With ‘Kudumbasree’ training, young Kerala women script history

Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 23 : After the local body elections in Kerala in December 2020, the Left Front chose several young women leaders for key local body president posts in the state.

The 21-year-old CPI-M leader Arya Rajendran scripted history by becoming the youngest woman mayor of the country when the CPI-M chose her to head the Thiruvananthapuram corporation.

As many as 11,000 women were elected as members in Kerala local body polls in 2020, representing 1199 local self government institutions across the state, including gram panchayats, block panchayats , district panchayats and municipal corporations.

The youngest gram panchayat president of the state Reshma Mariam Roy of the CPI-M, is heading the Aruvappulam panchayat in Pathanamthitta district.

A BBA graduate, she had filed her nomination for contesting a day before the last date for submission of applications.Reshma, while speaking to IANS said, “ I filed the nomination on November 18, 2020 as I turned 21 on that day.”

The Olavanna grama panchayat president is 22 year old Sruthy who was then a final year law student.Anas Rosna Stephy (23) and Amruthu (23) are other young women projected by the Left Democratic Front as their panchayat presidents in Wayanad and Kollam districts respectively.

Kerala has always seen women in top posts with the powerful CPI-M leader, K.R.Gowri Amma finding a place in the cabinet of CPI-M veteran leader, EMS Namboodiripad who was the first chief minister of Kerala.

The self help initiative of Kerala, Kudumbasree with a membership of 43,93,579 is in great demand by political parties.

Sheela Kumari, a gram panchayat member from Kollam district of Kerala, while speaking to IANS said, “Even though Kerala is a highly literate state with a lot of pluses, it was Kudumbasree that gave us the strength to enter politics.”

She said that she has now become well versed in social relationships, meeting people and has also developed leadership skills.

She added that it was only the grassroot training that she received from Kudumbasree mission that has made her journey in politics smooth.

After the Kerala legislative assembly passed a bill to reserve 50% seats for women in local bodies,11,773 women with a Kudumbasree background contested the local body polls of 2010 and it has increased gradually with almost all the elected representatives in local bodies having a self help group background.

Rose Mary Peter, a gram panchayat member from Idukki district of Kerala, while speaking to IANS said, “My training was again in Kudumbasree.While elected representatives interact with voters only during elections, Kudumbasree members are actively involved with families and they know the difficulties and understand the common people better.

Most of the Kudumbasree volunteers are from poor backgrounds and this helps us to understand the difficulties and difficult situations better.”

She said that the leadership skills, communication skills, confidence, decision making ability and managing stress are achieved through working in Kudumbasree and for an elected representative this training helped.

In Kerala there is no back seat driving by husbands and the women representatives are more than capable of handling various situations thanks to organisations like Kudumbasree that provide support and solace to people at the grassroot level.

Socio Economic Development Foundation director Mohammed Naufal told IANS that, “There were earlier attempts by husbands, brothers and other male relatives to do back seat driving of women local body presidents.

However with the training they have had in Kudumbasree and more interaction with various sections of society, most of these women now take independent stands.“

Also, the huge representation of women in student politics has given these women an edge when they contest the local body elections and later become presidents.

aal/bg