Kerala CPI-M browbeats lady panchayat president into submission

D Jose in Thiruvanathapuram

School teacher turned panchayat president Fathima Suhra -- till the other day a heroine with many women's organisations in Kerala -- disappointed everyone early this week.

She plain quit. Said good bye to her six-month-old fight and resigned.

Before we go on, an introduction to Suhra: The lady, who won the village election on a Communist Party of India-Marxist ticket, was the head of Puthige panchayat in Kasargod district. Her rise to fame started when she refused to follow local Communist leaders's diktats.

Early this year, the local committee asked her to implement the party's programmes in Puthige. Suhra said no, her first duty as the panchayat president was to serve the people. As the party had its own machinery to implement its programmes, why place it on a poor panchayat president's shoulders? That was her argument.

Unfortunately for her, the party bosses refused to see it that way. But Suhra refused to budge.

The situation reached a boiling point when she ignored the local leadership's order to strike down the development of wards in Puthige (proposed by Opposition members). The Communists's answer to this was the destruction of her house and quite a few well-aimed rotten eggs. In addition, they laid a siege on the panchayat office to block her from attending a board meeting and even attacked her husband.

Despite all this, Suhra held strong. She continued ignoring the CPI-M diktats, and refused to resign from her post. Instead, she declared her intention of 'exposing the party's double standards on women and minority empowerment.'

Support poured in from all over the state (including the Bharatiya Janata Party) and the fight had raged on -- till the teacher called it quits this week.

Suhra's resignation followed a meeting she and her husband had with the Communist leaders at their residence. The party leaders, it was agreed, would rebuild her house -- in return, she would withdraw all the cases she had filed against party workers.

The meek resignation, predictably, comes as a big surprise to many, especially as Communist veteran E M S Namboodiripad had recently announced his intention to initiate an inquiry into the matter.