The arrest of two Dalit women for allegedly barging into a CPI(M) office and the subsequent suicide attempt by one of them in Kerala’s Kannur district have put the ruling CPI(M)-led LDF government on the defensive. The women are daughters of a local Congress leader.
The Congress is trying to raise the issue at the national level with party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi calling the women up to offer his support, while the BJP is trying to paint the case as one of Dalit oppression under a Communist government. The apparent indifference of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan — who is also the Home Minister — to police action has made the situation more messy.
The women were arrested on Friday for allegedly barging into a CPI(M) office near Thalassery and beating up a couple of party workers there. However, the sisters claimed they had gone to the party office to question CPI(M) activists’ constant casteist abuse of their father.
The duo alleged that their father had earlier been beaten up, and the family harassed for long by the CPI(M) activists because of their allegiance to the Congress.
Remanded, the two were sent to jail the same day. The duo, along with the infant of the elder woman, spent a night in jail before being released on bail on Saturday.
Leaders of the Congress party, still smarting from their recent defeat in the Assembly elections, condemned the issue and attacked the LDF government. Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala visited the women in the jail and criticised the arrest of two Dalit women, and their incarceration along with an infant.
Following her release from remand, the younger woman attempted suicide by taking sleeping pills. She later told the media that she took the extreme step because of demeaning remarks made against her family by CPI(M) leaders.
Meanwhile, the BJP raised the issue at the national level by pressing the National Women’s Commission and the SC-ST Commission to investigate it. Both commissions are said to be sending their members to Thalassery shortly.
The CPI(M), which has tried to paper over the issue, has been slow to realise that both the BJP and the Congress are trying to corner their young government over the ‘Dalit and women’ issue.