Protests & Movements

Going back to the thread of Ammamma's life after coming back to Hyderabad - Ammamma joined the AP Mahila Samakhya. It was here that she contributed significantly to the Institutional work, apart from working successes in the affiliated organization of Working Women's Association - I have already documented her role there in great detail in one of my earlier blogs. Her organizing and writing talents have been put to great use here. She actively participated in all rallies and protest movements in support or against many women's issues. Among the various issues she worked for are: dowry harassment and dowry deaths, marriage of minors to Arab Sheikhs, rising prices of vegetables and other essential commodities, obscenity in advertisements and the movies, Sati of Rupa in Rajasthan, use of dancing girls in amusement clubs, particularly in the coastal districts and the pinnacle of them all - anti liqour movement. In some cases, it was just protests and dharnas and in some, like the dowry cases, it was more active involvement. She was given the task of helping out the dowry victims file cases and follow through, which she had to abandon after a while as it meant a considerable amount of money to be spent on transport, which she found difficult to pool in, as the family was again going through the downside of its perennial financial ups and downs.

She, however, contributed fully in activities that did not require her to spend too much money such as writing up seminar reports, resolutions drafting, leaflet preparation, slogan coining, writing State reports to Central Committee and many others. She was much in demand for slogan writing but the only one she remembers now is the one she coined for Sati - 'Sati duraachaaraaniki Chiti perchandi!' - meaning - create a funeral pyre for the social evil of forced death of widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. (Now you know where I got the punning streak from! It is genetic and will be difficult to be cured by the most persistent daughters wanting to bring up their parents properly!). This case had rocked the country and brought international censure from many activists.Another case of girls being sold/married off to Arab Sheikhs took an ugly turn as the then Minister for Social Welfare Mrs Roda Mistry, made a callous remark that very poor girls being married off to affluent sheikhs is not really a bad thing to happen - this invited large scale protests and she had to step down.

On of the important contributions of Ammamma to the Mahila Samakhya was to increase its professionalism and visibility. She put things in order, did proper reporting, and organized press conferences, which did not take place till then. She also protested against the unprofessional practices of office bearers being in different locations and the consequent problems of running the organization. When Rita Seth of the National Federation came down to Hyderabad, Ammamma orgnanized a press conference in which the ideals, goals and activities of the organization were explained to the media. Ammamma remembers Amarnath Menon also taking an interview of Rita Seth. She used initially go to every major newspaper office and give press releases - later this was done by the NSS service on payment. She also participated on several seminars - one of which was a Law Commission wherein the members were met up by several women's organizations which submitted memoranda on changes required in Hindu laws for women. She met her old comrade and friend Udayam here who demanded to know what resolutions they were proposing. Ammamma demurred as each organization wanted to take credit for the homework they had done!!

The next important event is the case of Rameeza Bi. This was a case of a woman and her husband returning from a movie in the night and the police accost them and take them to the station and rape her after locking up her husband. Do you know, this happened in Adikmet Police station, a few yards away from where I was living immediately after my marriage. I remember Maamma going to very near the station to get the milk on the morning after and there was nothing amiss. By evening the whole city was aflame with student protests. This was my ringside view of confrontation between protestors and police and the tear gas shells and the lathi charge and what not! It was intimidating. Ammamma's Samakhya and many other organizations took up the cause and fought for it vigorously, but police pressure on Rameeza was too high and she gave up and retracted.

The highpoint of women's movement and Ammamma's active involvement in it is the anti-liquor movement of Andhra Pradesh. It transcended all barriers of class, caste, society and region, political and social affiliations and the can be hailed as the very first unanimous movement. The United Nations Development Fund for Women describes it as quoted below:

The 1990s Anti-Alcohol Movement in Andhra Pradesh, India

In 1991, women from the rural Dubuganta district (Nellore) in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh sought to address growing alcohol dependency among men and the consequent problems of domestic abuse and squandered household income by staging protests aimed at forcing out local liquor traders. The protests quickly spread across the whole state. The struggle catalyzed a larger social movement, known as the Anti-Liquor Movement, leading ultimately to a state-wide ban on alcoholic beverages, passed in 1995.
The Anti-Liquor Movement was a significant political achievement because:

• It forged a coalition between rural and urban women of different castes and religions, and
• It transformed a 'women's issue' into a campaign platform issue that significantly determined the outcome of the 1994 state election.

In 1992, the movement entered the domain of electoral politics, asking that parties declare their positions on the prohibition of alcohol. In 1994, the Telugu Desam Party, which had campaigned on a platform of prohibition and received support from women's groups, won state-level elections. The party passed the prohibition law a month after taking power.
Although the prohibition was partially abandoned in 1997, the antiliquor movement helped increase the participation of women in the public sphere and empowered women to mobilize effectively.

Ammamma participated in this campaign with full energy (despite recovering from a heart attack) and worked alongside of Pratibha Bharathi, Malladi Subbamma (Manju aunty's mom in law), her old friend Vasireddi Seeta Devi, Nayani Krishna Kumari, Tripurana Venkatratnam, Suryadevara Rajyalakshmi, Mallu Swarjayam, Punyavati, Advocate Lakshmi Devi (Governor Rama Devi's sister), Sandhya (POW), Jhansi Rani, etc. under the overall chairmanship of Renuka Chowdary.  Ammamma says she might be forgetting some names as her memory is not that good now. The first file that N T Rama Rao signed in the Lal Bahadur Stadium was on the prohibition bill. Ammamma and others courted arrest several times and were released by evening. Sometimes, they were taken to far flung police stations like Bolarum. Maapi used to take help from colleagues and friends to find out where Ammamma was (you girls cannot imagine life without cell phones no?). Once police set up barricades but the women stormed them to go to the Central Excise building and they were lathi charged - Ammamma wasn't hurt, but several of her colleagues were hit by the lathis. Once when Ammamma was kept in Punjagutta police station, she and some of her friends came home and Maapi organized food for them. Ramoji Rao, Eenadu provided a great support and contribution to the movement and sent personal letters to all women after the movement was over. Vavilala Gopalakrishnayya was another great contributor to the movement. A public meeting was organized at Bashir Bagh and coincidentally, the picture that was published in Eenadu had Ammamma on the dais as she had gone up to speak to Mallu Swarajyam. They also protested in front of Gandhi hospital when a man died of excessive alocoholism. The movement was remarkable and is replete with stories of women's grit and what happens when go on rampage - so many dens were destroyed braving goons. Many also tried to dilute it with other issues of what liquors need to be banned, whether other things like cigarettes etc to be banned - it is a tribute to the unanimity of the street level rural women and the urban intellectuals that the movement did nto get derailed by any dilution. Whenever they were arrested and released, she and others had to find their way back to their homes. Sometimes people like Renuka Chowdary used to drop some of them, but for many others, it was a long trek home.

This is how Ammamma's journey in activism continued through participating in all protests and rallies, punctuated in between by marriages of Maapi and me, births of all three of you, Tatayya's passing away and her own heart attack. This will come in my next blog.