It was a protest which held a mirror to the government of a state taking pride in its commitment to democracy, gender equality and social indices.
One person, who in his employed days had known governments and political parties at close quarters, told me that public perception of how the Kerala government handled the ASHA workers' strike had been terrible, reports Shyam G Menon.
The footpath bordering the state secretariat's boundary wall in Thiruvananthapuram, has long been favoured spot for a variety of protests.
One finds groups organised under specific banners. There are individuals carrying on solitary protest and campaigns for justice, some of which last several months.
Then, there are protesters who arrive as a rally from elsewhere in the city. Occasionally, a protest gets out of hand.
Fearing that possibility, the security guard at the local branch of a nationalised bank, locked the bank's gates. It was the morning of March 17, 2025.
That Monday was the 36th day of one of the strikes going on before the secretariat, the administrative headquarters of the state government.
It was a protest with its own specific demands but one which held a mirror to the government of a state taking pride in its commitment to democracy, gender equality and social indices.
The reflection in the mirror had come off an embarrassing portrait of the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF).
As several people I spoke to, pointed out, the government questioning the core demands of the strike was "indefensible."
One person I met, who in his employed days had known governments and political parties at close quarters, told me on condition of anonymity that public perception of how the Kerala government handled the strike had been terrible.
Optics matters because listening to the aggrieved and displaying concern adequately, are about all that Kerala's financially strapped government can do at present.
And in the case of this particular strike, which has captured the imagination of many because its main actors are women, the government's response has been inadequate, despite the minister under whose portfolio the striking women fall, being a woman.
Low earnings in a state with high minimum wage
Kerala society is hard to read because it is outwardly liberal and inwardly conservative.
All the same, the growing suspicion by mid-March was that the strike by Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA), continuing before the state secretariat at the time of writing, may be affecting popular sentiment enough to throw a spanner in the works of the LDF, hoping to win a third term in power at the state assembly polls due in 2026.
Not to mention, before the assembly polls, there would be local body elections, the most grassroot of India's elections and ASHA workers represent the last mile connection of the state government's healthcare apparatus, its grassroot layer.
There were hundreds of women gathered before the secretariat and notwithstanding the bank security guard's fear, things went off peacefully.
The government conceded a minor demand but with their major demands yet to be agreed to, the striking ASHA workers announced an indefinite fast, set to start from March 20.
It was in 2005 that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government ruling India then, decided to start the cadre of women volunteers in the healthcare sector, called ASHA.
It was a scheme wherein payment to the volunteers, accruing as a mix of honorarium and incentives, was to be a partnership between the state and central governments.
Kerala got into the game in 2008. A former government official put Kerala's predicament at that time, in perspective.
According to him, not only was the phase of creating ASHA cadres in Kerala a period of rule by the political Left, but there was also reluctance on the part of the Communist Party of India-Marxist to have such a new arrangement because there were already grassroot level agencies like Kudumbashree at work.
Being cadre-based and conscious of giving priority to its cadres in work, the Left is said to have eventually overcome its reservations and ventured into ASHA formation in the state with preference for those partial to its politics.
Although poorly paid volunteers, ASHA workers were critical as both the absolute retail end of the state's healthcare apparatus and gatherers of health-related data about households.
Things stayed low profile till the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Stuck in lockdown and yet witnessing spread of infection, society suddenly discovered the value of the ASHA worker.
In many places, they were the primary contact for assistance, for families in distress.
These women worked long hours and worked their way through challenges of several types to reach patients and report them to the healthcare network for proper medical intervention.
By the time the pandemic got over, Kerala not only knew about the existence of ASHA workers but had learnt to value them.
Kerala emerged from the pandemic with much praise globally for its healthcare system.
Although some of the claims around her ministry's COVID management were later contested, the health minister of that time -- the period of the first Pinarayi Vijayan government -- was briefly celebrated in global healthcare circles.
While society and government benefited from their work, the condition of ASHA workers, however, remained bad through the COVID period and the years that followed.
Kerala today has one of the highest minimum wages among Indian states. It is a place where laborers from other parts of India come to work in large numbers.
In practice, the daily wage for work like cutting grass, ranges from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200.
Compared to this, even as a regular ASHA worker toils several hours a day as the last mile connection of the state's healthcare system, the monthly honorarium paid in Kerala is Rs 7,000.
It translates to wages of around Rs 233 per day (if a month is taken as 30 days); Rs 280 if five Sundays are excluded.
Rubbing salt into wounds was the model governing honorarium payment.
The amount paid varied according to how many conditions every ASHA worker satisfied, from a basket of 10 conditions (on March 17, the government announced that these conditions would be set aside).
Mini, vice president of the Kerala ASHA Health Workers Association (KAHWA), the organisation protesting before the secretariat, said that almost every hike in honorarium and provision of other benefits for ASHA workers in the past, had been earned through agitation.
The current strike has among its demands, a steep increase in monthly honorarium to Rs 21,000 and a sum of five lakh rupees for each worker when she retires.
An agitation that woke Kerala up and a case of bad optics by government
There are a few aspects here, which matter, to understand the reason for the strike fetching public support.
First, the trade union movement has been traditionally strong in Kerala. The ASHA workers too -- there are about 26,000 ASHA workers in the state -- have multiple unions but the one that agitated consistently and earned rewards for the workers is KAHWA.
Most observers of this strike and the earlier ones, are aware of a CPI-M-backed union in the segment -- it is part of the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU).
Given the work of ASHA workers in Kerala has happened largely under the LDF (in the period from 2008, when the ASHA scheme was introduced in Kerala, to 2025, there was only one UDF government in between), this union is perceived as pro-establishment.
People familiar with the LDF's ways, said that as a cadre-based outfit, the CPI-M is particular that the credit for good work adheres to its unions.
KAHWA positions itself as devoid of political leanings and is said to currently accommodate at its protests, ASHA workers of all political affiliations (including some from CITU).
The presence of activists owing allegiance to the Socialist Unity Centre of India-Communist (SUCI) in KAHWA has been held against it by critics from the ruling front, mainly because the CPI-M keeps its distance from the much smaller SUCI. With the ruling party's union also in the fray, credit appropriation -- as said earlier -- becomes an issue.
During the 2025 strike, the SUCI link was bad-mouthed. Scholar, researcher and feminist, J Devika (she teaches at the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram), was among those who interacted with the assembled ASHA workers.
She said that the SUCI connection of KAHWA comes from a period years ago, when there was health problems associated with a waste management project in a Thiruvananthapuram suburb and the SUCI got involved, bringing them into contact with ASHA workers on the scene.
The bond evolved into an ASHA workers' association. KAHWA has always been there to campaign and protest for the rights of ASHA workers.
The 2025 agitation KAHWA leads has been different from earlier editions.
It woke Kerala up to the truth that the hard-working women who had been heroes in the eyes of the people during the pandemic, were paid measly wages.
As one person I spoke to said, "My household help makes more money than these women who work longer hours and often work at odd hours depending on what the urgency is."
On top of low wages, people suddenly heard of late payment of wages for ASHA workers, several conditions they had to meet to merit whatever little they earned and how in cases, the women went out to work with none to take care of them or their children.
For instance, when they worked selflessly during the pandemic period identifying patients and reaching medical assistance to them, many of the ASHA workers contracted COVID-19.
There was no priority or special assistance for them in medical treatment. The Kerala public has suddenly noticed these details.
The LDF government has maintained a cavalier attitude towards the 2025 strike. Despite people at large seeing the demands of the ASHA workers as justified, the government was mostly unresponsive and the dominant direction seemed one of tiring the protesters.
It has made even supporters of Left politics I know, critical of the LDF government for how they tackled this strike.
In every such situation there are two possibilities before a government. The first option is to convincingly address the problem.
Herein, the Kerala government is seen to be at a disadvantage because it is sailing through a severe financial crisis.
It does not have the money to indulge every agitation and its demands.
"There are three types of workers, who are pretty much in the same category -- the ASHA workers, the Anganwadi workers and the cooks of the mid-day meal scheme. If the government gives in to the ASHA workers, then it will have to heed similar demands from the others. In fact, the Congress-backed union of Anganwadi workers has already gone on strike before the secretariat. The government's response to the ASHA workers' strike is symptomatic of the bigger financial crisis it is in," a former senior government official with years of experience in administration, said.
The good thing is -- given the above-mentioned categories of workers feature central government involvement too, New Delhi can be asked to pitch in.
Right now, this -- Centre-state partnership -- is a sensitive subject in Kerala because the state is in a financial crisis and while Kerala is with the LDF, the Centre is with the Bharatiya Janata Party, which relentlessly pushes for nothing less than its double engine-paradigm (same party in power at Centre and state) of governance.
This causes trust deficit. Notwithstanding the recent breakfast meeting of the state chief minister with the Union finance minister and additional borrowing of Rs 5,990 crore secured from the Centre, Keralites know that the state's financial crisis is a convenient lever available for the BJP to make Kerala dance to its tunes.
At the same time, the LDF in Kerala (much like the government at the Centre) loves to position itself as fault-free.
In late February, a senior CPI-M leader, while calling the ASHA workers' protest politically motivated, added that the Centre had not allotted the state its due under the National Health Mission fund, leading to delays in paying ASHA workers.
While the Kerala public is aware of the state's financial crisis and the exploitation of the situation by the Centre, it also knows that tossing the ball into the Centre's court has become a pattern of late.
One of the prominent questions raised in the wake of the ASHA workers' agitation, is how a Left government can be insensitive to a workers' agitation.
That too, when in a manner of speaking, the original batch of ASHA workers were people with preference for the Left brand of politics.
"None of your ministers will be able to live on frugal income like us. Hey government, are we responsible for your financial crisis?" one of the protesters before the secretariat asked on Monday to much applause.
On the other hand, if the government has to be miserly because of the financial crisis it is trapped in, then the next best option it has, is to talk, take the protesters and the public into confidence and negotiate a peace.
That has not been the case. As mentioned earlier, the government stayed aloof and responded to the strike tactically.
It seemed to miss the bigger picture of sections of the public feeling that the demands of the ASHA workers were legitimate and justified.
On Monday, a day of the stir intensified, one of the KAHWA members speaking before the secretariat asked, "in the name of security for women, this government has an emergency helpline number. We are trying to save our lives here and there is no response from the same government. Are we not women?"
As the agitation dragged on in the summer heat, this was another angle apparent -- the assembled women included ASHA workers from various political backdrops, various social and religious backdrops; they had a solidarity founded in something more than ASHA: Their gender.
Solidarity among women and media support as clue for impact
Devika felt that while the political Left certainly helped improve the conditions of a first wave of voluntary workers (Anganwadi workers among them), that wave has now been followed by the ASHA workers seeking betterment of their predicament.
According to her, ASHA workers in Kerala had come to be treated like "beasts of burden."
Taken for granted, their workload kept rising, their conditions for payment kept getting complex and all the while, their earnings stayed ridiculously low.
She is among those who wonder whether community at the lowest units of organisation would survive without the unpaid and poorly paid work done by women.
Even in those conditions, women still contribute because they are assured a level of human dignity.
But the way the ASHA workers' struggle has shaped out, she feels even that dignity has come under attack.
This, she said, is why the agitators have been fearless in the face of all the obstacles they faced yet.
On Monday, more than one ASHA worker told the assembled protesters that ASHA workers will not be intimidated by the government's tactics.
Those conscious of gender rights see in the treatment meted out to the ASHA workers, evidence of patriarchy; something that does not speak well of the political Left, which likes to position itself as progressive.
The same time as the Left was in the dock over its handling of the issue, politicians from Opposition parties made a beeline for the strike venue in front of the secretariat.
Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly, V D Satheeshan of the Congress, his colleague in the same party, Ramesh Chennithala, Suresh Gopi, Union minister from the BJP -- they visited the protesters.
On March 10, the demands raised at the strike in Thiruvananthapuram found voice in Parliament as several members from Kerala -- among them, Shashi Tharoor, K C Venugopal, V K Sreekandan (all from the Congress) and N K Premachandran (of the Revolutionary Socialist Party [RSP]) -- spoke on the subject.
Similarly, among those who addressed the protesters in Thiruvananthapuram on March 17, was K K Rema, MLA from the Revolutionary Marxist Party of India.
"This is a historic struggle. They are a group of workers who lack stability in a grievous way," Devika said of the protest by ASHA workers.
Support for the agitation has also come from intellectuals normally known to back the political Left.
Some from the ruling front called this support misplaced and attributed it to a poor understanding of the situation.
Mid-March, during my multiple visits to the venue of the strike, it was clear that media support was a critical ingredient for the agitation.
Television crews and those into social media visited the site of strike in front of the secretariat, almost daily.
On Monday, media teams were many. The protesters made it a point to thank them for the support.
At times when governments play brinkmanship till electoral fortunes risk getting affected, it is still impossible to say if the ASHA workers' agitation has reached the point where it is among factors tipping public opinion against the LDF government.
Especially given the larger Indian experience of the past decade has been one of social justice and worry over troubling trends in politics, easily traded by the electorate for narrow self-interest.
The BJP government at the Centre has stayed afloat on the wings of this phenomenon.
Will the same trend be on show in Kerala at state level, benefiting the LDF? Or will the LDF face a shift in public opinion?
At least one person I spoke to in Thiruvananthapuram, pointed to the media teams returning to cover the ASHA workers' agitation before the secretariat again and again as a potential clue.
The ASHA workers may be dependent on the media to keep their agitation alive in the public eye but if the media is dependent on the ASHA workers for content, it points to a larger viewer interest out there.
The question is -- does it actually indicate growing empathy for ASHA workers in the public and more importantly, does it indicate disappointment with the LDF government?
On March 19, the 38th day of the protest and eve of the indefinite fast, the media reported that talks between the ASHA workers and the state health minister had failed to break the deadlock.
Quoting Mini, onmanorama.com reported that the minister said, the 300 per cent rise in remuneration at one go, sought by the protesters, would be impossible.
The report also said that the state health minister would be meeting the Union health minister soon, to find a solution.
On March 20, the Malayala Manorama newspaper reported of Union Health Minister J P Nadda reiterating that a high powered committee of his ministry had requested increase in the incentive paid to ASHA workers.
The Centre would ensure higher incentive payment, Nadda, speaking in the Rajya Sabha, said.
Shyam G Menon is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
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