Where have Chelakkodan Aysha and Rabiya gone?
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Even as India witnessed a 14% decadal growth rate in literacy over the last decade, Kerala, the state that led the country's literacy movement, lost ground. The two women who became the icons of Kerala's successful total literacy campaign in the 1980s are probably back in their kitchens now, unable to read or write
A few weeks ago I was at the Freedom Grounds near Humayun's tomb in Delhi at a national convention of literacy workers from all over India organised by the Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti (BGVS), a national forum of literacy activists. There I met Chandu Devi, an old woman from a village near Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, who was leading a band of literacy activists. She was telling her story proudly to the 4,000-strong audience assembled there.
Chandu Devi is very old, very rustic, and she spoke with the easy manner of a woman who has seen life. As she spoke of how the people of her village gradually came round to the idea of educating themselves even at an advanced age, I was reminded of another old woman I had seen in Kerala some 15 years ago, when Kerala was marching towards the prestigious position of the first totally literate state in the country.
Her name was Chelakkodan Aysha. She was a Muslim woman from the backward district of Malappuram who was chosen to make the state's historic declaration of having achieved total literacy at a function in Kozhikode in 1990, marking the ultimate success of a great people's campaign that was started in Kerala way back in 1987. The total literacy campaign, launched by the Left Democratic Front government led by the late E K Nayanar in 1987, was a resounding success thanks to the relentless struggles of ordinary people like Chelakkodan Aysha and Rabiya, another poor Muslim girl who was crippled with polio but still went round her village in a wheelchair teaching the poor and encouraging them to attend classes in makeshift sheds that had sprung up everywhere those days. And, of course, the innovative leadership provided by dedicated activists like Dr M P Parameswaran, a nuclear-scientist-turned-public-activist who led the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) from its early days.
What I witnessed at the Freedom Grounds was the resurgence of a movement that was crippled by the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre for the past six years, despite its great achievements in bringing about literacy at the grassroots thanks to efforts, in the past decade, by the BGVS which, emboldened by its success in Kerala, began a nationwide operation in 1989.
"The Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti has been quite successful in its primary objective of spreading literacy among the ordinary people, as we worked through our village-level groups spread over 20 states. We were able to bring at least 40-50 million people to the light of literacy in this period," says Dr Parameswaran, the organisation's present president and the driving force behind the movement from its inception under the leadership of the late eminent educationist, Dr Malcolm Adiseshaiah.
According to Dr Parameswaran, BGVS' activities focused mainly on the country's most backward regions; they were particularly successful in states like Bihar , Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh etc, where women's groups played a key role. A lot of effort was made to bring local ideas into the campaign which aimed to spread literacy and give women economic independence, as exemplified by the Pudukottai experiment in Tamil Nadu.
Pudukkottai is a small village deep in the south, near Kanyakumari. A small group of women activists who came to Delhi explained how their campaign took a unique turn when, in addition to literacy classes, they organised a cooperative small savings scheme for the village women. The scheme turned out to be a huge success. The women also learnt how to cycle, allowing them a degree of economic independence as most of them were fisherwomen. They would cycle around the village singing the special 'cycle song' that they had composed.
The Pudukkottai experiment was later replicated by women activists in Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, Nellore in Andhra Pradesh and a number of other places, the women explained. Proof of the way the literacy campaign had converted itself into a tool for social change, helping empower women and enabling them to work together to manage their affairs.
There were also instances of the movement making inroads into larger social and political spheres, with many grassroots-level literacy workers gradually branching out into other political activities. As did Chandu Devi, who is now a member of her gram panchayat, and Shobha, an activist from a small village in Bihar who became a member of the Bihar legislative council.
The revolutionary potential of the literacy movement has been the main reason why leftists all over the country align themselves with it. In fact, most of the national leadership and regional activists are of the left persuasion, though the established left-wing political parties are not associated with it. "We are not supported by any communist party and in fact they are not very keen on our activities," says Dr Parameswaran, who points out that they often face resistance from the left leadership that is concerned more with economic and political campaigns. While the earlier Congress and United Front governments enthusiastically supported the movement with financial and logistical help, the Vajpayee government showed an evident antipathy towards it. In fact, Murli Manohar Joshi, human resources minister in the NDA government, commented that the total literary mission was a Trojan horse for the communists. He diverted a lot of the government's resources to funding the operations of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-promoted single-teacher school concept that came into operation in tribal and village areas during this period. An expert committee set up by the central advisory board on education (CABE), recently reconstituted by Arjun Singh when he took over the ministry, is looking into charges of prejudice against minorities and falsification of history by these schools.
The '90s were a decade that proved how effective the literacy movement was. The recently released census figures for the period 1991-2001 are telling. During this period, the country saw a substantial spurt in literacy levels -- a decadal growth rate of around 14%, the highest in the history of the country. It's possible that a massive thrust in this area, as promised by the Manmohan Singh government that has come up with the innovative idea of an education cess in its Common Minimum Programme to finance much of the operation in the coming years, will enable India to reach its literacy goals.
Surprisingly Kerala, which can boast of having initiated the country's literacy revolution back in the '80s, now lags behind. We are not hearing anything from Chelakkodan Aysha and Rabiya, who were the public face of the new spirit promoted by the campaign. They have all gone back to their kitchens. While the state declared itself fully literate in 1990 with much fanfare, the past decade has witnessed a relapse due to lack of follow-up action and the quiet abandonment of the literacy campaign by successive governments. What's more alarming is that an influential section of the Communist Party itself is now waging a campaign against the Sastra Sahitya Parishad and its supporters, dubbing them 'revisionists' and 'reformists' who harm the cause of the revolution. This vilification campaign, actually a fallout of internal power struggles within the Kerala CPM, resulted in the decision to expel M P Parameswaran, a highly respected communist, from the party. His crime: He wrote a series of articles questioning the theoretical doctrines of communism after the collapse of the Soviet Union , and called for introspection. This, the party felt, was sacrilege. Now, the Sastra Sahitya Parishad is under attack from senior CPM leaders like E Balanandan and V S Achuthanandan. As the country marches forward, Kerala is taking a step back thanks to some left leaders who refuse to face the realities of a post-Soviet world.
(N P Chekkutty is a senior journalist based in New Delhi . He was earlier with Kairali TV and the Indian Express.)
InfoChange News & Features, December 2004