as part of six different governments. She had helmed various key positions including Revenue, Excise, Industries, Food and Agriculture. Born at Pattanakad village in Alappuzha district as the seventh daughter of K A Raman and Parvathi Amma, Gouri Amma finished her schooling at Thuravoor and Charthala while completing her graduation from Maharaja’s College Ernakulam. She received a degree in Law from Government Law College in Ernakulam.
She entered politics when women hardly chose this as a career, all thanks to her elder brother and trade union leader Sukumaran.
Prior to the formation of JSS, she emerged as a prominent figure in the Communist movement in Kerala. A firebrand woman became a minister in the Congress-led Cabinet from 2001 to 2006. She was one of the oldest woman members in the Assembly, the oldest woman Minister and the one with the highest number of victories in elections. She was also one of the ablest administrators Kerala has seen.
As the revenue minister in the EMS cabinet, she had drafted and piloted the historic Kerala Agrarian Relations Bill, which paved the way for land reforms. She again became agriculture minister in the second EMS Government of 1967 and had amended the land reforms act in favour of the landless. Unfortunately, she was jailed on a number of occasions for participating in political activities and had been tortured in police custody during her early days of politics, according to a report by the Indian Express.
Gouri Amma married her cabinet colleague T V Thomas, who had been a prominent Communist leader from Alappuzha. Later, they got separated and Thomas died in 1977. Their love story reportedly inspired the making of the Malayalam blockbuster and Mohanlal-starrer Lal Salam in 1990.
Feature Image Credit: Times of India
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